wild geese by mary oliver

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver, from “Wild Geese”, Dream Work (1986)

My fucking god! These bitches gay! Good for them! Good for them.

i am exactly the kind of the daughter my mother deserves. if i am angry, unforgiving and relentless, it is because she made me so.

nbc hannibal / “twentieth century children: blood-kissing,” beckian fritz goldberg

i keep thinking about how grief is the price of all and i dont know if i can afford it

there is trauma that comes with being a woman that no person could ever fully articulate. you carry around this unbearable weight, generations upon generations of pain and anger and suffering shoved in our bodies. in sharp objects, camille preaker called it her "great great great victim." she was right. women are born victims. we have always had to heal before we were even broken.

my mother's purse is full of odds and ends: tiny sewing kit "just in case," crumpled grocery lists with my favorite foods, tangled earphones + little snack to share on long rides, neatly folded napkins to wipe my face, toothpicks (hoarded from the takeout place) to clear my smile, brightly colored candy to sweeten my tongue, ice-cold water bottle to quench my thirst. all of this and she forgot to bring something to soothe the grief clawing its way up my throat as i stare into her bag. who else is going to love me like this?

in the philippines, when you see a beautiful child, you trace a cross on top of her forehead as a sign that you are asking for the lord to protect her.

once, my mother and i got on a jeepney. a complete stranger had smiled at my mother, and she licked her thumb and put a cross on my forehead. i still think about it 16 years later. at one point in my life, i was beautiful enough to want to protect.

men dont know forgiveness because they dont know anger. not a woman's anger anyway - the type that you hold onto and that settles in your bones. the type of anger that can burst out of you any minute, that becomes part of the very foundation of you. women are angry, angry creatures whose only option is hold onto that anger unless it chokes her. it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. there is no option where the anger subsides. when you are a woman, there is always anger. i have never known a version of myself where i wasnt angry. but anger is survival. i am angry because I have given myself the right to be.

men will never understand the pain that comes with being a woman. it's a weight you carry with you your whole life. the way the women before you were abused and violated become part of the way you are abused and violated. it is a part of you. you will become it. but you will be abused and violated in a different way, and your daughter will carry that around with her too. how do you heal? you can't. you are only a single human person, and your pain has been carried through generations. there is no healing in being a woman. there is only enduring.

If we forgive our fathers what is left?

We Bought a Zoo dir. Matt Damon (2008) // “Square” by Mitski // Lady Bird dir. Greta Gerwig (2017) // Little Fires Everywhere (2020) // Bruce Springsteen, intro to “I’m On Fire,” live in Paris 1985 // “How Do We Forgive Our Fathers?” By Dick Lourie

Sharp Objects (2018) / Succession 2018 / J'ai tué ma mère (2009) / Poplar Street - Chen Chen

i want so badly to open my skin and hope that someone crawls inside

the feminine urge to destroy every part of you that’s like your mother

Where does the name Hole come from?