it's also pretty hard to remember life's marvellous

In Favor of One's Time 
                          Frank O'Hara 

The spent purpose of a perfectly marvellous
life suddenly glimmers and leaps into flame
it's more difficult than you think to make charcoal
it's also pretty hard to remember life's marvellous
but there it is guttering choking then soaring
in the mirrored room of this consciousness
it's practically a blaze of pure sensibility
and however exaggerated at least somethings going on
and the quick oxygen in the air will not go neglected
will not sulk or fall into blackness and peat

an angel flying slowly, curiously singes its wings
and you diminish for a moment out of respect
for beauty then flare up after all that's the angel
that wrestled with Jacob and loves conflict
as an athlete loves the tape, and we're off into
an immortal contest of actuality and pride
which is love assuming the consciousness of itself
as sky over all, medium of finding and founding
not just resemblance but the magnetic otherness
that that that stands erect in the the spirit's glare
and waits for the joining of an opposite force's breath

so come the winds into our lives and last
longer than despair's sharp snake, crushed before it conquered
so marvellous is not just a poet's greenish namesake
and we live outside his garden in pure tempestuous rights


(hbd, frankie.)

truth

It's amazing that I ever forget how good it feels to write.

that ain't all sam'll do for you

random act of bravery

I threw myself a birthday party.

My iPhone shattered and I locked myself out of my apartment. I wore silk on silk and rocked it like a grandma in lounge pyjamas. The icing got all over everything. The next day my head felt like it might explode from cheap tequila, my weapon of choice. What I remember: the door continuing to open, and people I love flooding in. The friend who asked me to close my eyes and then placed the flower crown he had made for me on my head - all because I dreamt it, and told him. I remember a moment I stole for myself in the bathroom, when I realized my cat-eyes had smudged across my brow and nose and I thought seriously about hiding in the shower for the rest of the night, arrested by panic and anxiety, knowing in that moment I would probably never throw myself a party again. But then everyone sang my name.

I turned 29 years old. You made me a cake. It's time to stop being so afraid that everyone will leave and never come back.

things you don't know about me (yet)

1. I have this sleep app on my iPhone. I have it set to a mixture of 2 parts "Beach (small waves)" and 1 part "Heavy Rain."
2. I am happy with my appearance maybe 1% of the time, and all of those times occur when I accidentally catch myself in a mirror or the glass of an elevator, something in reflection where I think, "Oh, she's pretty," before my brain hiccups and I realize I'm staring at myself. I would say 99% of that 1% happens because I'm wearing bright lipstick.
3. Sometimes I go searching for you late at night.
4. When I was maybe 13 I was playing with a baby and I lifted her up too high and smacked her head against the door frame. We both went wide-eyed with shock and I could swear that she looked at me like, "I know what you just did." She cried and I handed her back to her mom and I never told anyone about it. I don't even know who that baby belonged to.

hopeful

via even cleveland 

random act of this thing i did that was stupid and hateful

Last night I went to Anthropologie with the express purpose of buying a blazer with which to increase my professionalism, productivity, and general sense of self (didn't work; see aforementioned boobs), but instead I fell for this super awesome and frivolous beaded clutch.

I hemmed and hawed and finally, bolstered by the thought of how adorable said clutch would look against my summer skin (same as my winter skin, maybe slightly more red), decided to buy it. I was in line to check out when I literally thought, "You don't deserve this." Then I turned around, climbed over the rope line, and left the store.

I don't DESERVE a $40 beaded clutch? What kind of bullshit self-hatred is that? It's International Women's Day, for fuck's sake. Sometimes I feel like I'm perpetually babysitting my 15-year-old self, all Fiona Apple and body dysmorphia, scrubbing her spit-covered thumb against the pen lines someone drew between the freckles on her legs, terrified to the point of inner collapse before she even made it down the stairs for breakfast.

Have some champagne, kid. We're gonna go buy you that clutch. And a new bright pink lipstick. 13 years from now you'll even be bold enough to wear it.