the lick of the beginning to know you don't know

I was never meant for dating. I was meant to love one person with my entire soul forever.

the brothers karamazov, fyodor dostoyevsky

Illustration for Goodnight Moon, Clement Hurd / Class of 2013, Mitski

James baldwin’s the artists struggle for identity. Btw.

"That I have experienced my share of traumatic experiences, have survived abuse of various kinds, have faced near death from accidental circumstance and from violence (different as the particulars of these may be from those around me) is not a card to play in gamified social interaction or a weapon to wield in battles over prestige. It is not what gives me a special right to speak, to evaluate, or to decide for a group. It is a concrete, experiential manifestation of the vulnerability that connects me to most of the people on this earth. It comes between me and other people not as a wall, but as a bridge."

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Elite Capture, 2022

THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN (2016)

sometimes it’s better refrain from deep introspection and allow yourself to just be.

and by that I mean: I don’t have to sit with myself and overthink and analyze and rationalize every ounce of my being. I am not a case study I am a person. faults and all. like any other person. sometimes I have to look at my mistakes and avoid self flagellation. sigh and learn what I can and move on. remember that I am living, and this is part of the process. free myself of that inner critic. allow myself to be, and try again.

AL PACINO portraits circa 1978

perfect days (2023)

Since Wael El Dahdouh, Motaz Azaiza, Plestia Al Aqad have all left Ghazzah in a brain drain, and the ongoing killing of 100+ Palestinian journalists, I want to link all the Palestinian journalists still on the ground documenting. The number is shrinking but they're still there.

Wissam Nasser. Hatem H. Rawagh.

Heba Akkila. Belal Khaled.

translating_gaza (while they're not journalists, they translate what journalists who only post in Arabic have to say)

Hind Khoudary. Bisan Ouda.

Maram Humaid. Amr Tabash.

Doaa Khaled. Dahman Eyad.

Kanaan A. Owda. Nour Arfa.

Ahmed Hijazi. Bayan Abusultan.

Suhail Nassar. Motasem Mortaja.

Ali Obaid. Majdi Fathi.

Hafez M. Abu Samra (Arabic only).

Hala BenAsfour (Arabic only).

Anas Jamal (Arabic only).

Awny Abu Hasira (Arabic only).

Amer Sultan (Arabic only).

Abd Elrahman Al Shareef (Arabic only).

Mahmoud Abu Ajjour (Arabic only).

If you care about the situation on the ground, go follow them. It's a situation of genocide, I advise you to think about whether you have the energy and mental space to handle it when you open your Instagram.

Thelma Kent - Force unfurling, 1920-1946

+++

childhood was so crazy. my parents were kind of young. a meal seemed to last forever. i could run for ages. everyone was alive

From Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish

i hope this is alright for me to add, but this poem references a line from one of hitler's speeches ordering the genocide of polish jews. at the end of the speech, he justified the genocide by saying "who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the armenians?" in a very literal way, genocides are interconnected and used to justify one another. after all, the holocaust was partially modeled after the united states' genocide of indigenous people. this is why it is so important to remember the victims of all genocides across history, and why it is so important for oppressed peoples to stand together in solidarity.

[ID: a photo of what seems to be a page from a book of poems. the pictured poem is titled "Who Remembers the Armenians?". poem text reads as follows:

/end ID.]