destructive-critic1sm

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The only valid lacroix flavor is lemoncello and you cannot change my mind

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“NEVER AN HONEST WORD

BUT THAT WAS WHEN I RULED THE WORLD”

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This is a journal entry, but I needed it to be public.

I was raised very conservatively, and now I'm a college student. My views have been changing for a long time, but it's more than the fact that it's a point of tension between me and my family now. I think since I have the perspective of both sides, I can more easily see everyone's logic. If everyone's views are a product of their circumstances, how am I supposed to know what's right? And please don't say "try to do the right thing" because I don't know what the right thing is anymore. Isn't everyone's moral compass also shaped by their experiences? If there is some objective morality, which I believe there is, how incredibly stupid would it be if I declared *myself* the authority of that morality? I want to stand for something, and god I want to write--something beautiful and haunting--but I can't bear the thought of putting my soul to paper like that. And how could I write something like that without strong opinions about anything (except the opinion that it's impossible to have a truly objective opinion, but then again, that opinion is colored by my circumstances, too, isn't it?)?

maybe I've been taking too many philosophy classes. I'm having this crisis, but there's this element of ridiculousness to it: like of course the intelligent-eldest-daughter-raised-to-be-compassionate-and-independent-but-also-submissive-to-an-eventual-husband-or-else-join-a-convent goes off to liberal college and comes back with too many philosophy classes spilling out of her head, not knowing what's true anymore but somehow also damn sure it's not what she was told. They had to have seen this coming, right? I was told that public schools would turn me liberal and gay, and maybe it has. But they named me after wisdom and decreed that philosophy would love me, and right now all I want is out, like I need to descend (ascend?) into some fervor of creation and come back with something beautiful that reaches out to people like me and sees them properly, puts into words for them those feelings that have been stuck, going stale at the back of their minds. Maybe they'll realize that the same thing that's wrong with me is what's wrong with them, and maybe it's not actually wrong like we've been told but actually incredibly right.

But I'm sitting in my English class as we dissect these works under a microscope, and each author has these flaws, and some of their works don't age well (but there's this gorgeous universal element that the truly good ones don't miss (truly good? who am I to say?)) and maybe it's okay that my work will be imperfect, and it's better that it exists imperfectly, but I couldn't stand to take it to publishing houses to be pulled apart and stitched back together until it's neither beautiful nor alive anymore, but instead a Frankensteined mess with half-chunks of my words spilling out of it, an effigy for profit. I'm rambling, and I know editors hate rambling, it's all about efficiency and cutting away the fat. But that's wrong, I know it is, and fat only ruins meat if it hasn't been roasted for long enough. I don't want my work coming out too early, I don't want to write it before I'm ready and make it emerge like a butterfly come too early out of its chrysalis, something that could have been, should have been, could (now) never be. But if I don't write now, I'll lose the unique perspective that this in-between period gives me. But isn't it presumptuous to compare myself to the greatest (greatest? who am I to say?) authors of the world? But weren't they like me once? But weren't they crazy, suicidal at best, and misogynistic at worst (a product of their times?)?

What do I do? What do I do? My mother went off to college, too. Maybe she didn't come back "wrong," maybe I did. Maybe I'm the strong one, for knowing when to let go of the way I was told to look at the world. Maybe she's the strong one, for holding tight to her convictions through professors and peers who told her she was wrong. I love my mother, and my greatest fear is that I will become her. She told me from a very young age that the point of the school system was to separate children from their parents, to sow mistrust. It worked. I needed it. It's terrible. I'm free. I'm still trapped within reality. Reality is all there is. isn't there more?

I need to write, and I'm scared, and I know that I need to just do it anyway, "do it scared." But I'm sick, somehow, (aren't we all), and whatever I was born needing to say (or whatever my experiences have told me I need to say), is so fragile and ephemeral that putting pen to paper distorts it, destroys it. We all know that the dictionary will never be enough, no matter how masterfully one can use it. But it's better than nothing. isn't it?

I get depressed sometimes, and my projects collect dust and my words go stale, dry-rotting in the tips of my fingers, my heart, the back of my mind, while my dorm room becomes less and less organized until it looks like the bedroom of a five-year-old and not an adult (I keep waiting to grow out of that, the mess). And I'll get stuck in a loop of scrolling on social media, and it colors my thoughts in a way I'd rather it didn't, but I need to escape sometimes, like being too aware is painful, like reality is too beautiful (too horrifying?) for comprehension. But I can't start something and I can't start something and I can't start something but I want to I want to I want to I want to but I can't stop scrolling. I can't keep my head in the sand and ignore the disasters and politics. I can't be willingly uninformed. Where do I find information, if everyone has their own agenda?

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“Average American leaks 3 government secrets” factoid is actually statistical error. Average American leaks 0 government secrets per year. Groupchat Georg, who added a reporter to the government secrets group chat, was an outlier adn should not have been counted.

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I call it “Comic New Roman”

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THE ROYAL GAME OF UR

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The duality of man

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More woven rose coverups 💕

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god i fucking love mason jars

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DEAR ONLINE RECIPE-CREATOR PEOPLE,

I DONT CARE IF YOU WANT TO SHARE YOUR ENTIRE LIFE STORY BEFORE YOUR RECIPE FOR PANCAKES

HOWEVER

PLEASE CHOOSE A FONT THAT MAKES IT VERY CLEAR WHAT THE FRACTIONS ARE IN THE INGREDIENTS LIST

SINCERELY,

someone who made pancakes from an online recipe and read “1 1/2” as “11/2” and made pancakes with eLeven aNd a HaLf cups of flour

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Hello! Life 360 is just the muggle version of the Marauder’s Map! Have a good day!

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It’s 1:42AM and all I know is that I don’t write enough.

All I know is that I think too much

Too little(?)

…letting my phone pull ribbonlike thoughts from my mind (ribbonlike? Bramble-like? Barbed wire made beautiful(?) (but hidden spikes still hurt)) it’s safer to feel too little than too much so I take the dopamine hits but

It’s 1:47AM and I can feel my soul tearing through my too-small skin

It’s made of book pages and candy wrappers and rice-paper (my skin, that is—too small, too fragile, thin, patchworked)

(I don’t know what my soul is made of, only that I’m afraid to know.

All I know is that it must be something that doesn’t take kindly to be bottled away—condensed stardust gathering dust, or water boiling on the stove. I was going to make tea.

I was going to

)

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Book rebinding question

Hi! Are there any bookbinders out there? I have a question. I'm trying (for the first time) to convert my paperback copy of a book into a hardcover, and I've also designed a new cover on Canva. Can I just print out the design from Canva? Does it need to be on special paper? My current plan is to print out the design on normal printer paper, glue it to thin cardboard, and use that as my hardcover. Will that work? Is there a better way to do this? (I'm brand-new to this, and all advice is welcome)

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Did this on a plain black T-shirt last night for Halloween!

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(giddy, spinning, circles- like butterflies or spiraling ashes)

“Look at us. Look at us! The sky is falling and so am I- maybe it’s useless to love when we’re living through screams and smoke instead of laughter and sunlight but can’t you get a little drunk on both? Isn’t there something special about loving you while the world burns?”

“You tell me the world burns, but who burnt it? You can’t romanticize the smoke and the screams when your fingertips are still match-stained. You promised to love me like there’s no tomorrow, but it’s your hand that threw the future to the flames.”

“That’s not fair-”

“I’m sure the families you threw in the fire you set said the same”

“You don’t understand! No- don’t interrupt me- we were going to change the world!”

And the world, changed, burned.

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The Convenience Store

It was typical. Industrial, fluorescent lighting, security-in-name-only cameras (steal, if it’s convenient), a red neon sign outside. Five lights. Letters buzzing stuttering flickering, no lights dead yet. They’ll need to be replaced soon. (they won't be)

They were typical. Boy-meets-girl, girl’s-purpose-is-to-be-met. They go arm-in-arm giggling, buzzing, heady romance and whispers. The night is empty and they want something to fill it. Dark parking lot, red sign, no lights dead yet. They tumble through the doors like gangly puppies, unsure of where their bodies start and end. 

A mechanical chime announces his intrusion. Rows of shelves under white lights. Rows of identical products and pricing, except for the details.

The boy finds flowers, near the line for the cashier. Suddenly stuttering, shy eyes, he offers them to the girl. (carnations, the color of the paint she wears on her nails and on her lips) She accepts with a smile, red-painted lips parting for bright white teeth. The lights falter as his heart skips a beat.

She takes the carnations, holds them close, breathes them in, and trades them for the cherry lollipop she found in her hand. 

Closed eyes, his hands fumble– wrapper off, tongue exploring, tasting cherry (his favorite). A reminder of summer, of the summers that brought him here, bright sunshine under the cherry tree refracted through those industrial lights– where’s the girl– rows of shelves under white lights, identical except for the details– she was just here–

–there, at the end of the aisle (women’s clothing), 

he walks dreamlike to her, through the aisle decorated with cheap stitchings, screen-printed jewels on thin fabrics

The girl takes his hand in hers (bright stiff white reaching for supple impressionable skin)

Their lips meet

The mannequin crashes forward and the boy falls to the floor

Eyelids flickering in time with the last light– she was just what he needed (just what he wanted? just what was there?)

they’ll need to be replaced soon.

Someone identical, except for the details.

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Imagine an origin myth that somebody might use to explain an eclipse, or some other celestial event.

He was silver, silent, subtle, and she was gregarious, glittering gold. They watched each other across the sky. First, it was envy- subtle silver longing to be bright, hot, attention-worthy, and Gold wishing to have the quiet beauty of the moon, longing to be looked at in wonder rather than squinted at by mortal eyes that can’t help but flinch away. Silver wanted awe, the self-evident importance of life-giving warmth, and maybe he wanted to outshine her, just once. Silver wished for wonder, but Gold wished to be truly seen, and Silver saw her. Over the days, across the sky, their shared envy turned slowly to appreciation, and they both found that they no longer wanted to be the other, but instead simply wanted each other. 

But they were separated by the sky like a sea, brought tantalizingly closer by the tides of the shifting planets, until the few days every month in which Silver shared Golden daylight, only to be pulled back to the night by the cruel cycles of the universe, back to his starry domain into which she could not follow. He wanted to touch her, to pull her close and show her the stars, but she was too bright to see the soft lights that decorated his kingdom, and too far across the sky for him to pull close, too far for him to feel her warmth. The other beings of the universe saw this and decided to shift their movements just slightly, so that sometimes, rarely, Silver and Gold could share minutes in each other’s arms. 

In those minutes, Gold saw Silver’s stars.

In those minutes, the mortals looked at them, together, with wide-open eyes.

In those minutes, Gold wreathed Silver with an ethereal crown and neither outshone the other.

In those minutes, they were more beautiful together than either could have imagined.

In those minutes, they named each other, 

and they told those names to no one at all.