https://poetrysociety.org/poems/with-rue-my-heart-is-laden
With rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfoot lad.
By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.
the past had a meaning that will always define you. I remember this as being the first moment as an adult when I realized how powerful memory was. Or at least, it was the first time it hurt the most.
And also realizing there was nothing I could do about the pain of the past: it just settled over me. [My memories] were a part of my life that happened, and now they were gone. That was all. No one else knew about it, no one cared.
- The Shards (Serial), Bret Easton Ellis
the picture of miami that's painted outside my window tells a story. but like most stories, it is, from this distance, a lie. if you look too long at any point of it, or read too far between the lines, the lie reveals itself. announces itself, quiet at first, but louder and louder until you zoom out and you realize the lie covers the entire canvas and your glasses are all fogged with it and nothing else even seems like it can be seen otherwise.
i knew this going in. i knew so much of what im feeling now i would feel. i knew too that i wouldn't want to feel this. im also actively denying myself this. why am i doing this to myself?
* * *
the feelings are abstract, poetic, beautiful, and so on, and that's fine and great. the solutions are practical and simple and easy and that's fine too. [...] enjoy my life but in a productive way, be happy in a not-so-secret way, find someone to love, move forward, be ambitious, and all that good stuff while still being emotional and caring and true to myself and recognize that's OK and in fact there's no other way to do it.
* * *
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFmCCxMp7BE
