— "A Kiss On The Forehead", Marina Tsvetaeva   

𝒜𝓃𝓉𝒾𝓆𝓊𝑒 𝒫𝑒𝓇𝒻𝓊𝓂𝑒 𝐵𝑜𝓉𝓉𝓁𝑒𝓈 * ❀.ೃ࿔*

Mahmoud Darwish, “Viewpoint,” trans. Fady Joudah, in The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry, edited by Ilya Kaminsky [ID in alt text]

Angel Guts: Nami *1979* Noboru Tanaka

― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

[text ID: I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, "This is what it is to be happy."]

My brother cracked my rib one morning and gave me half of his orange in the evening.

I remember being younger and sometimes wishing to be a single child, to have all the attention and gifts and time but when he was away from home for the first time, I remember crying and stroking his side of the sofa as if blurting out my first wish- for him to be home, without thinking twice, without a shadow of doubt. Even the genie cried. Growing up with a sibling is like being the only people on a stranded boat, constantly figuring out how you can live with them and questioning how you could ever live without them.

One evening, in a fit of anger, I told him how I never wanted him to be my brother and he yelled that he didn't ask for it either. The air smelled like kerosene and my chest was filled with arsenic. I was raging and threw his favorite toy aeroplane down the window, 7 stories of guilt and shame. He cried all night and I wanted to cut off my right hand, the hand that hurt my baby brother. I didn't know if he was ever going to forgive me or even talk to me. The next morning at breakfast, he didn't look at me or say a word, I felt like my chest was about to explode and guilt clouded my vision. But then, I felt a hand quietly holding half of an orange my way.

The only people on a stranded boat. How do you live with them? How could you ever live without them?

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

Edit: I added a visualizer for this on my YouTube channel. Check it out here

Salman Toor, Three Friends in a Cab, 16 x 20 inches, 2021

Still Life with Cup - Lomykin Konstantin Matveyevich , 1981.

Ukrainian *, 1924 - 1993

Oil on canvas , 66 x 55 cm.

*Russian Federation

My flesh, my home 🦪 🫧

On Friendship.

ON PURPOSE, I'M GOING TO LOVE YOU ON PURPOSE

Jenny Slate // Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue // Pleiades, Anne Carson // Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo // @oriley42 and @earth167 (and a half) on Tumblr // Jodi Picoult from The Book Of Two Ways // The Night Vale, Episode 100, The Toast // Adam Melchor, I Choose You // Kierston White, The Chaos of Stars