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67% of American women are considered “plus-size,” but make up just 2% of images in the media. Explore the representation gap here.

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I haven’t found words for the gray-smudge sadness under my sternum. I got everything I wanted and didn’t realize it. I got nothing I wanted and made excuses.

excerpted from Primer by Aaron Smith and reviewed by Julie Marie Wade. (via therumpus)

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Of course we smile. We smile because despite terror in our own country, it is easier to scapegoat a religion rather than sensitive ourselves to the complexities of our modern world. We smile because it is easier to deny our own inability to find comfort with fellow citizens who don’t share our button noses and golden hair. We smile, pressing our AR-15s to our prayer-riddled hearts. We smile because our memories are dreadfully, embarrassingly short. We smile because honey, why don’t you smile, you’re prettier when you smile? We smile because it is the easy thing to do, so we do.

R.I.P. #7: Naiveté by Lee Matalone. (via therumpus)

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I am a lover without a lover. I am lovely and lonely and I belong deeply to myself.

Warsan Shire (via fyp-philosophy)

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You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.

Benjamin Mee  (via fyp-philosophy)

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The taco place at the the strip mall of disappointment.

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If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.

Noam Chomsky (via fyp-philosophy)

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“Love propels us beyond the circle of ego, and puts the welfare of others ahead of — or at least alongside — our own. 

Love spills over, beyond our ego, towards our family, our neighbors, our friends. But it must not stop there. Widen the circle of love.

Love puts the welfare of many families ahead of one’s own families, but it must not stop there. Widen the circle of love.

Love can bring together the many people living inside an imagined boundary, but it must not stop there. Widen the circle of love.

If instead of being projected along a national border, it projects towards embrace of a whole religious community, that, too, is a move towards the global and the universal. But it must not stop there. Widen the circle of love.”

— Omid Safi

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When in the entire American history did all lives matter?!

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Life just hurts people and hurts people, until finally it hurts them so that they can’t be hurt ever any more. That’s the last and worst thing it does.

F. Scott Fitzgerald (via quotemadness)

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The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

Friedrich Nietzsche (via fyp-philosophy)

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we were enjoying ourselves

Most of the wedding guests were on the deck next to the pool, dancing to jazzy electronic music. Others sat at the dimly lit outdoor bar. Our little group stood next to the dessert table, passing around a joint, talking and not talking.

  We moved our bodies maybe to the music, maybe because we were cold. I stood between the handsome hospital admin who went to high school with my boyfriend’s best friend and the saxophonist who used to play with the groom’s band before he fell in love with teaching fourth graders. My boyfriend mostly looked at the ground as he drank several beers. 

  “This is a comfortable group,” my boyfriend’s best friend’s girlfriend said.

“Are we being rude? By not dancing?” someone asked. 

“I don’t think we’re being rude. We’re enjoying ourselves.” I said to the circle as they nodded. 

We talked about Nishil’s tattoo of an avocado and the process of overcoming ourselves. The spaces between our bodies shrank as the blunt burned. We got high breathing in the smoke that expelled from each other’s faces. The handsome hospital admin smiled handsomely at no one in particular and I made eye contact with the saxophonist. 

  We validated the work each of us do for money. Especially encouraging were the Australian couple who, earlier, had surprised the bride and groom with a cover of John Prine’s “In Spite of Ourselves.” 

  “Right on,” they said to me, when I spoke to them about my work at a manufacturing startup led by a CEO who self-identifies as a Marxist.

We took polaroid photos of ourselves, silly ones and candid shots. We tasted one another’s drinks and shouted about anything it was we were saying. We discussed how to subvert the dominant paradigms of our culture. We posted photos of the polaroids online. 

  We thought privately about romantic love as we turned to the table behind us to claim the last of the gourmet cupcakes. We laughed through the subject of politics, and we agreed that Oakland is where we all ought to live. We sighed collectively. 

Around 3 a.m., my boyfriend leans over the dresser in our rented bungalow, his elbow crushing the beading on my clutch.

  “This just isn’t working,” he announces. 

I wonder where I’ve left my phone and I remove my heels from my feet.

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related types:

1. white women offended by formation because it’s ‘reverse racist’ or w/e 2. white women watching lemonade for the first time who can’t stop asking ‘when is formation going to be on here? will formation play next? i love formation where’s formation want me to show you my formation dance?’

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Are you becoming what you’ve always hated?

Charles Bukowski (via wordsnquotes)