I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.
Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
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i wanna make you fall in love as hard as my poor parents teenage daughter / she'll be the best you ever had if you let her
Sylvia Plath from a letter to Ann Davdiow-Goodman written 1951; Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume I: 1940-1956 / Jeanette Winterson excerpt from Lighthousekeeping / Rosamund Hodge excerpt from Cruel Beauty / unknown / image: Angelica Alzona Intimacy (2012) words: The National Daughter of the Soho Riots (2005) / Tathève Simonyan A Prayer / @/FAUNTHEKiD (pinterest) / Victoria Chang Foghorn; Six poems / image: unknown words: Richard Siken excerpt from Crush / Hala Alyan I'm Not Speaking First
i. Sylvia Plath, letter to Ann Davdiow-Goodman
[ "I know I'll always think of you with something like hurt and nostalgia - and a great deal of love." ]
ii. Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping
[ "This is not a love story, but love is in it. That is, love is just outside it, looking for a way to break in." ]
iii. Rosamund Hodge, Cruel Beauty
[ "You fought and fought to keep all the cruelty locked up in your head, and for what? None of them ever loved you, because none of them ever knew you." ]
iv. unknown
[ "and you've cried once more because recognition feels like forgiveness, which is a burning furnace that can't stand on its own. love is a feast but you've learned to abstain. there is a sickness that follows the shame of giving with love only to be met with slaughter." ]
v. Angelica Alzona, Intimacy / The National, Daughter of the Soho Riots
[ Surrealist painting of a man and a woman kissing as their faces blend together. Red outlines of hands reach up around them. "BREAK MY ARMS / AROUND THE ONE I LOVE" ]
vi. Tatheve Simonyan, A Prayer
[ "Rage, that is love - rotten! / Rage, that is desire - rotten! / Rage! - like a prayer, unanswered, ricocheting from your ceiling and landing right onto your eyes, never quite reaching where it was meant to." ]
vii. FAUNTHEKiD
[ "being in close proximity to you / is being led to the slaughter / if that the lamb is aware is alive is accepting / if that the slaughter is love love love" ]
viii. Victoria Chang, Foghorn
[ "The great mystery / is whether I love you or / I just love mourning. / The absence of a laugh just / gone, and the air that fills it." ]
ix. unknown/Richard Siken, Crush
[ Silhouette of a boy looking downwards. Red streaks from the background spread outwards from the middle. "I'll be your / slaughterhouse, / your killing floor, / your morgue / and final resting" ]
x. Hala Alyan, I'm Not Speaking First
[ "Nothing's Freudian anymore. A cigar's a cigar. I want to love something / I want to love something without having to apologize for it. Please don't tell." ]
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INTJ: empty elevators, old buildings and spirales staircases, puzzles, deep meaningful conversations, museums, alone time, any time between 12am-5am, sarcasm, earphones, science, big libraries, bookstores, the smell of books, rainy days, thunderstorms
INFP: Smiles directed at strangers, cuddles, vivid daydreams, sunlight streaming through windows, an autumn palette, messy buns, glasses that slide down your nose, half-written stories, sea-foam green, a large coffee mug filled with tea, constellations, window seats
ENFP: bulletin boards with inspiring quotes, humming along off-key beneath your breath, bare feet on hot sand, pinterest projects, improvised road trips, paint smeared on your hands and face, butterflies in your stomach, silly nicknames, sugar rush, compliments from strangers, good morning texts
INFJ: deeply meaningful conversations, contemporary art galleries, bookstores and libraries with high ceilings, writing and reading poetry, handwritten love letters, art-house films, psychology, stationery stores, the vastness of the universe, bottled messages, automatically reading others' souls
ESTJ: skyscrapers, railroads, a river that flows through a city, going underwater, iron bridges, old paper, vintage champagne, broken-down fountains, city limits, cathedrals, borderlines, Greek architecture, arches, windows, heavy wooden doors, locks, buildings overgrown with vines
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ENFJ: the leaves as they change colors, comforting words in the middle of the night, swimming with dolphins, self compassion, dancing around the room with your friends at 3 AM, street photography, the way smiles are contagious, screaming at a concert, puns that are so bad you can't help but laugh, pranks, mirrors, a tight hug
ESFJ: sunflowers, your first kiss, cities during the daytime, standing at a crosswalk, tile floors, art museums, running through sprinklers, dancing without music, bathing in sunshine, falling in love, streetlights, thick hair, smiling at a mirror, children's laughter, drawing words with sparklers, gold glitter, whispered secrets, flower crowns, flipping on a lightswitch
ISFP: curling up with a book by a fireplace, cozy blankets, charcoal drawings, hot chocolate, poetry, lens flares, cat fur, white sand, the night sky, original grimm fairy tales, ambiguity, acrylic paints, a crescent moon, photography, fingers flying over piano keys, liminal space, doorways, social activism, the line between thoughts and reality
ISTJ: finishing homework right away, instruction manuals, calm before the storm, hugs when you most need them, graphite streaks on your palms, polishing a sword, glass shards, brass knuckles, netting, methodical sketches, geometry, permanent marker, bold letters, metal-rimmed glasses, dark smoke, oxygen masks, cold showers, static, skylights
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ISFJ: fresh baked cookies, light filtered through leaves, porch swings, disney movies, sketches in the margins of your notes, the sound of waves, oversized hoodies, holding hands, embroidery, down feathers, showing your bare back, seeing veins through pale skin, black and white photographs, a flute melody, touching a butterfly's wing, rocks in a stream
ESTP: bruises on knees, an adventurer through & through, adrenaline rush, a mischievous grin, spontaneous, party animal, likes to be center of attention, nurturing and selfless, fearless, spends 80% of their time online, big on physical touch, gets out of trouble very easily, flirty af
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