The Hardest You Could Be

And you will find no fear here, in unkind words or the hardness of others.

And you will find no sadness here, in the meanness of the world, in the anger that comes from those who feel small.

And you will find no hurt here, in a million insults or a single, softly spoken lie.

Because only a hard heart shatters.

Only a hard heart breaks.

---I Wrote This For You, 12/16/09

"Sometimes life is insane,
But crazy I know I can do.
'Cause crazy is perfect
And fucked up is perfect!"

Next to Normal, "Hey #3/Perfect for You (reprise)"

When you find a man
Who transforms
Every part of you
Into poetry,
Who makes each one of your hairs
Into a poem,
When you find a man,
Capable,
As I am
Of bathing and adorning you
With poetry,
I will beg you
To follow him without hesitation,
It is not important
That you belong to me or him
But that you belong to poetry.
* * * * *

A rather lovely random poem I found thanks to StumbleUpon

"It is no way to live, to wait to love."

--Dave Eggers

We are at the gates.

We are at the gates and we are coming for you.

We are coming to set the wrong things right.

We are coming to destroy your policies.

We are coming to destroy your calendars.

We are coming to destroy your tyranny and we are going to replace it with a democracy of ideas.

We are here for your assignments, expense reports and time sheets and we are going to start a fire so big and so bright, the sky itself will gasp.

We are coming. For you.

--I Wrote This For You, 11/16
http://pleasefindthis.blogspot.com/

"I am fairly certain than, given a cape and a nice tiara, I could save the world."

"What a world we live in. I want to be incredibly close to the heart of it all. To live honestly, truthfully and to be completely present is the ultimate enterprise. And right now, I couldn’t possibly ask for anything more. I am a very lucky girl."

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

Maya Angelou

It’s the leftover humans.
The survivors.
They’re the ones I can’t stand to look at, although on many occasions I still fail. I deliberately seek out the colors to keep my mind off them, but now and then, I witness the ones who are left behind, crumbling among the jigsaw puzzle of realization, despair, and surprise. They have punctured hearts. They have beaten lungs.

--Yet another brilliant quote from The Book Thief

“I have hated the words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.”

The Book Thief-Markus Zusak

Isn't this how writers feel every day of our lives?

My life is being devoured by theatre. And I like it.

You mean you're willin' to beat the shit outta some guy just 'cause you think he's boring?

You're goddamn right. Self defense, pal.

-Conversations with my Father

He steps on Death's heart...

“And I’m not too great at that sort of comforting thing, especially when my hands are cold and the bed is warm. I carried him softly through the broken street, with one salty eye and a heavy, deathly heart. With him, I tried a little harder. I watched the contents of his soul for a moment and saw a black-painted boy calling the name Jesse Owens as he ran through an imaginary tape. I saw him hip-deep in some icy water, chasing a book, and I saw a boy lying in bed, imagining how a kiss would taste from his glorious next-door neighbor. He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It’s his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.”

The Book Thief, Markus Zusak

I don’t wish to touch hearts. I don’t even want to affect minds very much. What I really want to produce is that little sob in the spine of the artist-reader.

--Vladimir Nabokov

The Book Thief-Markus Zusak

’Don’t punish yourself,’ she heard her say again, but there would be punishment and pain, and there would be happiness, too. That was writing.



*****
You will be seeing a lot from this book in the coming posts. A Holocaust novel narrated by Death, it was the first book in a long time I've really gotten lost in.

We are like butterflies
who flutter for a day
and think it is forever.

--Carl Sagan

I Wrote This For You.

If you knew how much trouble the universe went to for us to be here, now, standing in front of each other, you'd know we're going to have to be careful.

Plankton and plants and canals, a hundred suns, a thousand sailing ships, ten thousand civilizations, a million, million, million first kisses from all our mothers and fathers.

We owe it to them, to be careful.

9/16/09

There are only two types of women — goddesses and doormats.

Pablo Picasso

typewriterblues

Please know there are much better things
in life than being lonely or liked
or bitter or mean or self-concious.

We are all full of shit.

Go love someone just because,
I know your heart may be badly bruised,
or even the victim of numerous knifings
but it will always heal,
even if you don't want it to
it keeps going.

There are the most fantastic, beautiful
things and people out there,
I promise.

It is up to you
to find them.

"Those awful things are survivable, because we ARE as indestructible as we believe ourselves to be. When adults say, 'Teenagers think they are invincible' with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, as so it cannot fail.

-Looking for Alaska, Peter Jenkins

luv

I love you <3

--an email from my mom, 10/19/08
(I was sitting across the room from her when she sent it)
There is so much beauty and love in simplicity!

"So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be."

-The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky

"When we said you could be anything,
we meant you could be a brain surgeon, or a district attorney.
We didn't mean you should become a poet."
But it was Dad that taught me that the call of my wild heart
rings as valid as any voice of reason,
and it was Mom who taught that
raging terror of where you're headed
is the surest sign you're traveling in the right direction.

-Marty McConnell

Dear Son,
I'm sorry I never came home.
For every lesson I failed to teach, hear these words:
Shave in one direction with strong deliberate strokes to avoid irritation.
Dribble the page with the brilliance of your ballpoint pen.
Walk like a god and your goddess will come to you.
No longer will I be there to knock on your door, so you must learn to knock for yourself.
Knock knock down doors of racism and poverty that I could not.
Knock knock on doors of opportunity for the lost brilliance of the black men who crowd these cells.
Knock knock with diligence for the sake of your children.
Knock knock for me, for as long as you are free, these prison gates cannot contain my spirit.
The best of me still lives in you.
Knock knock with the knowledge that you are my son, but you are not my choices.
Yes, we are our fathers' sons and daughters, but we are not their choices.
For despite their absences, we are still here, still alive, still breathing,
with the power to change this world one little boy and girl at a time.
Knock knock.Who's there?
We are.

-Daniel Beatty, "Knock Knock"

She said,
"I'd prefer a broken neck to another broken heart,
Broken parts that litter the night sky like stars."
But remember,
even the beauty of birth leaves its own scars,
and know
that you will find your home
right where you are.
We will find our homes
right where we are.

Amir Sulaiman

Neil Gaiman, on the title for his collection of stories

"I think I would rather recollect a life mis-spent on fragile things than spent avoiding moral debt."

It seemed like a fine title for a book of short stories. There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts.

Anis Mojgani, "For those who can still ride an airplane for the first time"

I lift bridges with poems, motherfucker,
and forests grow in my mother's eyes.
I am looking for God, Quentin,
while this world says "fuck you" for trying.
For this world hates your eyes, Quentin,
for they are small and pure.

Marty McConnell, "Instructions for a Body"

Tell me you don't matter to a universe that conspired to give you such a tongue,
such rhythm, or rhythmless hips,
such opposable thumbs.
GIVE THANKS, or go home a waste of spark.
SPEAK, or let the maker take back your throat.
MARCH, or let the creator rescind your feet.
DREAM, or let your god destroy your good and fertile mind.
This is your warning, this your birthright.
DO NOT LET THIS UNIVERSE REGRET YOU.

Come, come, come
whoever you are
wonderer
worshipper
lover of leaving
It doesn't matter
ours is not a caravan of despair
come, even if you have broken your vow
a thousand times
Come yet again
come, come

-Rumi

dark night poem

they say that
nothing is wasted:
either that
or
it all is.

I want to BE Julia Nunes.

REGRETS
Give me a break with this heart ache,
I doubt it will make it through till tomorrow.
It's bogged down with sorrow and guilt
and it's built on these stilts which wobble 5 feet and 3 inches high.

You ask me why I'm this way
and all I can say is I've gone through my fair share of shit.
And you want all I've got, so we'll give it a shot,
I just hope you don't regret it.

I'm unimpressed, think it's best if we give it a rest.
I'm so tired, I can't stand for fear I will land on my ass.
Let time pass, this can't last, cause I'm just barely getting by.

You ask me why I'm this way,
and all I can say is I've got nothing to hide behind.
No excuses to confuse this,
guess everyone loses, but it's better than living a lie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzps9iXwpG4

Not In Vain

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

Don't let your mind stop you from having a good time.
Jason Mraz


Thank you, I will do my best.

What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?

Rob (<3 John Cusack), "High Fidelity"

"You must keep writing so we can take back words like 'gay,' 'retarded,' and 'faggot,' and teach people that they are not confetti."

Mike Rossi, in his letter to the cast of the Monologue Show, some of the most beautiful words I have ever received

What I mean is, would you like to go out to dinner?

Scary scary scary.

"According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 10 percent of teenagers report being hit or slapped by a boyfriend of girlfriend."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/fashion/19brown.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2
This article mentions using Othello in the classroom to open up discussion about these very current issues.

80s Movie Glory.

"I just want them to know that they didn't break me."
-Andie, Pretty in Pink

"If you put out signals that you don't want to belong, people will make sure that you don't."
-the Principal

"I was born in 1971, so I was 12 or 13 when this movie came out. I think I built myself around this movie in a lot of ways, and I think it kind of ruined me!"
-my professor's intro to this movie

In twenty years, you'll be more disappointed by what you didn't do than by what you did.
-Mark Twain

We need more good crazy.
It'd be nice to watch the news and think, "that's fucking insane,"
but feel a little jealous,
instead of just alone.

j. comeau

Quiet kisses are so hardcore.

Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies--God damn it, you've got to be kind.
Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
* * *
Simple enough rules to live by. On a gorgeous day like this, I feel like the whole world is being very kind, and it makes me happy.

The marshmallow ghosties don't have time for your ennui.

Anis Mojgani-"Shake the Dust"

This is for the tired and for the dreamers,
For those families that'll never be like the Cleavers
with perfectly made dinners and sons like Wally and the Beaver.
This is for the bigots, this is for the sexists, this is for the killers,
and for the springtime that always seems to show up right after the winters.
This--this is for you.
Every time I write, every time I open my eyes I'm cutting out parts of myself to give to you,
so shake the dust and take me with you when you do,
because none of this has ever been for me.
Make my words worth it.
Make this not just another poem that I write,
not just another poem like just another night that sits heavy above all of us.
Walk into it, breathe it in,
let it crash through the halls of your arms like the millions of years of millions of poets,
coursing like blood, pumping and pushing,
making you live, shaking the dust.
So when the world knocks at your front door,
clench the knob tightly and open on up,
running forward into it's widespread greeting arms
with your hands before you, fingertips trembling though they may be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ-Ox5uH3FM

Temptation and Ordeal (exercise in translation)

"Temptation"
Nina Cassian
English translation by Brenda Walker and Andrea Deletant

Call yourself alive? Look, I promise you
that for the first time you’ll feel your pores opening
like fish mouths, and you’ll actually be able to hear
your blood surging through all those lanes,
and you’ll feel light gliding across the cornea
like the train of a dress. For the first time
you’ll be aware of gravity
like a thorn in your heel,
and your shoulder blades will ache for want of wings.
Call yourself alive? I promise you
you’ll be deafened by the sound of dust falling on furniture,
you’ll feel your eyebrows turning to two gashes,
and every memory you have—will begin
at Genesis.


"Ordeal"
Nina Cassian
Translated from Romanian by Michael Impey and Brian Swann

I promise to make you more alive than you've ever been.
For the first time you'll see your pores opening
like the gills of fish and you'll hear
the noise of blood in galleries
and feel light gliding on your corneas
like the dragging of a dress across the floor.
For the first time, you'll note gravity's prick
like a thorn in your heel,
and your shoulder blades will hurt from the imperative of wings.
I promise to make you so alive that
the fall of dust on furniture will deafen you,
and you'll feel your eyebrows like two wounds forming
and your memories will seem to begin
with the creation of the world.

This makes me so angry.

From Jon Meyer's article in the Monday, November 22nd, 2004 issue of the McGill Daily:

Political correctness, in his opinion, has created an unbalanced culture that’s unnaturally constraining. “Feminism is extremely restrictive. You can’t call a woman a bitch, you can’t call her this, you can’t call her that. But that’s what life’s really like. Yet she can do whatever she wants. It’s out of balance and that’s why young people haven’t embraced feminism, because it’s out of balance.”

Charney’s rant against the “lawsuit culture” of the West seems convenient, considering the man is rumoured to sleep with each and every one of his female models, and once masturbated in front of an interviewer from Jane Magazine.

He pursues his point. “Out of a thousand sexual harassment claims how many do you think are exploitive? There are almost no sexual harassment charges from men against women. They’re not acceptable – it’s considered that only women are the victims.

“Women initiate most domestic violence, yet out of a thousand cases of domestic violence maybe one is involving a man.” And this, Charney decries, “has made a victim culture out of women.”
http://www.mcgilldaily.com/view.php?aid=3253

"Man, it takes a silly girl to lie about the dream she has.
But it takes a lonely one to wish that she had never dreamt at all."
Dashboard Confessional

***
This lyric has never really left me, and keeps reappearing in some strange ways. The other night, I quite literally wished that I hadn't dreamt of him, and I remembered these lines.

I want to make anthems.

Rejects. Rebels.
Because anthems, because good art, because change has never happened by the hands of someone following the rules.

from Rachel McKibbons' favorite things that start with R.

Son, I am not everything you thought that I would be,
But every story I have told is part of me.
Son, I leave you now, but you have so much more to do,
And every story I have told is part of you.
-Yellowcard, How I Go

At 20 years old, I still believe in girl power.