raniahlilithshahnaz

[raniahlilithshahnaz]

I’ve always felt foreign to my own face.

- Raniah-Lilith Shahnaz, (11/12/2023 journal excerpt)

#raniahlilithshahnaz #dark academia #literature #writers and poets #writing community #writers on tumblr #poets on tumblr #academia #dark poetry #dark literature #gothic literature #gothic poetry #poetry community #dark academia writing #gothic poem #female poets #female writers #women poets #women writers #female rage #feminine rage #poetry and prose #dark academia aesthetic #raniah-lilith #raniah-lilith shahnaz

[raniahlilithshahnaz]

‘From a swamp, evil, viscous,’ Osip Mandelstam (translated by A. S. Kline)

[raniahlilithshahnaz]

Hot take.

In the Homeric world, as a hero (e.g. Achilles Odysseus), you gain HONOUR during life, and after you die, you gain the GLORY, which will offer you immortality through songs that start getting written in your name. Basically, you remain in the memory of everyone, and this is the way you become immortal!

Henry was so in love with Homer and the Homeric idea of GLORY, that he tried turning himself into a Homeric hero. He wanted to become immortal, and through his "action" from the end of the book (trying to not spoil it), he thought that he'd be a saviour, a hero, saving others by sacrificing himself. Therefore, becoming immortal according to the Homeric laws.

[raniahlilithshahnaz]

May Sarton, "Of Grief", Selected Poems

[raniahlilithshahnaz]

Mary Oliver, from “Tecumseh”, Devotions

[raniahlilithshahnaz]

Get me hardcover copies of the Cambridge Latin Course books and I’ll marry you immediately no joke

[raniahlilithshahnaz]

Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

[raniahlilithshahnaz]

I'm just so tired of looking up at this lifeless ceiling and hearing all of you.

I'm so tired of your words, your questions.

How long must I pretend to have the answers?

When will the trees hide me in their burrow? When will the sky's tears reach down craving solace across my body once more?

For a woman that only seeks solitude in the arms of all that is honey-dewed fortress and winged-find,

the metal-walking caskets of people around me here seem determined on trying to force-feed me anything but.

Must I starve - if it means to avoid adapting to the tastes of poison?

Must I wither before the seasons let me leave?

I've never known winter to be people, to be a land, a time - until I woke up here.

- Raniah-Lilith Shahnaz (27/04/2022 journal excerpt)

#raniah-lilith shahnaz #raniahlilithshahnaz #dark academia #writers and poets #writers on tumblr #writing community #poets on tumblr #poetry #dark literature #dark poetry #gothic literature #gothic poetry #gothic poem #academia #writerscommunity #poetrycommunity #women writers #female poets #female writers #poets and writers #writers and readers #dark academia writing #my writing #dark fantasy #dark acadamia aesthetic #raniah-lilith

[raniahlilithshahnaz]

the feminine urge to be ethereal and hauntingly beautiful

[raniahlilithshahnaz]

You were the last thing my memory was allowed to touch.

- Raniah-Lilith Shahnaz

#raniah-lilith shahnaz #raniahlilithshahnaz #dark academia #literature #writers and poets #writers on tumblr #writing community #poets on tumblr #academia #gothic literature #gothic poetry #dark literature #dark poetry #romantic academia #poetry community #female writers #female poets #heartbreak poetry #sad poetry #dark acadamia aesthetic #poetry #raniah-lilith

[raniahlilithshahnaz]

“Once more, I was faced with someone I understood who could neither read me, nor see me, nor perceive me.”

— Anaïs Nin, from The Diary of Anaïs Nin: Volume Six: 1955-1966.

[raniahlilithshahnaz]

I remember hearing that when you have your mother or father’s eyes, its a compliment in disguise.

Relatives, lovers -

they all say the same thing don't they?

“you have your mother’s eyes”, “you have your father’s eyes”...

for the longest time, I’ve understood it to act as an ode to a parent’s heart or love - if they ever meant the same thing.

But this time, an echo added to the saying reached me.

That having their eyes means that you are like them - meaning you will want to outdo them - and they will hate you for it.

I paused.

I had never heard that part - like a late clap of thunder to the phrase - added in before.

One part of me asked “why does it make sense?”

The other fell to its knees as I realized what it could mean for me -

a woman with eyes that were foreign to every man, woman, and anything in between that I could call blood.

What does that mean for the one with eyes that resemble nobody?

Neither a descendant’s gaze nor a mix of two or more -

simply there.

Brown.

Dark.

Secretive.

No one knows where they came from and no one comes close enough to rule them out.

If someone with their mother or father��s eyes becomes their parent’s bane because of the shadow they taunt the other with -

then how is it that my eyes bare no name

and yet I get compared to both parents whenever the mockery suits me -

is it because I resemble them at different whips of the storm?

Or is it because its obvious my gaze is foreign -

unknown -

confusing -

so people do what all people resort to doing -

and compare me to what they’re familiar with, so that the obscurity of my insides appears less threatening?

My mother told me that each of my features on my face were different - unlike the other to anyone in my family,

but when they came together -

the shape would tell you my mother’s name.

My father hated it. He looked at me like I was a pet to understand and restrict at the same time.

I did not have my mother’s European-passing pale skin,

her chestnut brown hair,

nor her dark hazel eyes.

I was the more obvious kind.

The hues that make it harder to pass off as something dainty and lovable when you step out of the door.

The hues that make it easier for your elders behind the door to pick you out and nurse you into their shadows.

My mother’s ghost oozed from my skin, still holding onto her promise of watching over me. I had her echo through me sometimes, but over time I learned not to call us the same.

Partially because bringing her up in the house would remind my family of their bane, more-so because I realized that if I were truly like my mother, I would have submitted to the beating down they’d given me years ago. I would have resorted to softness - the pretense, sacrificial kind that comes with learning what it means to be a woman in front of a man’s faith. But I wasn’t like that. They hated because they knew, and I scoffed because they never would, truly. I lived on the promise of keeping my spirit alive by not welcoming others to take shelter in it. Others would say there’s another way, and I’d politely ask if they’d like to be spat at in their face.

My eyes betrayed me the most. It’s why I didn’t like holding my gaze even in one-on-one conversation with someone for too long. They’d tell you exactly what I mean - and why I needed you to listen. They’d make you listen. And in the face of those you are supposed to guise - tone down - in front of, sometimes being listened to is the most dangerous thing.

I wonder if you truly know a daughter - the eldest daughter, more-so -

if you haven’t grown up as one.

You tell me it’s coincidental and I nod with ice.

You tell me it’s meaningless and I smile the same.

I could sponge-in the seas with poems, memoirs, diaries, epistolaries of what I have seen and you’d ask me if I ever tried pink, poised, pretty words that made sense to you.

I don’t write for you.

I write about you.

If I made sense then that would mean either you understood me, or you were studying me.

And frankly, one scarce of pain hardly bothers to do either.

Unless, of course, it’s to make you feel like a savior or a macho man in the process. In which case, I’d again - politely ask if you’d like to be spat at in the face. But knowing you, you’d take it as a compliment. Because anything is a compliment to the ignorant man that does not know that the eyes of a woman can speak.

My pupils dilate as I stare off into my reflection - into oblivion,

as my mind wanders with its floating mists of recall and resuscitate...

My breath brings me back.

The mirror refocuses before me and I see my frozen stare again.

Some eldest daughters fear becoming their mother, their father -

some entertain it like a plant they just have to hoist up from the soil in their minds to awaken or bring to surface.

But where do I place the hollowing of no belonging?

Is it more painful to fear becoming what hurt you - that haunts the first feature others see when they look at you -

or does the emptiness of no relief nor explanation outdo its weight in loneliness -

why should we feel like we have to compare them when the story begins the same?

The more I look,

the stranger she appears.

- Raniah-Lilith Shahnaz

#raniah-lilith shahnaz #raniahlilithshahnaz #poetry #dark academia #literature #writers on tumblr #writing community #poets on tumblr #academia #female writers #women writers #female poets #poetry community #female rage #feminine rage #girlhood #womanhood #eldest daughter #gothic poetry #gothic literature #dark literature #dark poetry #dark fantasy #dark acadamia aesthetic #writers and poets #raniah-lilith

[raniahlilithshahnaz]

Jenny Hval, from Girls Against God

[raniahlilithshahnaz]

I love this mf

[raniahlilithshahnaz]

[raniahlilithshahnaz]

My eyes betrayed me the most. It’s why I didn’t like holding my gaze even in one-on-one conversation with someone for too long. They’d tell you exactly what I mean - and why I needed you to listen. They’d make you listen. And in the face of those you are supposed to guise - tone down - in front of, sometimes being listened to is the most dangerous thing.

- Raniah-Lilith Shahnaz

#raniah-lilith shahnaz #raniahlilithshahnaz #poetry #dark academia #writers and poets #academia #writers on tumblr #writing community #poets on tumblr #gothic poetry #gothic literature #women poets #women writers #dark fantasy #female rage #feminine rage #dark literature #dark poetry #dark acadamia aesthetic #literature #raniah-lilith

[raniahlilithshahnaz]

art by geokurgan