Changed Lives

this post is life 

“I met a sailor on a ship with promise in his eyes. He kissed me on the mouth and dug his fingers in my thighs. But a sailor ain’t a savior ‘cause they only tell you lies. So I left him there ‘til the sunrise. Well, the waves were tall and they were crashing down. He’s laying in the water, begging God to let him drown. So I showed him all my teeth and then I laughed out loud 'cause I never wanted saving, I just wanted to be found. There is a lighthouse in the middle of the deep. And I’m still stranded on the shoreline there. And nobody hears me scream. And I’ll lure you like a landslide. And I’ll show you lovely things if you rescue me, but they’re make-believe. The lighthouse by the sea.”

— The Lighthouse by Halsey

How truly romantic would that be. 

to love a poet; to be immortalized in verse

they’re just like me, i’m just like them, we’re all the same.

My therapist once told me, “You are the guiltiest feeling person I’ve ever met” and just to prove her right, I took it to heart. An astrologer said, “You have so much water in your chart. What is it like to feel the emotions of every single person alive, everyday?” and I wept because I sensed he was displeased. A teacher told my parents “She’s very sensitive. Far more than the other kids in her class.” I took my SATs at 9 years old, but they encouraged my mother to hold me back because of how my eyes glistened when I heard the word no. She told them to go to hell. So I cried my way through my education until high school when they said “You take everything so personally, you’ll never survive in a company environment. You wouldn’t make a good employee.” So I employed myself (out of spite or…necessity) and then later, I hired 200 people. A boyfriend told me “Don’t be so dramatic, everything isn’t a movie.” Fine, so it’ll be an album then. The doctor said “This shouldn’t hurt a bit.” I tread daily on a minefield that leaves me classifying the variations in footsteps, the tonality in voice, a change in breath. “Is everything okay? You seem mad” is my pledge of allegiance to this tightly wound bundle of flesh. I am cut open, butterflied and flayed, with every single nerve exposed like live wires and, yes, they all hurt to touch. Each interaction is a litmus test of how well liked I am, and therefore how worthy to live. I wake up every morning and the moral barometer resets, T-minus 12 hours to prove to myself that I am not the bad person I believe I must be. Sleep, repeat. An amnesiac nightmare. Prometheus on a rock and the gull in my guts is myself. I once envied those with greater armor, but not anymore. “Why do you care so much?” Guard yourself from the little grievances, but the shield does not differentiate. The space where I am vulnerable to the pain that passes through is an entry point for the microscopic good that others may miss. I live in technicolor torment. If I could do it over again and choose the comfortable grey, I would seize a knife and cut the little keyholes back into my every limb. So the light can get in.

Nothing ever ends poetically. It ends and we turn it into poetry. All that blood was never once beautiful. It was just red.

Kait Rokowski

Lord Byron — To the Countess of Blessington

Vivamus, moriendum est | Let us live, since we must die

Exigo a me non ut optimus par sim sed ut malis melio | I require myself not to be equal to the best, but to be better than the bad

Vive ut Vivas | Live to live

In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni | We enter the circle at night and are consumed by fire.

Flectere si nequeo superos, acheronta movebo | If I can not bend the will of Heaven, I shall move Hell | Aeneid, Virgil

Neutiquam erro | I am not lost

In Omnia Paratus | Ready for anything

↠ Latin Phrases

I’ve been collecting these phrases for a while. Now, I’m finally posting them!

In absentia lucis, tenebrae vincunt |  In the absence of light, darkness prevails

Dulce periculum | Danger is sweet

Non ducor duco | I am not lead; I lead

Cogito ergo sum | I think, therefore I am

Lux brumalis | The light of winter

Alis propriis volat | She flies with her own wings

Bibere venenum in auro | To drink poison from a golden cup

Est quaedam flere voluptas | There is a certain pleasure in weeping

Ut incepit fidelis sic permanet | Loyal she began, thus she remains

Si vis pacem, para bellum | If you want peace, prepare for war

Luceat lux vestra | Let your light shine

Vidi Vidi Amavi | I came, I saw, I loved | Julius Caesar

Astra inclinant, sed non obligant | The stars incline us, they do not bind us.

Sic semper tyrannis | Thus always to tyrants | Marcus Junius Brutus

Aeternum vale | Farewell forever

Curae leves loquuntur ingentes stupent | Slight griefs talk, great ones are speechless.

Fortuna vitrea est; tum cum splendet frangitur | Fortune is glass; just when it gleams brightest it shatters | Publilius Syrus

Hinc illae lacrimae | Hence these tears | Terence

Sue Zhao // Dialogues on Love #4 // “Maybe I already do”

↠ Latin Phrases

I’ve been collecting these phrases for a while. Now, I’m finally posting them!

In absentia lucis, tenebrae vincunt |  In the absence of light, darkness prevails

Dulce periculum | Danger is sweet

Non ducor duco | I am not lead; I lead

Cogito ergo sum | I think, therefore I am

Lux brumalis | The light of winter

Alis propriis volat | She flies with her own wings

Bibere venenum in auro | To drink poison from a golden cup

Est quaedam flere voluptas | There is a certain pleasure in weeping

Ut incepit fidelis sic permanet | Loyal she began, thus she remains

Si vis pacem, para bellum | If you want peace, prepare for war

Luceat lux vestra | Let your light shine

Vidi Vidi Amavi | I came, I saw, I loved | Julius Caesar

Astra inclinant, sed non obligant | The stars incline us, they do not bind us.

Sic semper tyrannis | Thus always to tyrants | Marcus Junius Brutus

Aeternum vale | Farewell forever

Curae leves loquuntur ingentes stupent | Slight griefs talk, great ones are speechless.

Fortuna vitrea est; tum cum splendet frangitur | Fortune is glass; just when it gleams brightest it shatters | Publilius Syrus

Hinc illae lacrimae | Hence these tears | Terence

'The Picture of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde (published in 1890)

Very much what I wish all the time.

-Benedict Smith, I wish I wrote the way I thought