the unabridged journals of sylvia plath

“Go out and do something. It isn’t your room that’s a prison, it’s yourself.”

— Sylvia Plath

anne carson, the truth about god / mitski - square

“Life can be magnificent and overwhelming — that is the whole tragedy. Without beauty, love, or danger it would almost be easy to live.”

— Albert Camus

—On Love, Marina Tsvetaeva

[text ID: I just want a humble, murderously simple thing: that a person be glad when I walk into the room.]

“Nobody realizes that some people expend a tremendous energy trying to be normal.”

— Albert Camus

Creating a character for my novel

His hair was black and thick, littered sporadically with strands of white that only slightly amassed around his temples. His eyes were blue-gray and piercing and contained in them the vastness of the entire universe that I could only bare to look at them when fleeting moments of strength and self-assuredness bubbled beneath my pervasive vulnerability. His mind is racing with hundreds of thoughts organized into flowcharts and systemized processes with each passing second that I can almost feel it in my stomach but he says so little; he is the most deliberate and purposeful communicator I have ever known. Because he filters his thoughts so precisely in an attempt to simultaneously hide and be seen, I was sure to pay attention to the things that were not being said, to carefully observe and interpret the fluid movements of his long body, the chaotic darts of his eyes, and listen to, (and fill with immeasurable hypotheses about) the cacophonous, booming, yet inexplicably calming silences.

“Do you want something to drink?” He asked, his Dutch accent only slightly discernible beneath the overarching soothing and innocuous tone of his voice, which was unfairly misleading.

- [ ] “Yeah, only if you’re having more beer.” I replied with a forced facade of nonchalance

Marriage, a very short story

The percussive sound of branches breaking in the wind under the hollow moonlight made my skin crawl with loneliness. How did I end up here? You say it’s love, but the blackness of the night envelopes me in its quiet anonymity and the blankets are heavy, my body restlessly encased in their folds. You’re next to me sleeping, I can tell by the steady rhythm of your breath. Where are you? I touch your milky skin with it’s sporadic and playful freckles, feeling its smoothness and it’s warmth. But - where are you? Your eyes, when awake, open and jarringly blue-gray, don’t sing to me anymore, but rather forcedly meet mine in a state of listless meaninglessness. What are you thinking? Did I ever know? The fire in the stove crackles in the distance. Tomorrow morning will come and the coffee will be made, it’s hot acidity will bleed down my throat with a sense of dreadful familiarity. You’ll walk me to my car and then we’ll perform the choreography of the beloved and putrid weekday, replete with endless responsibilities, not many of which we will successfully achieve. However, we sure try - a shot in the dark with benevolence, haphazardness, and everything in between. Time, as an entity, drips by, both fast and slow, and I once again don’t know what to make of things.

― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

What feels like a haunted place.

Haze from multiple wildfires in Oregon and Washington blew in towards afternoon.

© riverwindphotography, July 2021

Being alone never felt right. Sometimes it felt good, but it never felt right.

Charles Bukowski (via thehopefulquotes)