kmikles

[kmikles]

Never ever be normal about fictional characters but please GOD be normal about the people who play them, I am begging you

[kmikles]

its funny how literally the only thing holding this website together is the fact that its kind of old fashioned and not tiktokky or algorithmy and now staff are trying to fuck that up

[kmikles]

Love really is just "I’m thinking of you. I will ask you if you are okay. I remember your favorite flavor of tea. I want to talk to you. I hope your mother is well. I will read to you. I like your laugh. I want to help you. I will sit next to you. I got you the chocolate you like. Your eyes have gold in them. I think you'd like this book. I miss you when you aren't here." isn't it?

[kmikles]

"Friends, Romans, Countrymen," from Julius Cesear

William Shakespeare

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I have come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interrèd with their bones. So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus Hath told you Caesar was ambitious. If it were so, it was a grievous fault, And grievously hath Caesar answered it. Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest (For Brutus is an honorable man; So are they all, all honorable men), Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral. He was my friend, faithful and just to me, But Brutus says he was ambitious, And Brutus is an honorable man. He hath brought many captives home to Rome, Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill. Did this in Caesar seem ambitious? When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept; Ambition should be made of sterner stuff. Yet Brutus says he was ambitious, And Brutus is an honorable man. You all did see that on the Lupercal I thrice presented him a kingly crown, Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious, And sure he is an honorable man. I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, But here I am to speak what I do know. You all did love him once, not without cause. What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him?— O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason!—Bear with me; My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, And I must pause till it come back to me.

[kmikles]

"Give me another horse," Richard iii

William Shakespeare

Give me another horse: bind up my wounds. Have mercy, Jesu!--Soft! I did but dream. O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me! The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight. Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh. What do I fear? myself? there's none else by: Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I. Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am: Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason why: Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself? Alack. I love myself. Wherefore? for any good That I myself have done unto myself? O, no! alas, I rather hate myself For hateful deeds committed by myself! I am a villain: yet I lie. I am not. Fool, of thyself speak well: fool, do not flatter. My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, And every tongue brings in a several tale, And every tale condemns me for a villain. Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree Murder, stem murder, in the direst degree; All several sins, all used in each degree, Throng to the bar, crying all, Guilty! guilty! I shall despair. There is no creature loves me; And if I die, no soul shall pity me: Nay, wherefore should they, since that I myself Find in myself no pity to myself? Methought the souls of all that I had murder'd Came to my tent; and every one did threat To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard.

[kmikles]

"To bait fish withal" Merchant of Venice

William Shakespeare

To bait fish withal. If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies, and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better

[kmikles]

Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening

Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

[kmikles]

Sonnet 21 from Sonnets from the Portuguese

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Say over again, and yet once over again, That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated Should seem "a cuckoo-song," as thou dost treat it, Remember, never to the hill or plain, Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed. Belovèd, I, amid the darkness greeted By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt’s pain Cry, "Speak once more—thou lovest!" Who can fear Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll, Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year? Say thou dost love me, love me, love me—toll The silver iterance!—only minding, Dear, To love me also in silence with thy soul.

[kmikles]

Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love Poem

Matthew Olzmann

So here’s what I’ve got, the reasons why our marriage might work: Because you wear pink but write poems about bullets and gravestones. Because you yell at your keys when you lose them, and laugh, loudly, at your own jokes. Because you can hold a pistol, gut a pig. Because you memorize songs, even commercials from thirty years back and sing them when vacuuming. You have soft hands. Because when we moved, the contents of what you packed were written inside the boxes. Because you think swans are overrated and kind of stupid. Because you drove me to the train station. You drove me to Minneapolis. You drove me to Providence. Because you underline everything you read, and circle the things you think are important, and put stars next to the things you think I should think are important, and write notes in the margins about all the people you’re mad at and my name almost never appears there. Because you made that pork recipe you found in the Frida Kahlo Cookbook. Because when you read that essay about Rilke, you underlined the whole thing except the part where Rilke says love means to deny the self and to be consumed in flames. Because when the lights are off, the curtains drawn, and an additional sheet is nailed over the windows, you still believe someone outside can see you. And one day five summers ago, when you couldn’t put gas in your car, when your fridge was so empty—not even leftovers or condiments— there was a single twenty-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew, which you paid for with your last damn dime because you once overheard me say that I liked it.

[kmikles]

For M

Mikko Harvey

I don’t want you to be nervous. Maybe thinking of a walrus would help. Have you seen the video of the penguin accidentally stepping on a sleeping walrus? It thought it was a rock. The walrus wakes up like what the fuck and the penguin scurries off like oh shit. Sometimes it’s funny watching a surprise happen, and not just funny but kind of amazing — like, you never really know what’s what when it comes to this planet. Then again, when it’s you getting surprised, that’s different. Especially for tender ones like us. What are we supposed to do? It’s bad for our hearts, you know. I hope you won’t need pills like I do. I think I get so scared because I’m greedy —  I want to hold onto everything, the world wants to take it away. What the fuck. The number of hours we have together is actually not so large. Please linger near the door uncomfortably instead of just leaving. Please forget your scarf in my life and come back later for it.

[kmikles]

Dream Deferred

By Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore– And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over– like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

[kmikles]

Vincent Benet’s Song for Three Soldiers, 1940

[kmikles]

We Lived Happily During the War by Ilya Kaminsky

[kmikles]

Anna Akhmatova’s Return to Leningrad by Sabine Holzman

[kmikles]

The Two-Headed Calf by Laura Gilpin

Art by Adam Ellis

[kmikles]

I Dreamt the Lowlands by Edna St. Vincent Millay from her book, Make Bright the Arrows (c. 1940)

[kmikles]

One by t.s.g.