Hanya Yanagihara Lives In My Head. She Just Gets It, And People Don't Like What She Says Because She

me when “maybe he’s that grey cat that purrs everytime i reach my hand out to it”

Thinking about JB and Jude lately…

JB, who was Jude’s first friend. JB, who carried Jude to the college hospital when he witnessed him having an episode in their dorm.

JB, who shouted and made a scene in that same hospital until a doctor finally saw Jude - and that doctor was Andy, the only physician Jude ever allowed to care for him for the rest of life.

JB, who helped Jude move into the apartment he shared with Willem on Lispenard St. JB, who brought along his friend Richard to help that day. Richard, who later sold Jude his beautiful apartment on Green Street that Jude loved so much. Richard, who secretly looked after him more than Jude ever imagined, who at one point saved his life, and at another point reminded him his birthday was worth celebrating, when Jude himself had forgotten and his world was bleak.

JB, who envied his life, his looks, his career, his relationship (even his limp!). JB, who saw him as competition, rather than someone to pity. JB, who thought he was beautiful, who thought killing something small and adorable was worth it if it meant looking like Jude.

JB, who brought him to parties, who showered him with laughter and provocations.

JB, who asked too many questions and wanted all the answers but got none of them. JB, who then asked Harold to back off from asking all the questions and wanting all the answers as well.

JB, who captured his life in galleries, on canvas, on film. The good and the bad.

JB, who’s art invaded and celebrated and decorated. JB’s, who’s art froze Willem in time for him.

JB, who was Jude’s last friend. JB, who Jude resented, who Jude hated, who Jude never forgave, who Jude wanted dead.

JB, who found him at last, who put away his suits, who handed out his letters.

JB, who outlived his friends, who was left alone, with his pictures, and his paintings, and his pain.

Zayn Malik in Valentino by Pierpaolo Piccioli, featuring text from Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life

joobie st frankie

sharks i’m asking you to resurrect jude and willem. now .

october 22, 2023

I just read the first chapter of the “axiom of equality” part of a little life and dude I’m really reconsidering the way I view life as a whole.

x=x, yes Jude, I feel you so fucking much, all my life I felt like I wouldn’t surpass this feeling of being wrong, the wrongdoings of my childhood, my mistakes and mistakes of others done to me haunt me every single moment of my days, maybe If I were funnier, maybe I if worked on my weight a little harder it would disappear, what did I do to deserve so much hate from others as a kid? to experience the heavy bullying? why should it stain my memory like a wine stained carpet? (you get used to it but it’s never really clean, this metaphor worked in my head so please bear with it). and Caleb, man I’ve met so many fucking Calebs in my life, people i trusted at first sight, thought it could work just to be utterly disappointed at the outcome.

“you’re not your past”, easier said than done.

it’s 3:15 a.m where I live as i’m writing this and I doubt i’ll be able to afford a good night of sleep due the mental state i find myself in. I haven’t cried once while reading this book, maybe it’s because I see so much of myself in these characters that I’m just perplexed and angry, at myself, at others who made me feel like a complete piece of shit my whole life, at the JB’s, cause we all have that one friend that, at some point, made fun of our insecurities and left us feeling like garbage.

read “a little life” by Hanya Yanagihara, i promise it’ll change you and the way you interpret life and others (and i haven’t even finished it yet)

not going to lie a specific scene in the book that really fucking hits me sometimes and i need to double down is when someone tells harold jude is beautiful . i just can’t. there’s something so solemn about it

imagine being harold and losing your son in law and knowing EXACTLY like EXACTLY what’s going to happen to your actual son and doing everything you can to keep him alive but just KNOWING that it’s all futile.

Everyone @ Jude and Willem when they see their Lispenard St. “Shithole” apartment