Tuesday, 21st September 2021

August Blooms Like a Bruise on My Forearm, Dante Émile

jokes about english teachers overanalyzing books have done detrimental damage to society

For one gradually passing moment

the swirling mist clears a path

leaving cool crystals grasping

onto each strand of grass

Mackenzie Herbert, Chasing Trains // Artwork by @/archbudzar on ig // Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration // Lana M.H. Wilder

everything just really comes down to how I wasn't a person for most of my life. by which I mean I did not consider myself a person. it made such a profound impact on the way I navigated the world & yet standing on the other side of it I could hardly explain it to you

"It is not every one," said Elinor, "who has your passion for dead leaves."

I feel that my entire experience with reading Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility can be summed up in the sarcasm of that sentence.

There are roses in your cheeks

and violets in your eyes -- 

all devotion to the setting skies

I've been doing a lot of research recently into Cinderella as a cross-cultural tale and can't stop thinking about writing my own version. The story and the film has always been something close to me growing up, especially as somebody who also grew up in an abusive home environment. And it was also something I had in common with my mother. She had gone through the same but ended up hating the story. She rarely uses that word and only does so because she saw the story as a wish fulfillment, something that never comes true like a dream or fantasy. Her reality never turned out like that and as a historian who loves loves the early modern period, I can't help but agree. Marriage was a way out but that never turned out well for my mother. Reality is lost in the tale - maybe because there is a magic godmother with fairy powers, who knew - but it stood out to me because it was a story of a strong woman knowing her situation and looking out for the friends that she loved. The romance meant nothing to me when I was younger and still doesn't. But at the end of the day, it is a story that speaks of hope and wish fulfillment that, departing from various historical contexts, is contradictory of everyday life for the majority of modern people.

This is an old journal I upcycled that I now use for story writing ideas when I'm on the go or if I have an idea I need to research or pursue further. I used the covers from the original journal, some exercise books, some scrap materials, and a ton of glue. And I mean a ton - I'm sure if it ever got to 35 degrees here then all the glue would melt and the journal would fall apart. Oh, and the buttons are purely decorational and serve no purpose other than I used material with buttonholes in it for the spine. It would just look weird if there were buttonholes but no buttons, I guess.

You storm away without a backward glance

only troubled minds seek paradise

an escape to a better world 

far from circumstance

you whisper to yourself at night

clearing tear-tracked eyes, a haunted sight

I see you now through the mirror glass

cursing what blocks your well-trodden path