Words, Written

"Across from me at the kitchen table, my mother smiles, over red wine that she drinks out of a..."

earth-ling — Tue, 21 May 2013 23:18:00 -0400

“Across from me at the kitchen table, my mother smiles,
over red wine that she drinks out of a measuring glass.
She says she doesn’t deprive herself,
but I’ve learned to find nuance in every movement of her fork,
in every crinkle in her brow
as she offers me the uneaten pieces on her plate—
I’ve realized she only eats dinner when I suggest it.
I wonder what she does
when I’m not there to do so.
Maybe this is why my house feels bigger each time I return.
It’s proportional—
as she shrinks the space around her seems increasingly vast.
~
She wanes, while my father waxes.
His stomach has grown round with wine, late nights, oysters, poetry—
a new girl friend who was overweight as a teenager,
but my dad reports now she’s crazy about fruit.
It was the same with his parents;
as my grandmother became frail and angular,
her husband swelled
to red, round cheeks, rotund stomach—
And I wonder if my lineage is one of women shrinking,
making space for the entrance of men into their lives,
not knowing how to fill it back up once they leave.”

- Lily Myers, “Shrinking Women”

"Someone’s baby became a murderer last night and none of us remembered to cry for him."

earth-ling — Tue, 21 May 2013 22:47:49 -0400

“Someone’s baby became a murderer last night
and none of us remembered to cry for him.”

- Jasmine Mans, “I Know You Didn’t Mean to Kill Him”

"Did I hold your hand too tightly when we crossed the street? Child, when your father and I fought at..."

earth-ling — Tue, 21 May 2013 22:37:00 -0400

“Did I hold your hand too tightly
when we crossed the street?
Child, when your father and I fought at night,
did you mistake it for love-making?
Did I teach those fingers
to pluck families apart like flower petals—
I love you—
I love you still—
Darling,
was it the sound of the dead dog’s bones
as your father dropped them one by one into the bucket
that seduced you—
Did it sound too much like your pulse?
Was it the day I drove away from you,
freshly graduated from high-school,
two months premature of your first murder?
Did I put too many states between us?
Did you put your own heart in the freezer,
next to the thought of me?
Would Mary be forsaken
if Jesus had not grown to be the son
God had intended to father?
If he did not wear a crown of thorns—
but instead
rapped it around his knuckles?
Will I be forgiven for the sins I did not commit,
but created?
When you were small,
I told you
you can grow up to be anything.”

- Sierra Demulder (written and performed from the perspective of Jeffrey Dahmer’s mother)

But this is not about me; This is about The self-mutilating circus we have pianted ourselves clowns...

earth-ling — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 02:45:00 -0400

But this is not about me;
This is about
The self-mutilating circus we have pianted ourselves clowns in;
About women who will prowl thirty stores in six malls
To find the right cocktail dress,
But who haven’t a clue where to find fulfillment
Or how to wear joy,
Wandering through life shackled to a shopping bag,
Beneath the tyranny of those two pretty syllables;
About men wallowing on bar stools drearily practicing attraction;
And everyone who will drift home tonight, crestfallen
Because not enough strangers found you suitably fuckable!

— “Pretty”, Katie Makkai

To this day He is a stick of T.N.T. lit from both ends, Could describe to you in detail The way the...

earth-ling — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 02:25:10 -0400

To this day
He is a stick of T.N.T. lit from both ends,
Could describe to you in detail
The way the sky bends
In the moments before it’s about to fall.
And despite an army of friends
Who all call him an inspiration,
He remains a conversation piece
Between people who can’t understand
Sometimes being drug free
Has less to do with addiction,
And more to do with sanity.

— Shane Koyczan, “To This Day”

"I’m so young I could move to Amsterdam tomorrow and spend all my money on hookers and..."

earth-ling — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 23:56:00 -0400

“I’m so young
I could move to Amsterdam tomorrow and
spend all my money on hookers and blow—
and my life could be real bad, you know,
it could be real hard!
But you’re all just sitting at home in your living rooms,
waiting for the next post card—
for me to tell me you how I’m having
so much fun, ‘cause that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re young.
But I’m scared, and I’m sorry, and I’m real confused.
And I keep milking this excuse for all it’s worth.”

- “I Am So Young”,

Mary Fons

"When you are looking for the edge of human excellence do not look for the naturally talented, look..."

earth-ling — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 23:37:08 -0400

“When you are looking for the edge of human excellence do not look for the naturally talented, look to those who are hungry! Who have something that they have to chase, or something that is chasing them! This is where we can find the maximum of human potential!”

- “Fat Man Dancing”, Jared Singer

"I wonder if I was ever, or still was, considered a suspect in her murder— because I think sometimes,..."

earth-ling — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 23:28:34 -0400

“I wonder if I was ever, or still was, considered a suspect in her murder— because I think sometimes, I should have been. I don’t mean I was there. I didn’t gather her, screaming, in my arms. I didn’t open the window for her. But rather, by the small, black cloud that rained down bitter tears on her daughter of the holocaust head, I knew that she would one day do this, even— and I cannot stand myself for saying so— even hoped that she would. In the same secret, outrageous way you might hope to God a dog—like, say, our dog, the one she picked out herself because he cowered in the back of his cage as though he did not expect to be saved from the shelter— in the very same way you might hope to God this dog will die, before you have to put him down.”

- Taylor Mali, “Entire Act of Sorrow” (via earth-ling)

"How long has it been since someone touched part of you other than your body?"

earth-ling — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:42:25 -0400

“How long has it been since someone touched part of you other than your body?”

- Laurel Hoodwrit (via escaping-the-bell-jar)

"Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings - always darker, emptier and simpler."

earth-ling — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:42:16 -0400

“Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings - always darker, emptier and simpler.”

- Friedrich Nietzsche (via circasixties)

"Aren’t we all waiting to be read by someone, praying that they’ll tell us that we make sense?"

earth-ling — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:42:06 -0400

“Aren’t we all waiting to be read by someone, praying that they’ll tell us that we make sense?”

- Rudy Francisco (via likeafieldmouse)

"It is not enough to conquer; one must know how to seduce."

earth-ling — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:42:00 -0400

““It is not enough to conquer; one must know how to seduce.””

- Voltaire (via mycolorbook)

Photo

earth-ling — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:40:14 -0400

Photo

earth-ling — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:40:01 -0400

"They told me that to make her fall in love, I had to make her laugh. But everytime she laughs, I’m..."

earth-ling — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:38:12 -0400

“They told me that to make her fall in love, I had to make her laugh. But everytime she laughs, I’m the one who falls in love.”

- Tommaso Ferraris (via black-stilletos)

"If I love you, is that a fact or a weapon?"

earth-ling — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:37:50 -0400

“If I love you, is that a fact or a weapon?”

- Margaret Atwood (via comatosis)

"Death will not have sympathy on you because you have kids, because life is nothing but preschool for..."

earth-ling — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 01:26:18 -0500

“Death will not have sympathy on you because you have kids, because life is nothing but preschool for him and eternity is elementary. Death will not hold back because you are in school, trying to get a degree, start a career and have a family. He identifies with you more than you think. He graduated from the university of R.I.P., he has a master’s in mastering those who think they have mastered what it means to live life like there’s no tomorrow.”

- Jackie Hill, “Only the Good Die Young”

"Death gets the glory he searches for every time someone utters the words “only the good die..."

earth-ling — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 01:12:17 -0500

“Death gets the glory he searches for every time someone utters the words “only the good die young”—because it’s good for the young to die in his eyes.”

- Jackie Hill, “Only the Good Die Young”

"These people who fight through every day like fucking gladiators, who fight demons worse than you..."

earth-ling — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 01:06:07 -0500

“These people who fight through every day like fucking gladiators, who fight demons worse than you and I can dream of just because they want so badly to live. To hold on to love—because you can’t be this afraid of losing everything, if you don’t love everything first. Because you have to have a soul-crushing hope that things will get better, to be this afraid of missing it.”

- Catalina Ferro, “Anxiety Group”

"My father says ‘only rich people go to therapy, poor people got shit too do’. And yet..."

earth-ling — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 00:56:32 -0500

“My father says ‘only rich people go to therapy, poor people got shit too do’. And yet here I am, in this lifeboat surrounded by eight of the most beautiful, crazy ass mother fuckers the world has ever seen.”

- Catalina Ferro, “Anxiety Group”