When did I become I and the body? When did the two of us separate? ~ Adit Nagrath

1. Warsan Shire | 2. Maïté Grandjouan | 3. Porochista Khakpour | 4. Maïté Grandjouan | 5. Rainer Maria Rilke | 6. Holly Warburton | 7. Ocean Vuong | 8. Hollis Brown Thornton | 9. Ocean Vuong | 10. Laurie Halse Anderson | 11. Hollis Brown Thornton | 12. Richard Siken

portrait of a lady on fire, dir. céline sciamma // doubt comes in, hadestown // eurydice, sarah ruhl // metamorphoses: book x, ovid trans. anthony kline // “eurydice”, ocean vuong // talk, hozier

[Image Descriptions not found in alt text:

image 4: text from Metamorphoses: Book X by Ovid that reads “They took the upward path, through the still silence, steep and dark, shadowy with dense fog, drawing near the threshold of the upper world. Afraid she was no longer there, and eager to see her, the lover turned his eyes. In an instant she turned back, and he, unhappy man, stretching out his arms to hold her and be held, clutched at nothing but the receding air. Dying a second time now, there was no complaint to her husband (what, then, could she complain of, except that she had been loved?). She spoke a last ‘farewell’ that, now, scarcely reached his ears, and turned against towards that same plane.”

image 6: screenshot of lyrics from “Talk” by Hozier that reads “I’d be the voice that urged Orpheus / when her body was found / I’d be the choiceless hope in grief / That drove him underground / I’d be the dreadful need in the devotee / That made him turn around / And I’d be the immediate forgiveness / In Eurydice / Imagine being loved by me”

End Image Description]

Ocean Vuong, "Thanksgiving 2006" from Night Sky with Exit Wounds

some nights you are the lighthouse / some nights the sea

Ocean Vuong, from Night Sky with Exit Wounds; My Father Writes From Prison.

“Friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer.”   ― Oscar Wilde

1,3. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | 2.Anne Carson, Euripides | 4.Malcolm T. Liepke | 5.@i-wrotethisforme | 6,9,11,14.Hanya Yanagihara | 7.Arnold Lobel | 8.E. M. Forster | 10.Peter Wever | 12.Joseph Lorusso | 13.Ocean Vuong

remember, loneliness is still time spent with the world.

OCEAN VUONG

Night Sky with Exit Wounds (2016);

original photo and edit

“My father couldn't warm my frozen hands.” ― Tahereh Mafi

1.Ocean Vuong | 2.Adam Custins | 3.Simone de Beauvoir | 4.Adam Custins | 5.Ocean Vuong | 6.Adam Custins | 7.Sigmund Freud | 8.Adam Custins | 9.Victoria Chang | 10.Anne Magill | 11.Catherine Lacey

Brooklyn's too cold tonight & all my friends are three years away. My mother said I could be anything I wanted--but I chose to live.

Ocean Vuong, from ‘Thanksgiving 2006′, Night Sky With Exit Wounds

My voice cracking like bones inside the radio. Silly me. I thought love was real.

Ocean Vuong, from “Eurydice” featured in Night Sky with Exit Wounds

So I entered. So I lost.                  I lost it all with my eyes wide open.

Ocean Vuong, from Night Sky with Exit Wounds

Ocean Vuong ||| Nickie Zimov

& remember, loneliness is still time spent with the world.

Ocean Vuong, “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong”

Ocean Vuong, "Notebook Fragments" from Night Sky with Exit Wounds

Ocean Vuong, “Into the Breach”, Night Sky With Exit Wounds

[Text ID: “The body was made soft to keep us from loneliness. You said that.”

The cathedral in his sea-black eyes.

Ocean Vuong, from ‘Telemachus’. From Night Sky with Exit Wounds.

When I was alive, I aimed to be a student not of longing but of light. ― Maggie Nelson

1. Vincent van Gogh / 2. Alexander Harding / 3. Egon Schiele / 4. open house 1998 / 5. Ocean Vuong / 6. open house 1998 / 7. Leonard Cohen / 8. Alexander Harding / 9. Ocean Vuong / 10. Richard Siken / 11. Alexander Harding / 12. Richard Siken / 13. Jungho Lee / 14. Bram Stoker / 15. Alexander Harding / 16. Richard Siken / 17. Alexander Harding / 18. Don DeLillo

Spilled orange juice all over the table this morning. Sudden sunlight / I couldn’t wipe away.

Ocean Vuong, from “Notebook Fragments”, Night Sky With Exit Wounds

— Ocean Vuong, “Untitled (Blue, Green, and Brown): oil on canvas: Mark Rothko: 1952”; Night Sky with Exit Wounds (2016)

[Text ID: “Maybe we pray on our knees because god only listens when we’re this close to the devil.”]

I build a life & tear it apart & the sun keeps shining.

Ocean Vuong, from Daily Bread in “Night Sky With Exit Wounds”