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Saints of Little Faith, Megan Pinto

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Nicht zu erhalten (Sehnsucht)

A wish was all that poor girl had—

So fiendish, rugged, unparalleled—

Murmured to friends on empty roads,

Or shared beneath stained linens.

-

A virgin, although crumbling hope

That tarnished all around her.

O Lord, grant her the grace of love,

Or else the blade shall calm her.

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Her wounds, residing on her skin

Like unexpected phantoms—

The ones that haunt her lifeless dreams

And crown her garish longings:

-

(These wounds would pair up with her skin

And dance to sin’s sweet gigue.)

-

By wishing wells she lingered, still,

For a sweet boy to show her—

The force of love, of pure desire,

Of wanting and being wanted.

-

Of Brecht’s imperative to give,

With no need to obtain:

“Liebe ist der Wunsch.”

„Welcher Wunsch?“ fragte sie—

„…Zu geben, nicht zu erhalten.”

-

That which she kept saying to herself,

When prayer bore her nothing.

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Hi, I'm back from my totally accidental two-month hiatus!!

I’m so sorry if it felt like I ghosted some of you — I promise it wasn’t personal! I just needed a little break after the exams.

Anyway, here's a little poem I scribbled at 5am while "studying" (spiraling) for my music theory exams!

Can’t wait to catch up with all of you again, I’ve missed you sm!

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Alex Light

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"Kindness is the most powerful force in the world."

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'But if I am to be so changed that I shall cease to adore you with my whole heart and soul, and love you beyond every other creature, I shall not be myself; and though, if ever I win heaven at all, I must, I know, be infinitely better and happier than I am now, my earthly nature cannot rejoice in the anticipation of such beatitude, from which itself and its chief joy must be excluded.'

- Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Brontë

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Lidia Yuknavitch, from Reading the Waves: A Memoir published in 2025

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i remember learning the word melancholy at age 7 or something and thinking oh this word's gonna be huge for me

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Δεν μπορείς να πείσεις έναν πιστό για τίποτε. Επειδή η πίστη του δεν βασίζεται σε αποδείξεις, αλλά σε μια βαθιά ριζωμένη ανάγκη για να πιστέψει.

-Καρλ Σαγκάν

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Ποτέ δεν έπαψα να αγαπώ

Μερικές φορές, η πίστη μου με φοβίζει

Άλλες φορές με αηδιάζει, με πονάει.

Τις περισσότερες, με κάνει να αμφιβάλλω.

Όμως, όταν διαβάζω εδάφια σαν κι αυτό, νιώθω πως κάπου, κάπως, υπάρχει αλήθεια

έστω κι αν δεν είναι τίποτε άλλο παρά ένας ασήμαντος σιναπόσπορος.

Στο κάτω κάτω, τόση είναι και η αντοχή μου μακριά από την αμαρτία.

Τόσο αντέχω, πριν πέσω πάλι στην αγκαλιά της, με μισοχαρούμενα, μισοσυντετριμμένα δάκρυα

Τουλάχιστον ξέρω πως ποτέ δεν έπαψα να αγαπώ.

Και είμαι σίγουρη πως αυτό είναι που θέλει ο Θεός μου

πέρα απ’ όλα.

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Και είσαι ατίθαση γλυκιά μου.

Ατίθαση σαν τα μαλλιά σου.

Αχ πόσο μου έχουν λείψει τα κόκκινα μαλλιά σου.

Τα έκανες μαύρα γλυκιά μου σαν την πονεμένη μου καρδιά.

Μαύρο,αυτό είν��ι το χρώμα που με περιτριγυρίζει από όταν έφυγες.

Ισως και από πιο πριν απλά τώρα με έχει περιελλάβει ολοκληρωτικά.

Νιώθω ένα χάος στο μυαλό μου.

Μου είχες γράψει πως θες να είσαι εκεί οπότε κάποιος δαίμονας τριτώνει στο μυαλό μου και μου λέει τα χειρότερα αλλά δεν είσαι εδώ.

Σε έδιωξα από το φόβο μου μην με δεις έτσι και τρομάξεις εσύ.

Μα εσύ ήδη γνώριζες και εγώ ? Εγώ ήμουν εγωιστής δεν ήθελα να το παραδεχτώ.

Να παραδεχτώ τι ? Οτι μέσα τόσο λίγο καιρό ναι με κατάλαβες καλύτερα από τον κάθε ένα?

Φοβόμουν καρδούλα μου,φοβόμουν να παραδεχτώ πως πονάω.

Αλλά το ήξερες ήδη και με αγάπησες για αυτό.

Και εγώ ήμουν ��λίθιος που φέρθηκα έτσι.

Και οι δύο φερθήκαμε σκάρτα ο ένας στον άλλον,ενώ άμα μιλούσαμε τα λύναμε,όλα θα ήταν καλύτερα.

Και εγώ θα μπορούσα να κουρνιάσω στην αγκαλιά σου ξέροντας πως δεν θα κριθώ για ό,τι νιώθω.

Γιατί πρώτα το ένιωσες εσύ και φυσικά θα μπορούσες να με βοηθήσεις να νιώσω καλά με τον πόνο μου.

Καρδούλα μου γλυκιά και καλή δύναμη μου θα γίνεις. Εχει γίνει ήδη απλά φοβάμαι.

Θα έρθω καρδούλα μου στο υπόσχομαι απλά δώσε μου χρόνο και θα έρθω.

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Villette, Charlotte Brontë

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Happy birthday, Charlotte Brontë!

My literary mother was born on this day in 1816, in Haworth, England. Charlotte, who dreamt of glass cities in Angria, who walked out of the secluded parsonage into a different realm and kept writing even as death took all her siblings away, far into the moorish fog.

There’s something so girl-coded about her; the quiet defiance, the inner fervour concealed beneath strained respectability, the way she writes longing like it’s a place of worship crumbling and being rebuilt constantly.

She was flawed, yes. Not every view of hers has aged well. But her strength to write what clawed through her chest every night is more than enough.

Lucy Snowe is the ghost I turn into when I disappear from my own life. Her solitude speaks to me more than I dare listen to. Her invisible, yet almost iron, martyr-like restraint makes me understand her to the point of fear.

Caroline Helstone, too — the pain of not being enough, of shrinking so small you start wondering if or when you'll disappear. I’ve stood where she stands, in rooms full of people who don’t see — and pretended that this gave me contentment.

But I strive to be Jane Eyre.

Jane, with her sharp spirit and her relentless dignity, her refusal to be less than whole. Jane, who walks away when it would be easier to stay, who returns on her own terms. Jane, who knows that love without morality is just a prettier cage, a rose that pierces you as much as it intoxicates you with its fragrance.

Charlotte gave me those women — with their complexity, their flawed, blasphemous by some, knotty selves. She wrote them, and in writing them, she wrote a piece of me; a piece I thought had better stay hidden, a piece I claimed to be completely misunderstood, lost — but I found myself wandering in long-dried ink, in obsolete prose.

So, happy birthday, my lovely literary mother, not only to you as an author, but as a governess, a teacher, a sister, and an artist. Mainly as a woman. Thank you for being one of the first to give us a voice, and not apologise for doing so.

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~ Cesare Saccaggi, Lady (1908) (detail)

via gogmsite.net on pinterest

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Today we celebrate the boy who died & came back just to say “i love you, child”.

The messiah has risen. So have I, and you — the souls of all. The purity we firmly held in youth, the secrets deemed too “filthy” to voice aloud, the guilt, and the rage.

The hymns we chant, grasping little of their archaic words — yet ever feeling the Spirit's touch on our vocal cords and hearts.

He is risen.

& so are you.

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Nikos Kazantzakis, from a letter featured in The Selected Letters of Nikos Kazantzakis

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“The negation of severe suffering was the nearest approach to happiness I expected to know. Besides, I seemed to hold two lives - the life of thought, and that of reality.”

— Charlotte Brontë, Villette