wordsicanonlysaytostrangers - Tumblr blog

[wordsicanonlysaytostrangers]

I love watching her grow.

I do, right?

Even when she’s growing up

Without me?

[wordsicanonlysaytostrangers]

…if not because of all the people I loved along the way.

…if not for all the people I will love one day.

literally why am i the way i am

[wordsicanonlysaytostrangers]

I refuse to forget the promises I made to myself just because you forgot the promises you made to me. I refuse to love the way you love.

[wordsicanonlysaytostrangers]

Ask someone to tell you of heartbreak, and they will sing a song of a lover.

Ask me to tell you of love, and I will open up my door.

Come into my house and see. Come into my childhood home.

For who has loved me as wholly as my sister? And who can love like my sister?

[wordsicanonlysaytostrangers]

i love you i love you i love you let it be enough

[wordsicanonlysaytostrangers]

To read translations is to experience the oral tradition of long-dead people thousands of miles away through the eyes of my contemporary down the street - how wonderful the human capacity to share stories!

Posting only a snippet to protect the person's identity and because I don't want to attack them personally but comment on the many similar opinions I have seen:

[ID: a screenshot of a tumblr post reading "Don't get me wrong. But translating a poem loses it's meaning and soul."]

No one is as aware of translation loss as translators themselves. No one is as aware of translation gains as translators themselves either.

On tumblr, there are many posts about how reading something in translation "can't make you grasp the original" or how subtitles or dubs are "inaccurate". This is incredibly unkind to translators who work very hard and usually get paid very little to make books or audiovisual media accessible to you at all (not even to mention all the other areas of translation you're not even aware of).

Of course, some translators make mistakes. But writers make typos too and some make it into published books. Of course, there are cases of manipulation or censorship, I wrote my thesis on this, but more often than not these cases were caused by outside forces not the translators themselves. There are bad translations like there are bad novels or films.

I want more people to think of translation as a creative process that has nearly infinite strategies and choices. Translations differ because they are made by humans. They differ because there are as many ways to translate something as there are to write something. A translation will always necessarily differ from its source because, and it sounds really silly saying this out loud, it's in a different language. And at the same time, the translator is in a constant dialogue with the author and audience, trying to bridge a gap between them.

Translation is not meaningless and not soulless. It adds to the original the soul of the translator.

[wordsicanonlysaytostrangers]

Hear me out.

What if there’s no ulterior motive? What if there’s no hidden message?

Hear me out. No, wait, hear me out.

What if it’s just as simple as

“I love you.”

[wordsicanonlysaytostrangers]

“You love differently when you know God.”

— Malanda Jean Claude

[wordsicanonlysaytostrangers]

Please don’t worry about boring me. You are my whole heart. I promise I am listening. Your voice is my heartbeat.

[wordsicanonlysaytostrangers]

“Don’t touch me,” I whisper, because inside I am screaming

hold me hold me don’t let go or I might break into a thousand pieces please

please

don’t let go

and that’s too much to tell you so it’s better this way.

“Don’t touch me,” I say, because inside I am thinking I can’t stop the ache so don’t make it worse with your

Half measures

Half smiles

Half touches

Half of my heart I left behind a long time ago. I must be gentle with the remains.

[wordsicanonlysaytostrangers]

What a wonderful terror it is to be known.

[wordsicanonlysaytostrangers]

It’s happening! Not yet. Wait.

It’s happening! Wait.

Now.

Go on. Go ahead.

…it’s happening?

Yes!

It’s happening.

Yes!

It’s happening!

Yes! Yes!

[wordsicanonlysaytostrangers]

lucid - jeff satur

[wordsicanonlysaytostrangers]

Right now I have an emergency contact.

One day I will be someone’s emergency contact.

Maybe even for the person who is my emergency contact right now.

Is that it? Is that all life is, really? Is growing up just loving someone enough to be afraid for them? Maybe on the other side of the tightrope is just the chance to be the safety net.

There’s a little red star by your contact name. It says, “I’ll be here if you reach out. Talk to me. I’ll save you.”

Put a little red star by my contact name. It means “I love you.”

[wordsicanonlysaytostrangers]

“Are you okay?”

“It was a long time ago.”

“I know it was a long time ago. That’s not what I asked. I asked if you were okay.”

“No.”

[wordsicanonlysaytostrangers]

I think you’ve already forgotten when I loved you.

[wordsicanonlysaytostrangers]

How did you spend your summer? Grieving my lovers and grieving my friends. They didn’t die — they just never existed in the first place.