Red

When you dip her in the middle of the dance floor, it is the color of her dress. When she whispers in your ear, it is the color of her lips. When you make love, it is the trace you want her to leave all over your body. When she places her palm over your heart, it is the color that comes to the surface as her fingertips trail like a sentence that can never be finished. When you see her in your bedroom with another, it is the color of your breath. When you smash the vase in the hall, it is the color that threatens you to abandon the shattered pieces. When you scream at the top of your lungs, it is the color that pierces the atmosphere. When she hears you, it is the color of her pulse. When you look in her eyes for the last time, it is the fading color of your heart falling to your knees. It is not the color you see when she leaves.

— Tyler Ford, Red (via http://tylerthelatteboy.tumblr.com/)

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons that yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be critical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Be careful. Strive to be happy.

— Max Ehrmann 1927

Victims of Ourselves

"Your life is not an episode of Skins. Things will never look quite as good as they do in a faded, sun-drenched Polaroid; your days are not an editorial from Lula. Your life is not a Sofia Coppola movie, or a Chuck Palahniuk novel, or a Charles Bukowski poem. Grace Coddington isn't your creative director. Bon Iver and Joy Division don't play softly in the background at appropriate moments. Your hysterical teenage diary isn't a work of art. Your room probably isn't Selby material. Your life isn't a Tumblr screencap. Every word that comes out of your mouth will not be beautiful and poignant, infinitely quotable. Your pain will not be pretty. Crying till you vomit is always shit. You cannot romanticize hurt. Or sadness. Or loneliness. You will have homework, and hangovers and bad hair days. The train being late won't lead to any fateful encounters, it will make you late. Sometimes your work will suck. Sometimes you will suck. Far too often, everything will suck — and not in a Wes Anderson kind of way. And there is no divine consolation — only the knowledge that we will hopefully experience the full spectrum — and that sometimes, just sometimes, life will feel like a Coppola film."

— Letters from Nowhere (via http://www.vervelig.tumblr.com/)

The Way We Were, The Way We Are

"We are the girls with anxiety disorders, filled appointment books, five-year plans. We take ourselves very, very seriously. We are the peacemakers, the do-gooders, the givers, the savers. We are on time, overly prepared, well read, and witty, intellectually curious, always moving. We pride ourselves on getting as little sleep as possible and thrive on self-deprivation. We drink coffee, a lot of it. We are on birth control, Prozac, and multivitamins. We are relentless, judgmental with ourselves, and forgiving to others. We never want to be as passive-aggressive as our mothers, never want to marry men as uninspired as our fathers. We are the daughters of the feminists who said, "You can be anything," and we heard, "You have to be everything.""

— Courtney Martin

Soaked in Soul

Alienation: the crippling conviction that one is a minority of one.

Ambiguity: the bastard child of Creativity and Cowardice.

Aphorism: what is worth quoting from the soul's dialogue with itself.

Arrogance: the vain, younger sister of confidence.

Art: the trail of breadcrumbs left by artists, to remember the way.

Awakening: to see the old with new eyes.

Contradictions: the curse of the clever.

Crime: a sort of art made ugly.

Despair: an early surrender, where the spirit dies before the body does.

Discipline: the backbone without which potential cannot stand.

Dreams: what get us through the night, and oftentimes the day.

Eros: our last defense against the dust.

Existence: a caste system.

Idealist: lawyer who cannot see client, Life, confessing her guilt.

Ideals: maps that omit practical details — like mountain ranges.

Imagination: the invisible hand that masturbates.

Intensity: vast emotions condensed.

Intuition: generous deposits made to our account by an unknown benefactor.

Liar: one who claims to tell the truth, always.

Life: a midway point between two unknowns.

Morality: only permitting others to behave as we behave, when we behave.

Nostalgia: the familiar pinch of that outgrown garment.

Physiognomy: the art that says, yes, you may judge a book by its cover.

Romantic: one who professes to prefer the thorns to the rose.

Sarcasm: a wolf in sheep's skin.

Self: that invisible chain that snaps tight whenever we stray.

Self-consciousness: a weed in the garden of self-awareness.

Self-image: self-deception.

Solitude: the imprisoned soul's imprisonment of the body.

Spiritual Asthma: yearning tempered by shortage of breath.

Suicide: the desperate attempt to assume responsibility for what one is not responsible for.

Swear Words: discomfort regarding our sex organs, and their functions.

Temptation: seeds we're forbidden to water that are showered with rain.

Uncertainty: the starting and ending point of Knowledge.

Waking: waiting at the platform of existence for one's particular train of consciousness to arrive from strange, far-away lands.

Wit: the pounce of a restless insight.

— (via http://violentwavesofemotion.tumblr.com/)

Buzzcut Season

I wish I wrote the way I thought;
Obsessively,
Incessantly,
With maddening hunger.
I'd write to the point of suffocation.
I'd write myself into nervous breakdowns,
Manuscripts spiralling out like tentacles into abysmal nothing.
And I'd write about you
a lot more
than I should.

— Benedict Smith

Question Existing

I was sitting in a room with 20 different people from all walks of life. Half listening to a topic I have the slightest interest of, half wandering into my jungle of thoughts. And I went deep into the most bizarre pool of thought, what’s every person’s favorite word?

So I asked my seatmate, and he answered “love.” What a powerful word. But so disappointing at the same time. I asked him why nonetheless, and he was unable to give me an answer. I understood though. Love, in all its forms, is the most beautiful feeling in the world. But while he was thinking of his answer, I was searching for my favorite word as well. And then it hit me; sometimes.

A few days ago, I discussed about a quote on “almost.” And as parallel as almost and sometimes may simultaneously be, they are equally different. Almost involves being barely, hardly, quite, but not yet. And sometimes, well, here’s why. Sometimes, because sometimes never disappoint. Because sometimes is promising. Because sometimes is a yes or a no. With the shrilling thrill of going either way yet you’ll never know when. For the same reason that most of the time, someone can not keep a promise. Or sometimes, someone may.

What’s your favorite word?