what is

Dont fucking talk to me unless you sound like paper thin walls by modest mouse

one time he and i were sitting in bed and i said “where do you feel stuff?” and he said “what do you mean” and i said, “here is anxiety” and pointed to my bottom left rib where the spiders start. he pointed to his throat. “it’s here for me.” 

i keep anger in my breastbone, he holds it in his hands. i feel sadness on my shoulders, he feels it in his lungs. 

we play this game until we come to love, and i realize that i am terrified (jugular vein) of what might come. what if it is not the same. what if he feels it somewhere else, what if it is just a flash fire, not the slow burn, what if it is congealing in one place instead of radiating, i try to change topics, flight response (sternum)

he takes my hands in his and puts them over his ribs and says, “everywhere, everywhere, like a sun is trying to escape me, like i am being consumed and you are filling up where used to be empty.” i say, “don’t be ridiculous humans are 99% empty space,” i nervous laugh (spiders down spine), he holds his gaze with me. 

“everywhere,” he repeats.

i’m not equipped for a mediocre love. for lukewarm, dispassionate, apathetic, selfish, unreciprocated love. my love can’t be measured with coffee spoons. it isn’t confining. it’s freeing and comfortable and honest and supportive. it’s not for the weak.

— Vironika Tugaleva

James Elroy Flecker, from “To A Poet A Thousand Years Hence,” written c. October 1910

ABOVE ME, THE SKYSCRAPERS SIGH

I want something real, but I’m afraid to let that leave my red mouth – I hold it on my tongue, delicate, tie it like a cherry stem.

They say I might be too soft, too honest. Yet I keep tripping over my rough edges, the violence of hunger in my chest, my firework hips.

Copley Square, everybody’s eyes are on me. I’m always bleeding want into the street.

Today, it’s all you – your dark hair and ocean eyes. You, an unusual calm, a rush over my lungs, sea salt and sweet.

It’s the same conversations that come up with different people in my life and we all somehow come to the same conclusions: interdependence is a burden, individualism alienates life, magic has been replaced by machines, being seen is part of a dilemma, honesty can be a vice, the modern subject is formed through sacrifice.

I think when jake gyllenhaal said people are controlled by the moon he was right

— Andrew Boyd, Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe 

concept: black magic which heals and protects

a doctor parts skin with a careful touch, turns a tumor into shadow, and seals his patient once more with black threads.

a teenager buys black pills from the pharmacy, swallows one, lies back. they find themselves shrouded in darkness, and for the first time in a long time they sleep well. in the morning they wake under their covers, safe and warm.

a parent casts a shadow over their child, whose body overheats quickly. with the shadow protecting them, the child can walk safely under the sun, fearing neither sunburn nor heat stroke.

light moves swiftly, but darkness is everywhere, and all connected. white magic transportation moves its passengers at dangerous speeds; it’s black magic which harnesses the everywhereness of the dark and turns it into the safest and most efficient transportation known to life.

( x )

@dovewithscales

This is awesome.

what if when icarus fell apollo caught him before he hit the sea, arms as warm as the sun, but safer.

what if when ariadne cast the rope across a broken branch aphrodite stepped in with a reminder that this, this is not the kind of love you die for.

what if when achilles was ready for war ares appeared with a smile and said “you win well when you win, but what are you unwilling to lose if you lose?” and achilles knew the answer.

if you could retell the tale wouldn’t you want to tell it kinder? wouldn’t you want to give them peace, even love, where you could?

l.s. | I AM TIRED OF RE-WRITING TRAGEDY WITHOUT CHANGE. LET THEM LIVE. LET THEM LEARN. LET THEM LOVE © 2016

um but the sky and i are best friends and fuck i don’t know the universe kind of feels like it’s folding itself into my heart and i’m not too creative right now but you still make me feel like a paper plane that knows it’s doomed to down. your feet are cold and my hands are warm and if we kiss do you think we’ll melt each other. if i laugh and take apart myself in front of you will you flinch at what you see. i think you’re rain on a rooftop. i think you’re heels on a marble floor. oh no, oh no, i think i’m falling and you know who for.

— Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman