Libraryidealist - Dried Flowers And Art

James Baldwin talking about love

how many times can you live through the apocalypse?

when you were little there was this beach that was free to go to. you didn't really like it on account of the litter. at one point, a white bag caught around your ankle, and for a moment (fish child), you panicked about jellyfish. on the foam, the red-pink words read thank you, stacked on top of each other, tangled in the kelp.

they have a new program (three thousand american dollars) to send your dead relative to the moon. there is a lot of evidence that our local orbit is becoming ever-more dangerously populated with "micro" satellites - debris in a round miasma becoming a thick web above us. maybe angels cannot hear us through the pollution.

you used to picture deep space like a thick membrane, or a blanket. someone said to you once the universe has no edge and that fucked with you for a long time, trying to picture what shape infinity has. your coworker is writing a short story about ecological collapse, which she is submitting for a little side-money so she can survive the current economical collapse.

the birds haven't gone to sleep this winter. that is probably bad. something that actually freaks you out is the natural temperature of human bodies versus the survival temperature of certain fungi. there is a podcast called s-town, in which a man kills himself over climate anxiety. he was probably meant to seem sort of unhinged. it just seems like it is becoming increasingly clear he was being honest.

space is not empty, we have put our dead into the stars. at some point they will figure out how to put ads into our sleep. you need to pay for the greenlife subscription service to be able to save the world.

there is a lot of ways this poem ends. but you have been wearing the same jeans and shirts since you were, like, 18. it is a hard life, sometimes, watching the entire foundation crack. there was this one moment over the summer, where you were shaking with heat exhaustion and dehydration. you were offered a nestle water bottle.

for three thousand dollars, you can send your ashes into space.

instead, you wash out the peanut butter jar. you put the avocado-toothpick spiked seed ball into water (even though they never grow very far). you borrow what you do not want to buy. you pick up any litter you find. you do not have a lot of control, really. but where you do - if there is one thing you can do, you do it.

something about that. you need to believe that must be true for the rest of humanity. or maybe - you need to believe that to be true, or else there will not be a rest of humanity.

Danez Smith, from "summer, somewhere"

YOU WILL FIND A WAY!!!! YOU WILL FIND A WAY . You will find a WAY ….. you WILL find a way . You will find a way you will find a way……!! YOU WILL FIND A WAY YOU WILL FIND A WAY you will find a Way you will (find) a way you will find. a way you will find a way YOU WILL FIND A WAY!!!!!!!

unforced error by Meghan O’Rourke

My white friend doesn't know

That when I walk home and see blue uniforms my heart beat beats faster and faster

Like it's trying to fit a lifetime of heartbeats

Into a few agonising moments

Where I wonder if my lifetime is mine.

on love arriving unannounced

“tell me a story. i don’t have any to tell. (you wouldn’t believe me if i did.) you always have stories. you already know all the good ones. (the only good ones i have are the ones with you.) then tell me an old one. but you already know how it ends. (i wish i could forget how this one ends. i think i was happier not knowing.) i don’t care. it’s no fun if you know the ending. (you should care. this tragedy is a fairytale without it.) can’t you make one up? i just want to hear a story. fine. i’ll tell you a story. (i’ll tell you a lie. that’s all i have left to give you.) okay. i’m listening. once upon a time, there was a boy with fool’s gold for hair. (and i couldn’t save him.)”

— but I swear I tried. I did. ( j.p. ) || insp. by @noxalnoesis

You listen and you know you could live a better life than you do, be softer, kinder. And maybe this year you will be able to do it.

Mary Oliver