poetryisanacatalepsy - Tumblr blog

[poetryisanacatalepsy]

Don’t give up in the face of criticism. Learn to brush aside what people who don’t know you have to say. Having critics means what you’re doing is getting people’s attention. Have courage, and continue down the path you’re on.

[poetryisanacatalepsy]

I wish you could see my true nature. Beyond my body and labels, there is a river of tenderness and vulnerability. Beyond stereotypes and assumptions, there is a valley of openness and authenticity. Beyond memory and ego, there is an ocean of awareness and compassion.

[poetryisanacatalepsy]

When you have an unpleasant feeling, don’t grab hold of it and turn it over and over. Instead, leave it alone so it can flow. The wave of emotion will naturally recede on its own as long as you don’t feed it by dwelling on it. To get food unstuck from a frying pan, just pour water in the pan and wait. After a while the food loosens on its own. Don’t struggle to heal your wounds. Just pour time into your heart and wait. When your wounds are ready, they will heal on their own.

[poetryisanacatalepsy]

I squeeze myself into the subway car. People are crowded all around me. I can either get annoyed or think it’s fun that I don’t have to grab a handrail. People react differently to the same situation. If we look at it more closely, we see it’s not the situation that is troubling us, but our perspective on it.

The Things You Only See When You Slow Down, Haemin Sunim

[poetryisanacatalepsy]

The world we see is not the entire universe but a limited one that the mind cares about. However, to our minds, that small world is the entire universe. Our reality is not the infinitely stretching cosmos but the small part we choose to focus on. Reality exists because our minds exist. Without the mind, there would be no universe. I realize it isn’t the outside world that is a whirlwind; it is only my mind. The world has never complained about how busy it is. When your mind rests, the world also rests.

The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down, Haemin Sunim

[poetryisanacatalepsy]

I was both scattered and stymied, surrounded by unfinished songs and abandoned poems. I would go as far as I could and hit a wall, my own imagined limitations. And then I met a fellow who gave me his secret, and it was pretty simple. When you hit a wall, just kick it in.

Just Kids, Patti Smith

[poetryisanacatalepsy]

The people, refusing to leave, began to boo. Janis was distraught. 'They're booing me, man,' she cried to Bobby. Bobby brushed the hair out of her eyes. 'They're not booing you, darling,' he said. 'They're booing the rain.'

Just Kids, Patti Smith

[poetryisanacatalepsy]

Picasso didn't crawl in a shell when his beloved Basque Country was bombed. He reacted by creating a masterpiece in Guernica to remind us of the injustices committed against his people.

Just Kids, Patti Smith

[poetryisanacatalepsy]

Once upon a time there was a king who had three beautiful daughters. He gave them whatever their hearts desired, and when they grew of age their marriages were celebrated with grand festivities. When the youngest daughter gave birth to a baby girl, the king and queen were overjoyed. Soon afterward, the middle daughter gave birth to a girl of her own, and the celebrations were repeated. Last, the eldest daughter gave birth to twin boys - but alas, all was not as one might hope. One of the twins was human, a bouncing baby boy; the other was no more than a mouseling. There was no celebration. No announcements were made. The eldest daughter was consumed with shame. One of her children was nothing but an animal. He would never sparkle, sunburnt and blessed, the way members of the royal family were expected to do. The children grew, and the mouseling as well. He was clever and always kept his whiskers clean. He was smarter and more curious than his brother or his cousins. Still, he disgusted the king and he disgusted the queen. As soon as she was able, his mother set the mouseling on his feet, gave him a small satchel in which she had placed a blueberry and some nuts, and sent him off to see the world. Set out he did, for the mouseling had seen enough of courtly life to know that should he stay home he would always be a dirty secret, a source of humiliation to his mother and anyone who knew of him.  He did not even look back at the castle that have been his home. There, he would never even have a name. Now, he was free to go forth and make a name for himself in the wide, wide world. And maybe, just maybe, he'd come back one day, and burn that fucking  palace  to the ground.

We Were Liars, E. Lockhart

[poetryisanacatalepsy]

I was early when I got there, so I just sat down on one of those leather couches right near the clock in the lobby and watched the girls. A lot of schools were home for vacation already, and there were about a million girls sitting and standing around waiting for their dates to show up. Girl with their legs crossed, girls with their legs not crossed, girls with terrific legs, girls with lousy legs, girls that looked like swell girls, girls that looked like they'd be bitches if you knew them. It was really nice, sightseeing, if you know what I mean. In a way, it was sort of depressing, too, because you kept wondering what the hell would happen to all of them. When they got out of school and college, I mean. You figured most of them would probably marry dopey guys. Guys that always talk about how many miles they get to a gallon in their goddamn cars. Guys that get sore and childish as hell if you beat them at golf, or even just some stupid game like ping-pong. Guys that are very mean. Guys that never read books. Guys that are very boring - But I have to be careful about that. I mean about calling certain guys bores. I don't understand boring guys. I really don't. When I was at Elkton Hills, I roomed for about two months with this boy, Harris Macklin. He was very intelligent and all, but he was one of the biggest bores I ever met. He had one of these very raspy voices, and he never stopped talking, practically. He never stopped talking, and what was awful was, he never said anything you wanted to hear in the first place. But he could do one thing. The sonuvabitch could whistle better than anybody I ever heard. He'd be making his bed, or hanging up stuff in the closet - he was always hanging up stuff in the closet - it drove me crazy- and he'd be whistling while he did it, if he wasn't talking in this raspy voice. He could even whistle classical stuff, but most of the time he just whistled jazz. He could take something very jazzy, like 'Tin Roof Blues,' and whistle it so nice and easy - right while he was hanging stuff up in the closet - that it would kill you. Naturally, I never told him I thought he was a terrific whistler. I mean you don't just go up to somebody and say,'You're a terrific whistler.' But I roomed with him for about two whole months, even though he bored me till I was half crazy, just because he was such a terrific whistler, the best I ever heard. So I don't know about bores. Maybe you shouldn't feel too sorry if you see some swell girl getting married to them. They don't hurt anybody, most of them, and maybe they're secretly all terrific whistlers or something. Who the hell knows? Not me.

The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger 

[poetryisanacatalepsy]

' I was lucky. All of a sudden I thought of something that helped make me know I was getting the hell out. I suddenly remembered this time, in around October, that I and Robert Tichener and Paul Campbell were chucking a football around, in front of the academic building. They were nice guys, especially Tichener. It was just before dinner and it was getting pretty dark out, but we keep chucking the ball around anyway. It kept getting darker and darker, and we could hardly see any more, but we didn't stop doing what we were doing.

The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger

[poetryisanacatalepsy]

She laughs. 'You're missing the point, Sam. These are all good things, all normal things. And rather than enjoying them, you find a way to twist them into something toxic.'  I roll my eyes and let out a sigh. 'Trust me, I want to stop thinking. I wish I could.' [...]  'You should hit baseballs.'  'Baseballs,' I say flatly. 'My dad and I used to go to the batting cages at the park. Have you ever been?' 'I think I went when I was a little kid. It was ages ago. I don't really remember it. Why?' 'You get in the cage all alone.' Caroline sits up straight and begins talking louder and faster, using her hands for emphasis. Then you grab your bat and take your stance, and even though you're expecting it, there's a sense of surprise when this ball comes flying out of the machine right at you. So you grip the bat tighter and bring it to your shoulder. You watch the ball. Then you step into it and swing.' 'Okay,' I say, wondering where she's going with this. 'You hear this crack when the bat connects, and then the ball's gone, soaring off into the distance. But you can't relax, because now there's another ball speeding your way. So you tighten your grip, take your stance, and swing again. And you keep going until your time runs out. By then, your shoulder is throbbing and you're totally out of breath, but you feel pretty damn good.' 'You're saying my thoughts are like baseballs.' Her lips curl into a satisfied grin. 'Exactly. And you, my friend, stand there in the batting cage and let those balls smack you in the head, over and over again. But you don't have to.'She taps her finger against her temple. 'You have a perfectly good bat.' 'I have a broken bat.' 'Eh. It'll do.'

Every Last Word, Tamara Ireland Stone

[poetryisanacatalepsy]

I let out a heavy sigh. 'When am I going to stop making mistakes, Sue?' Her laugh catches me off guard, and I look up at her, wide eyed and confused. 'Why on earth would you want to do that?' she asks. I stare at her. ' Mistakes. Trial and error. Same thing. Mistakes are how we learned to walk and run and that hot things burn when you touch them. You've made mistakes all your life and you're going to keep making them.' 'Terrific.' 'The trick is to recognise your mistakes, take what you need from them, and move on.'  ' I can't move on.' 'You can't beat yourself up, either.'

Every Last Word, Tamara Ireland Stone

[poetryisanacatalepsy]

I have chosen the wrong day to talk to Dadda- a white-nuckle day. '... and so if you do want to be a writer, Johanna,' he says, lips thin, and white, with fury,'... if you want to be a fucking writer--- then be a fucking writer. Just fucking write. Write something! WRITE SOMETHING. Stop fucking going on about it. I can't stand you going on and on about it. Get on with it. What are you waiting for? Get out of here.'

How to Build a Girl, Caitlin Moran

[poetryisanacatalepsy]

Because my biggest secret of all-the one I would rather die than tell, the one I wouldn't even put in my diary- is that I really, truly, in my heart, want to be beautiful. I want to be beautiful so much- because it will keep me safe, and keep me lucky, and it's too exhausting not to be. And standing here, looking at myself, in cold horror, in the monitor, I can see what a million people are going to immediately notice: that I am not. I am not beautiful at all [...] I look at me in the monitor, and I can see me very quickly looking down at the poem in my hands, and reading it very intently- because I don't care what I look like. I am a poet, and a writer, and I deal with hearts and souls and words, and not meat and vanity and a dress that would have made me look better. It doesn't matter that I am ugly. I will just have to work out how, exactly, that is true. I will prove that it doesn't matter that I am ugly, later on.

How to Build a Girl, Caitlin Moran

[poetryisanacatalepsy]

'If you're working class, and you want to get out of here, you either become a boxer, or a footballer, or a Popstar,' he says, finally. ' That's your only way out. Obviously, I chose being a Popstar.'  There is a small pause here, as we both consider his career, so far, as a Popstar.  'But you,' he continues. 'You've got your writing.'  'It's only one poem, Da.'

How to Build a Girl, Caitlin Moran 

[poetryisanacatalepsy]

So far, the only plan I've come up with is writing. I can write, because writing - unlike choreography, architecture or conquering kingdoms - is a thing you can do when you're lonely and poor, and have no infrastructure, ie: a ballet troupe, or some cannons. Poor people can write. It's one of the few things poverty, and lack of connections, cannot stop you doing. I am currently writing a book, in the endless, empty hours of the day. It's about a very fat girl who rides a dragon around the world and through time, doing good deeds.

How to Build a Girl, Caitlin Moran