You will never regret trying for something that matters to you, regardless of what the outcome is. When it matters, you’ll always maintain that stubborn hope that perhaps this attempt will be the time you figure it out. Perhaps this will be the attempt through which it all works out.

The truth is, rarely will you ever get good something without failing at it first. And often, you appreciate something that much more when you gain it through relentless effort and determination. It is that repeated effort and commitment that makes your eventual success that much sweeter. Because you refused to give up. You invested your tears, duaas, and hard work. You learned from each try. You acknowledged each shortcoming. You asked Allah repeatedly to make a way.

When you recognize that everything worth having will be gained through a process of hard work and dedication, you appreciate every part of the journey. Every setback is an opportunity to learn; every shortcoming an opportunity to grow. You water your dream with every little effort you can, knowing that one day, your dream will bloom so beautifully. And how great will it be to gaze upon those initial buds, knowing how much time and effort you invested for them to sprout. How proud you will be as you watch your little garden of dreams grow.

Throughout Ramadan, we dedicate ourselves to building new habits. Sometimes we fall short. But the beauty of this month is we embrace imperfection as part of the process. Allah knows we will fall short. He never expects perfection, because our nature as humans is always changing. With every apology to Him and re-affirmation of wanting to get better, He gently picks us back up, and encourages us to try again. And one day, we will bloom into the versions of ourselves He knows us to be. One day, every duaa we work toward will be our reality. There are no quick fixes on this journey. You have to invest in the slow, frustrating process of watering your dreams with consistency and dedication until they are ready to bloom. You have to be in it for the long run. But be proud of your efforts. These seeds might just bloom into the most beautiful gardens— in this life and the next 🌸

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Because you are right, this moonlit body tells you; this is indeed a love story. Down to the blade-dented bone.

Simon Jimenez, The Spear Cuts Through Water.

“…hope has a way of making smart people do stupid things.”

— the invocations, krystal sutherland

"With everything that has happened to you, you can feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose."

 –  Wayne Dyer

" I lied and said I was busy. You can judge me if that's what you want. But I was busy breathing deeply, wiping my tears, getting up and smiling. And I'm not sorry that I lied, but it hurts that no one noticed what I was going through. " -MalAlexandra

"Nestle your soul down into my heart, let it rest within me and just know that I love you deeply.."

Let us share the beats of our heart.. two souls, one heart - eUë

Why would Anne Carson do this to me?

Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief. Ask a headhunter why he cuts off human heads. He'll say that rage impels him and rage is born of grief. The act of severing and tossing away the victim's head enables him to throw away the anger of all his bereavements. Perhaps you think this does not apply to you. Yet you recall the day you wife, driving you to your mother's funeral, turned left instead of right at the intersection and you had to scream at her so loud other drivers turned to look. When you tore off her head and threw it out the window they nodded, changed gears, drove away.

Herakles is a two-part man. Euripides wrote for him a two-part play. It breaks down in the middle and starts over again as does he. Wrecks and recharges its own form as he wrecks and recharges his own legend. Two-part: son of both Zeus (god) and Amphitryon (man) he is immortal, maybe — experts disagree and he himself is not sure. Container of uncontainable physical strength, he civilizes the world by vanquishing its monsters then returns home to annihilate his own wife and children. Herakles is a creature whose relation to time is a mess: if you might be immortal you live in all time and no time at the same time. You end up older than your own father and more helpless than your own children. Herakles is a creature whose relation to virtue is a mess: human virtue derives from human limitation and he seems to have none; gods' virtue does not exist. Euripides places him in the midst of an awareness of all this. But awareness for Herakles is no mental event, it comes through flesh. Herakles' flesh is a cliché. Perfect physical specimen, he cannot be beaten by any warrior, by any athlete, by any monster on the earth or under it. The question whether he can be beaten even by death remains open; it is a fact that he has gone down to Hades and come back alive; here is where the play starts. This becomes the turning point — the overturning point — of his cliché. ... in order to place you at the very heart of Herakles' dilemma, which is also Euripides' dilemma: Herakles has reached the boundary of his own myth, he has come to the end of his interestingness. Now that he's finished harrowing hell, will he settle back on the recliner and watch TV for the rest of time? From Euripides' point of view, the dilemma is practical. A man who can't die is no tragic hero. Immortality, even probable immortality, disqaulifies you from playing that role. (Gods, to their eternal chagrin, are comic.) [...] [...] It is as if the world broke off. Why did it break off? Because the myth ended. [...] [...] Hence the conceptual importance and symbolic possibilities of posture: you can read the plot of a play off the sequence of postures assumed by its characters. Up is winning, down is losing, bent is inbetween. [...] Herakles himself enters gloriously upright but is soon reduced to a huddled and broken form. His task in the last third of the play is to rise from this prostration, which he does with the help of Theseus. Euripides makes clear that Herakles exits at the end leaning on his friend. Herakles' reputation in myth and legend otherwise had been that of lonehand hero. Here begins a new Heraklean posture. Meanwhile throughout the play this image of collaborative heroism is embodied, movingly, in the tableau of the chorus. They are old men; they lean on sticks or on each other. All mortals come to this. Gods remain a problem. You will hear gods' names and see their consequences rawly displayed throughout the speeches and the action. You will sympathize with the chorus who cower before them and also with Herakles who decides not to believe in them — not to believe, that is, in the story of his own life. Bold move. Perhaps he is a tragic hero after all.

For most of our lives we are all doctors to ourselves. Not when we're old, and everything feels so numb and dead, and decency and disgust forbid inquiry. And not when we are young, and the body is an unexamined ecstasy. Just the time in between. Mark them, in coffee shops, on buses, wincing, wondering, doctors to themselves, medicine men and faith healers, diagnosticians and anesthetists, silent consultants to themselves. Doctor yourself. But don't doctor others. Leave them alone. Let them be.

Martin Amis, Time's Arrow

davros: state your intent.  martha: i’ve got the osterhagen key. leave this planet and its people alone, or i’ll use it.  the doctor: osterhagen what? what’s an osterhagen key?  martha: there’s a chain of twenty-five nuclear warheads placed in strategic points beneath the earth’s crust. if i use the key, they detonate and the earth gets ripped apart.  the doctor: what?! who invented that?! [aside] well, someone named osterhagen, i suppose. [angry] martha, are you insane?!   martha: the osterhagen key is to be used if the suffering of the human race is so great, so without hope that this becomes the final option. the doctor: it’s never an option.  martha: don’t argue with me, doctor! ‘cause it’s more than that. now, i reckon the daleks need these twenty-seven planets for something, but what if it becomes twenty-six? what happens then, daleks?! would you risk it? 

martha's character arc throughout her time in the series has her mirroring the doctor , sometimes becoming him in ways , but this is the moment where she mirrors him at what he perceives to be his worst -- as the one who pressed the red button , as the one who ended the time lords. it's why he gets so angry , it's why he rages that it's never an option , because he knows how much pain that is to carry , how much pain that is to hold. of course , martha would not survive using the key , not in the same way that he did , but the weight of that many lives ... it's not something he wants his friends to know how that feels.

in a way , i also almost wonder if it's jealousy because she'll get to die along with the human race , and he didn't die along with the time lords.

The people run to the forest and hide when they hear God coming. Shame tells them that they should. Shame’s told me that I should, too, as I bet it’s told you... Have you? Fled when you heard God coming?

Offering: Shame, knowledge & the Garden of Eden, Jessica Dore

"I thought this was a love story," you say. ...this thought—that maybe the definition of what a love story is could be stretched to include all that has up till now taken place. You say it like an apology. Like it is a thing to be apologized for. A runaway child, charging through the porcelain shelves: I thought this was a love story. I had hoped this was a love story. You say it with shame, embarrassed at having said it, wishing you could take it back. You say it, worried that you have betrayed some secret part of yourself that does not wish to be exposed—an old gremlin in you, sick and yearning. You say it with hope. Timid and without conviction. The hope of someone who knows they are about to wake from a dream to a reality they do not understand. The pub awaits, as does your empty bed. I thought this was a love story.

Simon Jimenez, The Spear Cuts Through Water.

you can’t get it out of me, and with this bullet lodged in my chest, covered with your name, I will turn myself into a gun, because it’s all I have, because I’m hungry and hollow and just want something to call my own. I’ll be your slaughterhouse, your killing floor, your morgue and final resting, walking around with this bullet inside me

'wishbone' by richard silken

“plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human.”

— vicious, v. e. schwab

Leliana: I think Cassandra is a little upset with you. Varric: What makes you say that? Leliana: She told me to give you this note. Varric, reading: “Dear Varric, I hope this message finds you before I do.”

"She loved to feel the cold wind, how it touched her skin. She loved to see nature unfolding around her.

She adored the storms, especially the summer ones, she wished she could be like them, free , wild, and able to destroy everything in her way."