sweetsoftwaters

[sweetsoftwaters]

“However much you wanted someone to want you, there was nothing you could do to make it happen. Whatever you did for them, whatever you gave them, whatever you let them take, it could never be enough. Never enough to be sure. Never enough to satisfy them. Never enough to stop them walking away. Never enough to make them love you.”

Manna Francis

[sweetsoftwaters]

To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.

— Arundhati Roy, The Cost of Living

[sweetsoftwaters]

to the young who want to die by Gwendolyn Brooks

[sweetsoftwaters]

Miller's Girl (2024)

[sweetsoftwaters]

jenny holzer's plaques; cast bronze, 1980-1982. "YOU SHOULD LIMIT THE NUMBER OF TIMES YOU ACT AGAINST YOUR NATURE, LIKE SLEEPING WITH PEOPLE YOU HATE. IT'S INTERESTING TO TEST YOUR CAPABILITIES FOR A WHILE. BUT TOO MUCH WILL CAUSE DAMAGE."

[sweetsoftwaters]

jenny holzer, in a dream

[sweetsoftwaters]

“Of course, you never really forget anyone, but you certainly release them. You stop allowing their history to have any meaning for you today. You let them change their haircut, let them move, let them fall in love again. And when you see this person you have let go, you realize that there is no reason to be sad. The person you knew exists somewhere, but you are separated by too much time to reach them again.”

— Chelsea Fagan

[sweetsoftwaters]

Natalie Díaz, from "American Arithmetic", Postcolonial Love Poem

[sweetsoftwaters]

“The loss of stories sharpens the hunger for them. So it is tempting to fill in the gaps and to provide closure where there is none. To create a space for mourning where it is prohibited. To fabricate a witness to a death not much noticed.”

— Saidiya Hartman (via upwardifly)

[sweetsoftwaters]

— Mark Strand, Seven Poems

[text ID: A scar remembers the wound. / The wound remembers the pain. / Once more you are crying.]

[sweetsoftwaters]

— Love, Paruyr Sevak

[text ID: You have become so delicate / And vulnerable, / As if you're living without a skin. / - That's Love.

text ID: Քնքշացել ես այնքա՜ն / Ու խոցելի՛ դա��ձել,, / Կարծես թե ապրում ես առանց մաշկի։ / -Սերն է։]

[sweetsoftwaters]

— Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

[text ID: We’re always thinking of eternity as an idea that cannot be understood, something immense. But why must it be? What if, instead of all this, you suddenly find just a little room there, something like a village bath-house, grimy, and spiders in every corner, and that’s all eternity is. Sometimes, you know, I can’t help feeling that that’s what it is.]

[sweetsoftwaters]

“The isolation, the separateness, is always a part of any utopia. And it was my meditation, if you will, and interrogation of the whole idea of paradise, the safe place, the place full of bounty, where no one can harm you. But, in addition to that, it’s based on the notion of exclusivity. All paradises, all utopias are designed by who is not there, by the people who are not allowed in.”

- Toni Morrison, Conversations about “Paradise”.

[sweetsoftwaters]

We told the white missionary that we had such fables too, but kept them for the entertainment of those yet growing up — fables of gods and devils and a supreme being above everything. We told him we knew soft minds needed such illusions, but that when any mind grew among us to adulthood it grew beyond these fables and came to understand that there is indeed a great force in the world, a force spiritual and able to shape the physical universe, but that that force is not something that is cut off, not something separate from ourselves. It is an energy in us, strongest in our working, breathing, thinking together as one people; weakest when we are scattered, confused, broken into individual, unconnected fragments.”

— Ayi Kwei Armah

[sweetsoftwaters]

“Maybe courage is more important than love, love can’t save a family but courage does

Yakari Gabriel

[sweetsoftwaters]

“Live in the legacy of love now. You are so worthy of not just jumping into bed at night, but preparing your body for deep slumber and restorative rest. Feed your life force with night time rituals. Listen to soft music. Stretch your body out. Massage your skin with oils with gentleness and care. It doesn’t matter what happened during the day, take time to handle yourself with care especially before you go to bed. Observe how much brighter your dreams will be and how much more restored you wake up the next day and create more love from there.”

— India Ame’ye, Author

[sweetsoftwaters]

“you can be ready for love and still tremble, winch, want to flee. you can be ready for love and still battle the urge to end it before it ever gets ruined.”

— Upile.