the man is now my sea

there is a love in which i will always know you, just incase you forget.

Taken in 2000 about a year into our relationship.

Taken in 2024 (last weekend). Didn’t quite get the pose or positioning right, but hey, we’re older and our memory ain’t what it used to be!

KNOW IT'S FOR THE BETTER // ON THE LONELINESS AFTER ABANDONMENT

— David Cronenberg, Consumed

"it's okay, i can peel back the layers of you until i find the soft and gentle core of you you've had to work so hard to hide"? no. no, it's okay, i know you're hollow; i'm here anyway. you don't have to pretend it isn't masks the whole way down. whatever face you want to wear, i still love you. i don't need you to be good or unflinching or the antonym of violence. if i did, i wouldn't be here. i wouldn't ask that of you.

i have nothing against a character who is layers of scar tissue and callous protecting a small little sliver of their before self, who just wants to be safe to let that sliver grow and heal

however. when the only thing under all the scarring is more scarring. when there's nothing of the before self left at all. when there was a precipice, and they tumbled over it, and even if they got back up they'll never heal right.

and then to have someone still say i care for you. you are broken and i can't fix you and i'm here anyway. so what if you're a ghost of yourself? you can haunt me

a love that feels like the sun in your chest

i love you, it looks like rain, June Gehringer

I want a named, holy thing to fuck my brains out, to turn my need to be filled up and spread out and hungry into some kind of Grace.

I want to cuss my lover’s name in ecstasy and have it be the prayer I always hoped it was

— Caroline Randall Williams, "Transubstantiate, Redux or, Sublimating Lucy Whilst at Church," Lucy Negro, Redux

art + lemony snicket

x x x x x

On the idea of love as seeing

Victoria Chang, from Barbie Chang; “Dear P.”

@rbhvleo // roberto ferri // mothering by ainslie hogarth // rainer maria rilke // ? // planet of love by richard siken // a self portrait in letters by anne sexton // indian summer by ron hicks

that lizzo quote about loving yourself as a tactic of survival

yeah

On Names and Love

Tennessee Williams, ‘The Vine’ from Selected Stories // Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care // Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People // Stephen Sondheim, ‘Maria’ from West Side Story // Naomi Shihab Nye // Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea // Shilpa Goel // Aidan Chambers, Nik: Now I Know

bathroom sink meditations, r.a. @boyfig

how lovely, the way lovers lean on each other. i've been thinking about the physics of it, the gravity of hearts. the first human instinct: to find something to lean on. we all have it, the radar for warm solid things. i am good at being lonely, but loneliness makes you heavy. what do you do when you cannot lean? you fold. i fold on myself. there is warmth here, too. a center here, too. i wish it was enough.