—Li Bai, Question And Answer On The Mountain, Tr. By Keith Holyoak

Analogies between Sarah Daniels's Neaptide and Louise Glück's "Persephone the Wanderer"

(171208) irene - peekaboo

1. push yourself to get up before the rest of the world - start with 7am, then 6am, then 5:30am. go to the nearest hill with a big coat and a scarf and watch the sun rise. 2. push yourself to fall asleep earlier - start with 11pm, then 10pm, then 9pm. wake up in the morning feeling re-energized and comfortable. 3. erase processed food from your diet. start with no lollies, chips, biscuits, then erase pasta, rice, cereal, then bread. use the rule that if a child couldn’t identify what was in it, you don’t eat it. 4. get into the habit of cooking yourself a beautiful breakfast. fry tomatoes and mushrooms in real butter and garlic, fry an egg, slice up a fresh avocado and squirt way too much lemon on it. sit and eat it and do nothing else. 5. stretch. start by reaching for the sky as hard as you can, then trying to touch your toes. roll your head. stretch your fingers. stretch everything. 6. buy a 1L water bottle. start with pushing yourself to drink the whole thing in a day, then try drinking it twice. 7. buy a beautiful diary and a beautiful black pen. write down everything you do, including dinner dates, appointments, assignments, coffees, what you need to do that day. no detail is too small. 8. strip your bed of your sheets and empty your underwear draw into the washing machine. put a massive scoop of scented fabric softener in there and wash. make your bed in full. 9. organise your room. fold all your clothes (and bag what you don’t want), clean your mirror, your laptop, vacuum the floor. light a beautiful candle. 10. have a luxurious shower with your favourite music playing. wash your hair, scrub your body, brush your teeth. lather your whole body in moisturiser, get familiar with the part between your toes, your inner thighs, the back of your neck. 11. push yourself to go for a walk. take your headphones, go to the beach and walk. smile at strangers walking the other way and be surprised how many smile back. bring your dog and observe the dog’s behaviour. realise you can learn from your dog. 12. message old friends with personal jokes. reminisce. suggest a catch up soon, even if you don’t follow through. push yourself to follow through. 14. think long and hard about what interests you. crime? sex? boarding school? long-forgotten romance etiquette? find a book about it and read it. there is a book about literally everything. 15. become the person you would ideally fall in love with. let cars merge into your lane when driving. pay double for parking tickets and leave a second one in the machine. stick your tongue out at babies. compliment people on their cute clothes. challenge yourself to not ridicule anyone for a whole day. then two. then a week. walk with a straight posture. look people in the eye. ask people about their story. talk to acquaintances so they become friends. 16. lie in the sunshine. daydream about the life you would lead if failure wasn’t a thing. open your eyes. take small steps to make it happen for you.

Sixteen Small Steps to Happiness  (via pigmenting)

feeling blue

RIP “it’s on like donkey kong”

painted this while having a flu so the colours are more neon than I’d like… happy mermay!!! shh no that’s not clamperl

“I felt heavy my whole life. I always thought that death would be the heaviest thing of all, but it wasn’t, it really wasn’t. Life was like being dragged through concrete in circles, wet and setting concrete that dried with each rotation of my unwilling body. As a child, I was light. It didn’t matter too much; I slid through it, and maybe it even felt like a game, like I was just playing in mud, like nothing about that slipperiness would ever change, not really. But then I got bigger and it started drying on me and eventually I turned into an uneven block, chipping and sparking on the hard ground, tearing off into painful chunks. I wanted to stay empty, like the eagle in the proverb, left to perch, my bones filled with air pockets, but heaviness found me and I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t shake it off; I couldn’t transform it, evaporate or melt it. It was distinct from me, but it hooked itself into my body like a parasite. I couldn’t figure out if something was wrong with me or if this was just my life—if this was just how people felt like concrete was dragging their flesh off their bones.”

— The Death of Vivek Oji, Akwaeke Emezi

I was a gifted child. Until I wasn't. I was the golden girl. Until I couldn't burn anymore.

My parents expected me to build wings of gold and fly further than anyone could ever try. I don't blame them, having a child to raise is like sculpting a clay pot, you can shape it the way you like, paint it the colour you fancy. To raise a child is to play God. To raise a child is to be God.

But to be a child is to fall, to make mistakes, to fail. The thing about being too bright at an early age means you burn out by the time you're 16 and suddenly the world around you becomes more gray and terribly, terribly lonely. The fire is never warm enough, nothing is ever enough. And one day you find yourself begging to a godless sky, begging for a new spark.

I was a gifted child once. I was the golden girl. And one day, I burned out.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire

come my love take care of me, i am in great agony

yo bro, who got you smiling like that?

me:

-Aaron Blackford