BE KIND

always moving on. some goodbyes need to rot a little. some griefs need to be held in the mouth like a stone.

beauty defined by algorithms. beauty exists in crow feet and smile lines

pretending to be chill. i’m not chill. i care deeply and inconveniently. i read into things. i write poems about eye contact

beige apartments with no soul. give me bookshelves and incense and loud art

sneaky links and unclear intentions. i want devotion. and also clarity

“Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling”

“You are not lost. You are here. Stop abandoning yourself. Stop repeating this myth about love and success that will land in your lap or evade you forever. Build a humble, flawed life from the rubble, and cherish that. There is nothing more glorious on the face of the earth than someone who refuses to give up, who refuses to give in to their most self-hating, discouraged, disillusioned self, and instead learns, slowly and painfully, how to relish the feeling of building a hut in middle of the suffocating dust.” — Heather Havrilesky, Ask Polly

this tumblr text post:

“To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.” — Mary Oliver

From an interview with Kazu Makino:

Instructions On Not Giving Up, Ada Limon:

And this poster by Yumi Sakugawa

“You have to believe, in your heart, that even if you don’t work hard and exercise and think positive thoughts and make new friends and march triumphantly into the future, you are still enough. You will always have bad days. Being broken doesn’t make you a loser. You can crumble, and you will still be enough. Make that your religion moving forward. You are here to feel this moment. You are not here to become someone better. You are not here to impress or compete. You are not here to prove yourself. You are here to savor this life. Let down your guard. You are already enough. Believe it.” — Heather Havrilesky

“The first feminist gesture is to say: “Ok. They’re looking at me. But I’m looking at them.” The act of deciding to look, of deciding that the world is not defined by how people see me, but by how I see them.” -Agnès Varda

lyrics from the song Grow by The Oh Hellos:

“The world’s otherness is antidote to confusion, that standing within this otherness—the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books—can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.” — Mary Oliver

Image 1: (text post by tumblr user yassmines) i say this to every girl i love: abandon shame

Image 2: The best advice for life? / Learn and unlearn, repeat. Suffer with aim.

Image 3:

Instructions on Not Giving Up Ada Limón, 1976

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor's almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate sky of Spring rains, it's the greening of the trees that really gets to me. When all the shock of white and taffy, the world's baubles and trinkets, leave the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath, the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin growing over whatever winter did to us, a return to the strange idea of continuous living despite the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then, I'll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I'll take it all.

Image 4:

1. YOUR LIFE IS NOT ON PAUSE OR DELAYED. YOUR LIFE IS STILL HAPPENING, SO THEN THE QUESTION IS: ARE YOU FULLY AWAKE TO IT, PAYING ATTENTION EVEN IF IT IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM YOUR IDEA OF HOW IT SHOULD BE LIKE IN AN IDEAL SCENARIO?

2. THERE ARE NO IDEAL SCENARIOS, THERE IS ONLY THE PRESENT NOW THAT IS UNFOLDING RIGHT BEFORE YOU WITH EVERY INHALE, EVERY EXHALE, EVERY INHALE, EVERY EXHALE.

YUMI SAKUGAWA

Image 5: (highlighted in pale grey) Let be what is, let be what isn't / It's a natural world in which we're living / And if you let it alone, it will surely grow / Just leave it alone, child, and let it go

He modeled for that last one himself, which is just great.