#your absence has gone through me like thread through a needle

[anouri]

Donna Tartt, from The Goldfinch (2013)

[calvinandhobbes]

takiawase 2.04 / aperitivo 3.04

[alienside]

orpheus but he's sisyphus

Ovid’s The Story of Orpheus and Eurydice (tr. Rolfe Humphries) / Spirited Away dir. Hayao Miyazaki / @mag200 / Jenny Diski, “Housewife” / Franz Wright, God's Silence / Adrianne Kalfopoulou, “Poem in Pieces, a Log” / Jon Ware, I am in Eskew / Kazimierz Wierzyński, “A Word of Orphists” (tr. Czeslaw Milosz) / @prisonhannibal / Aeschylus, The Oresteia / Ocean Vuong, Eurydice

image ids under cut:

image 1: a quote from Ovid that reads: "And Orpheus received her, but one term was set: he must not, till he passed Avernus, turn back his gaze, or the gift would be in vain."

image 2: excerpt from the script of the film Spirited Away that reads: "Haku: But I can't go any farther. Just go back the way you came, you'll be fine. [highlighted] But you have to promise not to look back, not until you've passed through the tunnel."

image 3: a drawing, labeled in all-caps handwriting "a venn diagram of love vs. grief:". the drawing is a single circle.

image 4: an excerpt, highlighted and italicized, from Jenny Diski that reads: "People don't understand about repetition, do they? How it is at the heart (thump, thump, thump) of obsession; at the erotic centre (drip, drip, drip) of desire. You do, of course. Repetition is insatiability spelt sideways."

image 5: a quote from Franz Wright reading, "And let me ask you this: the dead, where aren't they?"

image 6: a quote from Adrianne Kalfopoulou in red text, reading, "Grief will keep you reaching back / for what is not there"

image 7: an excerpt from Jon Ware that reads, "Here's my question. If the ghost wants nothing more than to be witnessed, why would it appear behind you, not in front of you? The only answer I can think of is this: [underlined] it appears behind you because it already knows, to an absolute certainty, that you will have no choice but to look back."

image 8: a quote from Kazimierz Wierzyński that reads: "I understood the true fate of Orpheus, that [highlighted] love is a constant terror of loss."

image 9: a screenshot of a tumblr ask from an anonymous user who says, "What's the point?" user prisonhannibal responds, "of what? it's love though".

image 10: two lines from aeschylus reading, "Orestes: This was always going to happen. She's been dead since the beginning."

image 11: an excerpt from Ocean Vuong that reads, "Your absence has gone through me // Like thread through a needle. / Everything I do is stitched with its color."

end ids.

[metamorphesque]

Your absence has gone through me Like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color.

W. S. Merwin, Separation

[soracities]

"I’ve found a prisoner’s letters to a lover— One begins: “These words may never reach you.” Another ends: “The skin dissolves in dew without your touch.”

—Agha Shahid Ali, from "The Country Without a Post-Office"

"Unreachable as I think of you, touching you with my eyes, watching you with my hands."

—Octavio Paz, from "Before the Beginning" (trans. Eliot Weinberger)

"Your absence has gone through me Like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color."

—W.S. Merwin, from “Separation"

"I love you, I'm waiting for you unbearably..."

—Vladimir Nabokov, Letters to Véra

"Who does not know what it is like to go with a friend to a railway station and then to watch the train take them away? As you walk along the platform back into the city, the person who has just gone is often more there, more totally there, than when you embraced them before they climbed into the train. When we embrace to say goodbye, maybe we do it for this reason—to take into our arms what we want to keep when they’ve gone."

—John Berger, "Will It Be a Likeness?"

[astrronomemes]

FOR MY ABSENT LOVER : STARTERS

a collection of quotes, phrases, and sayings, from various novels / songs / poems / prose, for muses in a long-distance relationship.

“I am afraid I will love you forever, and we will never be in the same room again.”

“You’re worth every mile between us.”

“If I forget her face, then I know there will be nothing left of me.”

“We were always going to say goodbye, weren’t we?”

“In a parallel universe, or another world, or a different life, we sit across from each other at the kitchen table and go over the grocery list.”

“I am jealous of your tattoos, and how long they will stay with you after I go.”

“I went to sleep last night so I could see you.”

“Your absence has gone through me like a thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color.”

“I miss the sound of your voice.”

“I get so lonely for you that I feel sick.”

“I must admit, I miss you terribly. The world is too quiet without you nearby.”

“I feel like shit when you’re not here.”

“Hell is loving you in my sleep, and waking up alone.”

“Some nights, I lay in bed, and imagine what I’d be doing if you were here with me.”

“I will be seeing you soon, and it will be better than anything else.”

“Just in case you ever foolishly forget: I am never not thinking of you.”

“What time is it where you are?”

“I miss you more than anything.”

“I’m back at home, and you feel so far.”

“Trying to figure out the time zone is making me crazy.”

“It’s driving me mad. I miss you so bad.”

“I keep your picture in my car.”

“I want to share your horizon, and see the same sun rising.”

“Turn the hour-hand back to when you were holding me.”

“All I want is to be where you are.”

“I exist in two places: here, and where you are.”

“I think of you at two in the morning when I can’t sleep, and I wish you were there to hold me.”

“I’ll make up for all the years I was supposed to be kissing you.”

“There still might be a place for us somewhere.”

“Come back. Even as a shadow. Even as a dream.”

“Next time I see you, we are going to kiss for a very long time.”

“I need you so much closer.”

“At least we’re under the same sky.”

“I’m on my way home to you.”

“Baby, take your medicine, and promise me you’re eating.”

[archangel-lucerys]

Your absence has gone through me

Like thread through a needle.

Everything I do is stitched with its color.

Separation by W. S. Merwin// Lucerys Velaryon and Rhaenyra Targaryen

[aethersea]

Separation

Your absence has gone through me

Like thread through a needle.

Everything I do is stitched with its color.

—W.S. Merwin

[dk-thrive]

Your absence has gone through me Like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color.

—W. S. Merwin, from "Separation" in "The Second Four Books of Poem (Copper Canyon Press, 1993)

[yeahcurrahhe-e]

𝐘𝐎𝐔’𝐑𝐄 𝐎𝐍

𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐎𝐖𝐍, 𝐊𝐈𝐃

〚 𝐆. 𝐋𝐔𝐙 〛

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 ➛ language

𝐑𝐄𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓 ➛ anonymous: Can I request prompt four from the happy prompt list with George Luz please? — prompt used: “i’m here for you”

𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑’𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄 ➛ lol this is so short and the ending is shit

𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 ➛ @inglourious-imagines

𝐈𝐍 𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐉𝐔𝐗𝐓𝐀𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐖𝐈𝐒𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘, every soldier discovers that their fondest companion throughout the bloodshed, blasts of artillery, and misery, is loneliness.

From either the sticking of the final stamp on the envelope secured with an enlistment form, or the letter decreeing monotonously that they had been drafted, they had been on their own.

They have their fellow soldiers, but each one has their reservations about companionship — I might be laughing with you one day, and that very night may be struck paralyzed by your absence as I cradle your dirt-ridden dog tags.

The human desire for socialization — an accompanying heartbeat that exists alongside them in a world that has pivoted — it’s all a price to be paid towards the bank of war. Nobody quite knows when the pay is due; it just simply is gone one day, and you’re left bitter.

But, she couldn’t fathom the bitterness that gradually tiptoed into her boyfriend, George Luz, frigid as the European air outside their HQ and burdensome as an anchor.

She watched him now, watched how the hostility reared its head through curt and blunt remarks that weren’t promptly balanced with his quick-wit quips. Each word is a sharp, metaphorical shove against the shoulders of those that crowd him, their gloved and callused hands entangling in greed to pluck a Hershey bar or other reminder of home from the counter. His disgruntled words are persistent in their pursuit to push each man away, forsaken him to the companionship of a hodgepodge of chocolate bars, cigarettes, magazines, comics, and a few miscellaneous cans of food…perhaps some pathetic whisper of himself would watch them walk away — limbs intact, heartbeats not wearied by a bullet or artillery. Maybe even imagine Muck and Penkala in their midst.

“I don’t got enough for all of ‘ya!” he’s proclaimed it for a consuming time, and now his voice crescendos into a tone that was every aspect foreign for him. A ticking stick of dynamite.

She stood, penned words for some stuffy general in Washington falling futile as she tossed down her pen, prepared amidst exhaustion and cold to diffuse the dynamite.

“Alright, you squealing pigs, leave him alone — you’ll get your cigarettes, chocolate, and comics later,” she walked over to the throng of soldiers that resembled scorned children now, their lips pinched with sour scowls and tongues curled to dispute, but the lieutenant bars on her jacket kept the resistance at bay.

“I ain’t saying anything; I just being polite like my ma taught me and waiting my turn,” Floyd defended, begrudgingly sliding away from his slouch against the counter to depart with the others.

“Your charm hits like a dull bullet against her, dumbass,” Liebgott chastised, flicking Talbert upside the head as he stalked towards the exit, footfalls a whisper above a stomp.

“And she already got a boyfriend,” Grant chimed in to Talbert’s rebuking, then murmuring something about his friend’s lack of shame about blatantly charming a girl in front of her boyfriend.

Y/N rolled her eyes and Talbert departed after the spitfire Californian taxi driver, deliberate to elude eye contact with her in his strides out the door.

The remainder of balked and frowning soldiers make their languid retreat, then it’s just George and her in the ramshackle living room, some European soprano’s voice weaving through the radio’s speaker behind him like a needle and thread.

“You sent ‘em off like a bunch of dogs that just got kicked,” George shot out in a quip, yet the wisecrack clattered in the air with a vacancy — an absence of his defining humor.

His fingers, in the time anticipating her response, make haste with continuing to coordinate the inventory of American goods. One may even label it a nervous tic.

“Nothing their egos can’t handle,” she shrugged, minding the spread of items as she leaned against the wall adjacent to the counter.

The distant relative of a laugh pushed out from his chest as he scrawled down the number of Hershey bars on his checklist. The pencil wavered with a few agitated thwacks against the paper once he does this, and she wondered if he was there with her entirely.

Neither say anything after his spurt of an unsure chuckle; he organized the strewn items with the vigilance of a puppeteer, and she resigned herself to being his one-person audience, hands clasped behind her to bolster against the wall.

“You’re on your own, kid,” he’s the eventual one to stop whatever semblance of a show his hands were unintentionally orchestrating. They waver now over the neat stockpile of Lucky Strikes they assembled, and his eyes don’t level with hers.

“Hm?” his abrupt remark prompted the beckoning for elaboration from her.

“That’s what my dad said to me before I left for Basic,” he remarked, satisfying her inquiry for explanation, eyes vaguely poised in a squint as if recalling the memory from years ago, “Said that I may have all the guys in my company, but at the end of the day, it’s just me…because everyone else is disposable as garbage to the military and who would want to be friends with trash?”

“Former soldier?” she pondered, as if it would be a potent excuse for such cruel frankness, leaning now against the counter with elbows propped on it.

“Nah, just a pessimistic, miserable man,” George shrugged, at last flicking his doe eyes up to even with her gaze, his palms settling flat against the counter.

Almost as if piloted by instinct, did his pinky finger angle itself towards the arched edge of her hand, and from the aloof expression on his face, the seek for touch wasn’t within his realm of awareness.

“Fun,” she mused, more than keenly cognizant of the cold brush against her hand, how her own pinky finger linked with his own with the rigidity and attraction of a chemical bond.

“Still don’t know how we’re related,” the corner of his frown relented to the impression of a simper as he spoke.

An ambassador of a muffled worry appeared in her mind as she contemplated his words, a worry that murmured of how he was gradually slipping into that vacuum of misery. How he may not have to question anymore why he was so different from his father.

Y/N fleetingly pursed her lips, casting a terse glance down to their interlinked fingers before muttering, “You know I’m here for you.” And damn what your father says.

George’s finger steadied tighter around hers, indicative of his abrupt awareness of their mutual clasp and perhaps of the weight pervading her words. Maybe even questioning if she always will be there.

“Yeah,” he settled for a mere one-word retort, inclinations for both pessimism and optimism squelched into his mind — away from her.

The tightness of temptation in her throat wanted to make a spectacle of his warpath towards bullshit, nonchalant responses for anything related to how the war as ravaged their minds, souls, and bodies.

The ache in her heart ultimately won, though, as it beckoned for her to just nod, tighten their clasp and hope that it’s enough of an a buoy to drift him back to shore.

[otrtbs]

CONVERSATIONS FROM THE COFFEE SHOP

SUMMARY: Scenes from Art Heist, Baby! Sirius post Copenhagen (do not read this if you haven't read ahb! and wanna avoid spoilers!!)

WORD COUNT: 3.2k "Your absence has gone through me Like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its colour."  - Separation, W.S. Merwin

(okay, this is based off of an ask by @signofthereads except I toned down the sadness factor by a lot and I wrote it in a day, so it's staying on tumblr. but i wrote it to give ahb! sirius a little more room grieve bc i felt like he needed that.)

One.

Sirius comes to on the aeroplane- if you can call it that. His mouth is dry and his throat is sore when he attempts to swallow, and he aches like someone reached in and ripped out his heart from his chest cavity. He’s struggling to keep his eyes open and his head feels muddied and murky. Any coherent thought keeps slipping just out of his grasp, in between his fingertips and back into the muddied waters of his subconscious. As best he can, he glances down and sees that his clothes are covered in blood and he feels Remus gripping his arm next to him as if his life depends on it. Even when Sirius can’t catch his thoughts, even when his bones feel weighed down like his marrow is made of cement, even when he can barely keep his eyes open, he would know Remus anywhere. Still, he tries his best to lean over and look at Remus anyway. His head rolls a bit on his neck, too heavy to hold up, so he’s met with the bottom of Remus’ shirt. Tiny splatters of drying, browning blood littered the bottom of it. Sirius’ chest aches, and he’s trying to catch his thoughts, and he’s trying to speak but his words keep getting stuck in his sandpaper throat. 

Shot, he thinks nonsensically and his eyes widen in fear as his breathing comes out more rapid and shallow. That explains the blood and the burning in his chest and why he feels so disoriented. His thoughts all rush forward with a brief surge of clarity. He’s been shot. 

Oh God, he’s been shot. 

He tries his best to look around for Regulus but his thoughts are getting slippery again and his eyelids feel much too heavy to keep open. 

“Regulus left me again,” he tries to tell Remus but his voice comes out distorted, warped and too slow. This must be why it hurts so much. “They shot me.” 

“What?” Remus asks, still gripping Sirius’ arm tightly. He’s holding on, but Sirius has no intention of going anywhere.

He lets his eyes close. It’s easier this way. 

He tries to repeat what he said but he only makes it halfway through the sentence.  

“Peter gave you something,” Remus’ voice swirls in his mind. “A sedative, I think, to get you to stop screaming. We can–” 

But Sirius doesn’t hear the rest as he fades back into his murky subconscious. 

Two.

People were buzzing around him all in a flurry, all like flies, and they were moving much too fast for Sirius’ brain to comprehend but he was back in his flat. The lights were too bright and the air was stuffy and the entire place that he had called home and yearned for had been unlived in for so long that it felt unlivable. Everything felt unlivable.  

Remus had set him down in the tub, clothes and all, and turned on the water so hot that steam started to rise from it. 

Shows what he knows, Sirius thought to himself as he waded through his convoluted thoughts. You’re supposed to burn the clothes after a crime like this takes place. Barty and Evan are going to be furious.  

Then, Remus starts scrubbing. He scrubs and scrubs and scrubs and Sirius watches the blood smear off his skin and swirl into the water in crimson splotches, like pastels bleeding from a canvas.  

As he watches all his blood swirl down the drain Sirius thinks this must be what being baptised feels like. Being made clean. Rebirth. He hopes Remus scrubs his skin until it’s raw, he hopes Remus can wash the last 24 or so hours off of him. He wants to be something new again. He wants to be something light. Sirius would do the scrubbing himself except his bones are still much too heavy to be of any use and his head is still too murky to feign coherency. 

It wasn’t until Remus began unbuttoning his shirt with shaky fingers and Sirius looked down to inspect the bullet wound in his chest that he realised the blood wasn’t his own. Pale skin, inky black tattoos, but no wound. No bullet hole. Which of course made sense. Because if he was shot then he’d be at a hospital or with Peter or somewhere other than a bathtub being scrubbed clean. How had he gone all this time thinking that he had been injured? That the blood was his?   

No.  

No, this wasn’t his blood at all. He had been confused before, but now he wasn’t. His thoughts came crashing in and shattered against his skull, leaving their splintered jagged edges embedded in his mind. 

It was his brother’s blood. It was Regulus’ blood. 

Oh God, he’s been shot. 

Remus was staring back at Sirius with a tear-stained face. He looked as panicked as Sirius felt and his mouth was moving but Sirius couldn’t hear any words. Why couldn’t he hear what Remus was saying? When had Remus stopped scrubbing him clean? 

Instead, strong thumbs were wiping under Sirius’ eyes, collecting all his tears. Steam curling up towards the ceiling in foggy wisps. Water tinged slightly pink with his blood. No, with his brother’s blood. The ache in his chest. Their blood. A calloused hand over his mouth. Remus’ panicked gaze, gravelly voice, and a ringing in his ears. 

It was only then that Sirius realised he had been screaming.

That night, he sleeps in Remus’ arms. He smells like soap but he doesn’t feel clean. 

Peter’s medicine doesn’t stop the dreams, though they’re just as muddled as his waking thoughts were.  

He dreams about being little again. Regulus is high up in a tree with his feet dangling from a branch. He’s a little too high for comfort. He’s a little too little to know he’s in danger. But Sirius knows. Sirius knows it’s his job to watch him, and it’s his job to keep him safe. He calls out to Regulus from the ground, but Regulus can’t hear him. No matter how loud Sirius yells, Regulus can’t hear him. He just keeps swinging his legs and laughing as the wind blows through his hair, and Sirius gets a sickly feeling in his stomach. He knows without knowing that Regulus is about to fall– he can feel it in the air, but he’s powerless to stop it from his spot on the ground. Sirius can feel the sharp sting of panic, but the dream ends before anything happens. 

He dreams about an ugly lamp from a wretched cousin and the laughs it inspired, he dreams about Paris in chalky washed-out tones, he dreams about sliding down the stairs with his brother in their parent's house on rugs that cost more money than a year’s salary, and he dreams about his mother which hasn’t happened in almost half a decade. In all of these dreams, Regulus is there. In all of these dreams, he’s still a small child. But the recurring dream that plagued his subconscious that night was free of Regulus entirely.

It was a hazy, panicked, and anxious dream where Sirius was all grown up, all alone, stumbling around his flat. He was late. He was so late, but he couldn’t find his keys. As time continued to pass he became increasingly distressed. For some reason, he knew that this was his last chance. He had to be on time. He knew that he had to meet Regulus for coffee but as he wandered hurriedly throughout his place, tearing apart pillows and rummaging through drawers and closets looking for his keys, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Regulus was already gone– that he wouldn’t be at the coffee shop at all, that Sirius had failed somehow and let him down, and that he missed his last chance. 

Three.

The thing about Regulus is that he was always so self-assured in Sirius’ mind. He remembers when they were younger and Walburga made them clean out all the cupboards in the kitchen. They had to take out every jar and box and can so they could dust and scrub the cupboards spotless. 

Halfway through the process, Sirius began feeling overwhelmed looking at the mess from the cupboards that was now sprawled out on the counters and the tables and the tiled floor. 

“We’ve worked so hard and it just looks like we made everything worse. It’s a bigger mess than when we started,” he sighed, already imagining how furious Walburga would be with the both of them when she returned home to see her kitchen in utter disarray. 

He watched as Regulus scrambled down from the counters to stand beside him and observe the scene. 

“Sometimes,” Regulus began with a shrug of youthful indifference. “Sometimes things have to get worse in order to make them better. They’re not good right now, but we’re almost ready to put all the things back and they’ll get better again.” 

Regulus always spoke that way– with absolute certainty. If he was going to do something, he did it, without fail. If he was going to say something, he meant it. If he was going to promise something, he kept it.

“This is the last heist Sirius, this is the one.”

Four.

The thing about Sirius is that he never could remember what life was like without Regulus. There was a time, however brief, when there had only been Sirius. But he had no memory of that time. As far back as he could go to pinpoint his earliest memory, Regulus was always there.

He remembers the surge of pride he felt when Andromeda said Regulus looked just like him. How people could see, just by looking at them, that they were from the same place, that they were connected. There was a time when Sirius was just Sirius, but then Regulus was born, and they had the same nose and the same laugh and the same funny way of quirking their eyebrows when something confused them. That’s all Sirius could remember, that connectedness, and it was that connectedness that shaped the way Sirius thought. 

His inner monologue began reflecting his outer monologue in that didactic way that all older siblings seemed to be born with. It was never ‘here’s what I’m going to do’ but always ‘here’s what we’re going to do.’ and ‘here’s why we have to do it.’ When he spoke to Walburga or Orion it was always ‘why we feel’ and ‘why we did it.’ 

Even after Sirius left, even when he hadn’t seen Regulus in months, even when he felt like he was entirely alone, it was always ‘we.’ 

Sometimes he would feel foolish, and he’d forget who the other person was in his head that he was referring to. But it never took him long to remember it was Regulus.

The fact that Regulus was out there was enough. They were still connected, even when Sirius wished they weren’t, even when he tried to forget that they were. 

In the aftermath of Regulus’ death, there was no more ‘we.’ Sirius tried to tell himself that it was just like all the other days when he and Regulus weren’t together, when they weren’t talking. That he could pretend.

But he couldn’t. 

Death had settled in and cut all the invisible strings tying them together, leaving Sirius in a perpetual state of freefall. Because Regulus was no longer out there, in Paris with Orion or travelling to some far-off museum. Sirius knew exactly where he was, he was buried in the Earth, under six feet of soil, and it wasn’t enough. 

There was a time when Sirius was just Sirius, but when Regulus was born there was an unspoken promise that the universe had made with him that Sirius would never be just Sirius again. That a little brother meant the promise of a ‘we.’ Whether they were speaking or not, whether they lived close to each other or far away, they were from the same place, they grew up the same way, and there would always be a ‘we.’ But then the universe went back on its promise. Who was he if he wasn’t constantly worrying about Regulus? Who was he if he was no longer in charge of keeping Regulus safe? Who was he if he was no longer an older brother? The unfathomable had happened, and now Sirius was just Sirius and somehow less himself than he had ever been.

Five.

Sirius runs his finger over the grey headstone again and again in some masochistic ritual he can’t quit. 

He feels the word take form underneath his finger.

Brother. 

He’s done this so many times that he’s already worried he’ll wear the stone down so that word will be smooth and illegible in less than five years. 

In the early days, that’s all he does. He traces the word brother over and over again and he weeps.  

Sometimes he weeps because Regulus will never get any older than he is now. In Sirius’ memory, he can still picture him, baby-faced with a missing tooth, and he can see him as a stoic teenager with eyes like flint and unruly morning hair, and he can see him as he was on that night before everything went wrong. But he can never imagine him any older than that moment. That’s all he gets. Sometimes it makes him weep and sometimes it makes him so angry that he makes himself sick. 

He traces over the word brother and thinks about how it went so wrong. All the little moments he can pinpoint that led them here. In time, he imagines he’ll be able to trace over the word and think of all the times they got it right too. He wonders if he’ll ever stop feeling like half of him is buried in this soil that he sits on.  

On Regulus’ next birthday, Sirius bakes a cake. It’s warm and it smells like cinnamon and it’s a little lopsided, but Sirius is sure Regulus would appreciate the effort. He goes by himself in the afternoon just before the sun starts to set. It’s freezing cold and Remus offers countless times to go with him, but Sirius declines. 

He takes himself to the cemetery, and he sits with his lopsided cake and his black coffee and his brother. He smiles at the freshly cut and placed purple flowers by the grave and he traces over the word brother a few times for good measure.   

Six.

Sirius and Regulus share the same nose. They have the same laugh and the same funny way of quirking their eyebrows when they’re confused. When they were younger, Sirius loved it. Parts of himself in his brother and vice versa. When they were both young Sirius could see Regulus in himself through the crinkles by his eyes when he smiled too wide and he could hear Regulus in his own laugh. As they got older and started growing up and apart, he began recognizing Regulus in himself differently. Sirius saw the same downturned frown or the same darkened stare when he looked in the mirror. They still had the same nose and they still had the same laugh, though neither of them did much laughing then. By the time Sirius had left, he could only see Regulus in the rings around his eyes, in the quiet and solemn looks of cold regard and contemplation he gave himself in the mirror, and in the clenched jaw of his anger.  

In the New Hampshire house, Sirius remembers Regulus teaching a class. He had his back turned and was writing something on the board and for a moment, even though Sirius had made it his mission to be as surly as possible that day, he found himself smiling.

They both wrote the same way. Their q’s and a’s were identical and the way the words slanted ever-so-slightly across the board, as if gravity was trying to pull them down. This was something Sirius hadn’t taught him. This was just something they both did. Sirius thought about all the times he had written the letter ‘a’ over the days and weeks and months he and Regulus weren’t speaking. How connected they were without even knowing it. How they came from the same place. 

Then Regulus turned to roll his eyes at something James had said and the flicker of Sirius’ smile grew a little bit wider. He would know that expression anywhere. It was the same one he would use to feign annoyance and mask affection. 

The house in New Hampshire was when Sirius started seeing himself in the happier parts of Regulus again. No longer in the sleeplessness of bloodshot eyes and downturned scowls but in affectionate eye rolls and smiles from spontaneous countertop dance parties.

Sirius heard Regulus’ voice in the back of his mind, echoing from somewhere in the past.  

“Sometimes things have to get worse in order to make them better.”

Sirius remembers thinking to himself that maybe this was it. Maybe they had gone through all the worst parts. All the boxes had been pulled from the cupboard and now Sirius could see himself in happier parts of Regulus again. Maybe now is when things started to get better. 

That was in New Hampshire. In the earliest days after Regulus was gone, Sirius struggled with mirrors. Sometimes, in the bathroom, he would catch a glimpse of himself, same nose, same rings around the eyes, same creased brow, and he’d see Regulus staring back at him. In the beginning, there were times he looked too much like Regulus, which maybe made him nonsensical and maybe it wasn’t any more true than it had been when Regulus was alive, but on those days Sirius wouldn’t leave the dark of his room in fear that he’d catch sight of his brother through some reflective surface and sob in the street, or in the car, or in the cinema. 

It wasn’t all bad though, slowly, slowly things started to get better. He could tell, the first time he laughed in front of James after Regulus had died. James had turned to him with eyes wide and hopeful and a bittersweet smile and Sirius knew that James was thinking the same thing he was. 

It was Regulus’ laugh. And it was his. 

Maybe when death had crept in and cut all of the strings tying Sirius and Regulus together, he had missed a few. Maybe they could still be connected after all. 

Sirius looked that way today. He could tell from his reflection in the shiny lacquered table top of the café that today was a day where he could see Regulus in his own reflection a little more prominently. But now it isn’t so bad. Now, enough time had passed that he felt a certain comfort in seeing Regulus in himself. Lucky even that he was still here, even when he wasn’t. 

The waitress brings him his coffee and he takes a deep breath as the bitter taste fills his mouth. He’s certain other people think he’s a bit off as he sits making faces at the empty seat across from him, but he doesn’t mind.   

‘I’m thinking about calling this conversations from the coffee shop,’ Sirius thinks. ‘I’ve been coming here enough times now. This little ritual should have a proper name. What do you think, Regulus? That way there’s still a ‘we.’ That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?’  

His breath trembles a little on his next inhale. 

‘We’re meeting at the coffee shop,’ Sirius thinks with a smile. ‘We have things to talk about.’ He likes that. 

He thinks Regulus would too. 

[anouri]

Donna Tartt, from The Goldfinch (2013)

[sweet-child-of-night]

Your absence has gone through me

Like thread through a needle.

Everything I do is stitched with its color.

W.S Merwin, Separation

[rotten-pest]

Separation

By W. S. Merwin

Your absence has gone through me Like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color.

[blogbyameera]

W.S Merwin once wrote " Your absence has gone through me like thread through a needle, everything i do is stitched with it's color "

Ye tera bicharna kis aziyat mei daal gaya mujhe , na mein hansta hu na mein rota hun , bas thaki thaki aankhon se teri tasverein dekh kar din guzarta hu

- ameera

[arachnidiots-a]

REPOST & LIST 6 SONGS THAT INSPIRE YOU TO WRITE YOUR MUSE .

end of beginning by djo / peter ━━ "i wave goodbye to the end of the beginning. (goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye) you take the man out of the city, not the city out the man."

what'd i do with all this faith by bleachers / peter ━━ "we're still scared to start. now it's just college kids and me playing in the park but I don't want wake up just to watch it die. oh, is the dream gone? goodbye. i don't know what to do with this faith."

turning out by ajr / peter ━━ "i'm a little kid with so much doubt. do you wanna be there to see how i turn out? cause i'm still turning out."

rivers and roads by the head and the heart / liam ━━ "been talkin' bout the way things change and my family lives in a different state. if you don't know what to make of this, then we will not relate."

you're gonna go far by noah kahan / liam ━━ "so pack up your car, put a hand on your heart, say whatever you feel, be wherever you are. we ain't angry at you, love. you're the greatest thing we've lost. the birds will still sing, your folks will still fight."

dig down by muse / liam ━━ "when hope and love has been lost and you fall to the ground, you must find a way. when the darkness descends and you're told it's the end, you must find a way."

& 6 QUOTES THAT INSPIRE YOU TO WRITE YOUR MUSE.

"listen. cut your own hair. dye it blue, then shave it off when you're bored of it. wear that outfit with those shoes. paint your nails with all the colors of the rainbow. get that tattoo. go to the movies alone. get coffee, then drink it at that special place you like. mouth the words of the song you're listening to on public transport. put that thing on your wall. bake. draw. dance in your underwear. life is so much better when you don't give a fuck" ━━ tumblr user / liam

"because saving the people you love isn't stupid. it isn't even a choice." ━━ unknown / liam & peter

"grief is not a feeling but a neighborhood. this is where i come from. everyone i love still lives there." ━━ unknown / peter

"eventually something you love is going to be taken away. and then you will fall to the floor crying. and then however much later it is finally happening to you: you're falling to the floor crying thinking 'i am falling to the floor crying' but there's an element of the ridiculous to it -- you knew it would happen and, even worse, while you're on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didn't paint it very well." ━━ richard siken / liam & peter

"your absence has gone through me like thread through a needle. everything i do is stitched with its color." ━━ w.s. merwin / liam

"to love life, to love it even when you have no stomach for it" ━━ ellen bass / liam & peter

tagged by : @faithleapz tagging : @bornthief @firedblanks @thanatologies @thwipsnapped @hopeaway @repcntent @bluebeatle