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my understanding of Amrita, Imroz, Sahir & their unique dynamics

Sahir’s love made her restless. He was like a gust of wind, reaching her for moments, then withering into a smothering air. She could feel him, his presence but never touch him. He was there with her, in memory, in thoughts, in poetry and the ink of her pen but never in flesh. His love excited her but didn’t satiate her desires.

But Imroz was her anchor. When her boat rocked in the turmoils caused by her circumstances, he placated her. But though, he stabilised her, he also set her free. Free from any expectations or formalities. Like a kite she’d take flight, a string loosely in his hands, interlacing around his fingers. She still felt Sahir’s wind from time to time but he did not mind. For he was grateful enough to have her. & if her heart beat for another one at the same time, he accepted all without fright.

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assume that things will go well. don't let people be rude to you. maintain good habits. do things that you don't feel like doing. you can always take a moment to think before acting. on the other hand, you don't have to think about everything. everyone doesn't have to agree but we can treat each other decently. small talk can be pleasant and is often nonjudgemental. find interesting recipes. take out the time for pleasure. if you're tired of fiction, you can read nonfiction and vice-versa. no one is better than another for being louder, looking a certain way, or having done certain things—we're all people. you don't have to react or 'win.' look up cleaning videos, if needed. make lists and use calendars. a lot of things are not personal. it helps to not try to actively read people and to, instead, just meet people where they are. you learn a lot about others just by being present for them and listening.

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Sappho, from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho; tr. by Anne Carson

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I have three modes of reading

Dont read

Read a 500 page book in a day

Read only fanfiction until my eyeballs drop out of my skull from exhaustion

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[1] Summer clouds are racing across the sky on Monet's pond, [2] Current in a summer sky,(Monet's pond) | Reiji Hiramatsu

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yall ever just yearn? ever get filled with the most profound sense of longing for something you cant understand? yall ever crave? ever have an unexplainable ache?

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funniest part of the homeric hymn to hermes is when hermes not only lies to apollo about stealing his cattle on the basis that he is an infant, but he also tries to gaslight apollo by claiming that he doesn't even know what a cow is

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― Ivan Bunin, The Collected Stories

[text ID: In October I confessed my love for her, and she allowed me to kiss her.]

˗ˏˋ☕ˎˊ˗  

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Azaleas, Kim Sowol 김소월

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— Susan Sontag, As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks

[text ID: My library is an archive of longings.]

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“For the Courtesan Ch’ing Ling” by Chinese poet 吳藻 (1799-1862), translation by Kenneth Rexroth and copied from Love Poems by Women, an internationally-minded, feminist anthology compiled by Welsh poet Wendy Mulford in 1991.

The biographical note on Wu Tsao reads:

The daughter and wife of merchants, she is China’s best known lesbian poet.

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Wu Zao  — For the Courtesan Ch'ing Lin.

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ਭਾਵੇਂ ਜ਼ੁਹਦ ਇਬਾਦਤਾਂ ਲੱਖ ਹੋਵਣ

ਇਸ਼ਕ ਬਾਝ ਨਜਾਤ ਨਾ ਮੂਲ ਮੀਆਂ - ਵਾਰਿਸ ਸ਼ਾਹ

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“Come to me again when the moon Moves the flower shadows.”

— Li Qingzhao, from Thoughts from the Women’s Quarter (tr. by Kenneth Rexroth & Ling Chung)

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Sorrow of Separation, The Complete Ci-poems of Li Qingzhao: A New English Translation by Jiaosheng Wang

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