Planets, Oceans

be loved. please. be loved.

"Resolve, he thought. That was all it took, and no motherless gal was going to break it up. No lazy, stray pup of a woman could turn him around, make him doubt himself, wonder, plead or confess. Convinced of it, that he could do it, he threw his arm around Sethe's shoulders and squeezed. She let her head touch his chest, and since the moment was valuable to both of them, they stopped and stood that way--not breathing, not even caring if a passerby passed them by. The winter light was low. Sethe closed her eyes. Paul D looked at the black trees lining the roadside, their defending arms raised against attack. Softly, suddenly, it began to snow, like a present come down from the sky. Sethe opened her eyes to it and said, 'Mercy.' And it seemed to Paul D that it was--a little mercy--something given to them on purpose to mark what they were feeling so they would remember it later on when they needed to.

Down came the dry flakes, fat enough and heavy enough to crash like nickels on stone. It always surprised him, how quiet it was. Not like rain, but like a secret."


- Toni Morrison, Beloved

happiness # 38

i've said it before, but i'll say it again.

pure, undistilled moonlight. like bathing in a halo of ice. how wonderful is it that there can be shadows at night, drawn by that second-hand, but not at all inferior sunlight meekly thrown upon us by our closest neighbor? and why does the moon always seem to be weeping, even when she is so beautiful? so many questions. please leave them unanswered.

at night, i am king

(and the night shall be my queen)

happiness # 38

riding my bike over suburban, dried, fallen leaves. they crunch so satisfyingly.

i am the rain

It was a rain that never stopped
it flung itself blindly
against moaning cold windows
building a wall of water
like a moat upright

I saw how the water on the windows
fell on me, too
as a streetlight shone and threw
ghostly drops on my skin
they were like eyes
while I listened to the drums
on the glass, wanting to get in
wanting to escape the night

I could not let them enter
those drums
They were too loud for me,
too scary. I built a hole,
a cave
in my bed and held
my breath and my knees
as the rain fell like hail
on the cold hard moaning glass
in my bed

happiness # 37

today an old man (he must been around eighty) smiled at me for no apparent reason. i smiled back and thought about how i ought to write this down as happiness # 37 on my blog.


but five minutes later, i met him again and we laughed out loud.

let's change. let's cry for no reason. let's do because we want to do. let's never stand still again, unless it changes us.

"Me, man alive, I am a very curious assembly of incongruous parts. My yea! of today is oddly different from my yea! of yesterday. My tears of tomorrow will have nothing to do with my tears of a year ago. If the one I love remains unchanged and unchanging, I shall cease to love her. It is only because she changes and startles me into change and defies my inertia, and is herself staggered in her inertia by my changing, that I can continue to love her. If she stayed put, I might as well love the pepper-pot."

- D. H. Lawrence, Why the Novel Matters

happiness # 36

i came home at around a quarter past midnight. heard a familiar sound. it was a neighborhood cat i befriended some time ago, trying to draw my attention. i sat down on the pavement. we played for a quarter of an hour, or longer. together in the night. sometimes distracted by cars passing, then playing again. i wish i could purr like her. then i stood up. she walked with me. then we said goodbye. i think we like each other.

poem of the day

The Negro Speaks of Rivers


I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its
muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.


- Langston Hughes


(you might need some context. if so: look it up.)