Olivia Laing, The Lonely City

Angela Carter, “Black Venus”, Black Venus

[Text ID: “She was like a piano in a country where everybody has had their hands cut off.”]

It felt like we went up and up and up-

higher than I was comfortable with.

My legs started to burn with each step

Until the burn left, no room left for it

And they just slowed, peanut butter steps

And then stopped, too tired to keep time.

Turning around felt like defeat

But good.

On the way down they shook

Bambi knees in jell-o

And every step felt a little bit

like I was falling.

The path ribboned its way

A steady incline

A human paved path

And still my legs

New born, half-set,

Paced a drunk’s gait down

This hill with ideas of grandeur

I did not feel shame or guilt

In my gut

I felt accomplished and proud

Until we spoke later

And then I felt a little bit-

Like I wished I had fallen.

1:50pm 7/1/2021

“I’ll only marry the man who can guess which is my favourite stone on the whole sea-shore.”

— Marina Tsvetaeva, from “Art in the Light of Conscience: Eight Essays on Poetry,”

Since that fateful day in 1492, Columbus has been seen as a hero in the eyes of Americans. Recently, the horrible crimes that he committed have been the topic of a national conversation. Columbus Day is certainly a hot-button issue, but there is only one morally sound decision: America must abolish Columbus Day and replace it with a day to honor his Native American victims.

As his explorations have become a staple of U.S. history, Columbus has been molded into a symbol, not a real person. Many supporters of Columbus call him a “symbol of American success”, but he was more than a symbol. He was a complex human being, and idolizing him lets us ignore his flaws. Columbus has come to represent heroism and exploration. These are important values, so why should we taint them with Columbus’s name?

Columbus does not deserve to be honored for making a navigation mistake. On his expedition, Columbus was attempting to sail to India, not to the Americas. He ended up landing in Caribbean Islands through no effort of his own. This mistake resulted in Native Americans being called Indians for centuries, an inaccurate label. 

Columbus is often credited with discovering America. However, he didn’t discover America, because the Native Americans were already there. It’s impossible to discover a region that’s already occupied with millions of people. Furthermore, Native Americans were extremely knowledgeable about the climate and ecosystem of the Americas, and deserve honor much more for their contributions to our understanding of geography. 

Columbus enslaved the Native Americans, seeing them only as a means to profit. This wasn’t his first time trading slaves, though. Before his expedition, Columbus made a living selling African slaves in Portugal. Through his ventures in Native American slave trading, he created the Transatlantic slave trade, setting in motion our country’s most shameful and horrific piece of history.

Columbus was responsible for Native American genocide. He committed the first mass genocide of Native Americans, a massacre of 8,000,000 people. Within one generation of Columbus’s arrival, about 15,000,000 Native Americans were killed. By time Columbus left, only 100,000 Native Americans were left, and by 1542, there were only 200.

Columbus day isn’t just not “politically correct”. It’s a holiday that celebrates one of the most evil, genocidal, and racist people in history. His kill count is on par with everyone killed in World War I, and yet America still idolizes him. It’s the responsibility of legislators to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day.

"What cannot be said will be wept"

~Sappho

Saying the truth aloud could free me from this burden.Or will it not?

It's all new to me,what I'm feeling does not fall under any of the categories I've explored so far. I've fallen in a deep calm, like a lake without shores.

All I've collected in my life so far surrounds me.

I can't tell its purpose.

It does not feel as if it's trying to drown me,or even coaxing me into drowning myself.

It's distracting and compelling.

A friend told me something which is not far from the truth.The lake promptly absorbed it,and I could not see the end of what its raw form meant to me,not as I would've intended to.

It all weighs heavy on my soul.

I'm transitioning from my self-created alter ago to what I believe is my true self.

Is it hurting?I can't tell.

True pain does not feel as this does.

Maybe I'm not in pain.

It's not an option I can exclude.

Let's wait and see how this longed metamorphosis will take place.

2021/19/01

“Have you ever sat there, looking into space and feeling a tight grip wrapped around your heart, it’s squeezing and squeezing not allowing you to breathe and slowly slowly you start to feel the tears fall down, and one after another the fits start to happen and you just can’t stop it. It hurts so bad it’s indescribable. People say love hurts, but that words used are so vague, “love hurts”, no love kills, and it doesn’t just take your breath away it takes away a piece of you, making you feel fragmented, shattering you into small different pieces where you can’t even get yourself back up on track again. That is what love is. Not the holding hands, forehead kisses. It’s the feeling you feel when you break down into a million pieces. It’s when you can feel your heart shatter against your rib cage. It’s murder. That is love.”

Sometimes I wish I wasn't as intuitive as I am. I literally notice everything, I feel the emotions of those around me. When something is really good I feel really good. When something is off, I can feel that energy before it even happens. Ignorance is truly bliss. I'm jealous of people who can live their lives in peace without noticing everything sometimes. This trait has helped me countless times, but it hurts me emotionally and makes my anxiety worse equally as much, if not more so. It's like being psychic. I can tell when someone is a good manipulator. I can tell when someone is being genuinely nice or when they're acting "nice" because I benefit them or when I have something they want. I see their behavior patterns, the best way to know what a person will do is based on their passed behavior (typically). I also have a really, really good memory. I wish I could just ignore my intuitiveness and not remember every little detail about everything. Shit, maybe I should be a crime detective or a lawyer or something where I could use these skills for good rather than just something that makes my brain stur, I don't know. Do any of you guys struggle with this, like to an extreme degree?

Bonds are burdensome.

They are what makes life worth living,

albeit the feeling of burdening someone else with your own emotions or lack thereof obliges you to take a step back or running away on a 180 degree path in comparison to the one you’re on at that moment.

You begin craving that loneliness that picked at your heart every night,the one that made you cry your own blood since tears did not hurt enough.

I want to turn back in time,or keep being the myself i knew before giving out pieces of it to others.

Opening up is not much of a good decision sometimes,or easy to accomplish either.

Everything just hurts.

It’s overwhelming.

It’s flooding my well.

Oh wait—

how long has it been since my well last had a shape?

What is happening around me?

What am I?

She finally voiced  her deepest desires in vivid detail, she just disguised it all as a distant dream.

- G.L. Angelone