go to florence. look in the eyes of michelangelo’s david, chiseled in stone but softer than rosemary. they say he wore a crown of gold once before it was taken from his head. he is planted in stone but his eyes are too human for your liking; they beg you, put it back.
the antinous mondragone, the marble smooth and cold like winter ink. you remember it was unpacked with lipstick marks on its cheek; someone at the louvre with lips smeared cherry red had made herself hadrian and kissed it. you remember thinking, who could blame her?
sappho and erinna in the garden at mytilene, captured by simeon solomon. it’s been a while since you’ve cried at a painting. you’ve gone to museums armed with ways to analyze what you’re seeing; you know what clouds are saying, you know the language of flowers. but you looked at the painting of those two women clouded in their embrace and didn’t even realize you were crying until you looked at your notes in your lap and the pen was smudged with tears.
the universality of love. it hasn’t changed: two boys swathed in light, two girls in a garden teeming with flowers, a gaze from across a room. in the statues and paintings we are captured in our gentle, tender humanity, in the places where we think no one is looking, where we are allowed to feel vulnerable. where we are finally able to say, look, this is me, this is you, this is everything that love should be. i want to make you feel it.
You know what doesn’t sit right and will NEVER sit right...
How George Floyd, a good innocent black man went to the store to buy things who then was murdered by a police officer for suspected forgery.
Then the next day Peter Manfredonia, a white armed serial killer who was on the run across 4 states, was caught and arrested peacefully.
And how black and black ally protesters in Minneapolis protesting for the arrest of the officers who killed George Floyd, were attacked by the police. They were peaceful.
But a few weeks ago, white people stormed governments buildings in Michigan protesting the quarantine because they wanted a haircut and the police did nothing to them. They were armed.
The problem is clear as water. WHITE PRIVILEGE AND RACISM. It exists and is real. Deny it? You’re the problem. Don’t say or do anything about it? You’re the problem. Abuse your white privilege? You’re the problem. Don’t see a problem with all this? YOURE THE PROBLEM.
CRY WITH THE BLACK COMMUNITY. MOURN WITH THEM. STAND ALONG SIDE WITH THEM. FIGHT FOR THEM. BECAUSE BLACK LIVES ARE IMPORTANT AND THEY ABSOLUTELY FUCKING MATTER.
i spend way too much time on spotify and thus have way too many playlists, but here are some of them as a thank you for 11k !!
neptune / soundtrack to a warm coffee on a sleepy afternoon
pluto / 3am, lying upside down off the bed with dim phone light on your face
saturn / laughter, pillow fights and intentionally bad singing-along
mars / quiet piano floats through the window on a warm, windy evening
lunar / during windows-down summer car rides with your friends
solar / fingers tracing on a thigh and quiet evening humming
jupiter / gentle, wordless, beats to see you through revision
eclipse / a soft voice paired with a guitar, and a cup of tea
earth / for dozing off amidst gentle yawns, wrapped in blankets
cosmos / a face amongst the crowd, stairs to the subway, city lights
galaxy / clink of glassware and muted murmurs amongst background jazz
sapph / for the girls who love girls
cappuccino / the feeling of a 9am coffee on a gently sunny morning