i want it back i want it back i want

Let’s Play Dead - Senaa Ahmad. What if Anne Boleyn can never die? What if she is killed again and again and comes back every time? 'Let's make it so she can't escape. Let's seal the bottle, and shake it, and shake until our hands fall off.'

Fuzhou Nighttime Feeling - Ling Ma. The descriptions of the city interwoven with the narrator's thoughts on their family is gorgeous.. so atmospheric! 'Fuzhou is so hot and sensuous all year-round, the kind of place, my grandma says, that breeds indolence.'

The House of Asterion and Borges and I - Jorge Luis Borges (translations). Both very short & very thought provoking! Highly recommend reading The House of Asterion without any prior knowledge (and then rereading it multiple times..), it's truly brilliant.

The Wind - Lauren Groff. This is very intense but it's so heartbreakingly beautifully written. Major CW for domestic violence and abuse.

Honorable mentions

Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers - Alyssa Wong

Attack Helicopter - Isabel Fall

The Story of the Avenger and the Archangel in the Palace of Sinners - Eduardo Galeano

Standard Loneliness Package - Charles Yu

Godmaker - J.A. Prentice

The Night Dance - Leah Cypess

Mother of Invention - Nnedi Okorafor

There’s something between us [...]  a sort of pull. Something you always do to me and I to you⁠—

⁠— F. Scott Fitzgerald, from 'Presumption'

I am stretched like a bow with your pull.

⁠— Rumi, The Forbidden Rumi: The Suppressed Poems of Rumi on Love, Heresy, and Intoxication; from ‘Give Up Yourself’, tr. Will Johnson and Nevit Ergin

Something of you still taut / still tugs still pulls, / a rope that trembled / hummed between us.

⁠— Sandra Cisneros, Loose Woman; from 'Vino Tinto'

I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you—especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame.

⁠— Charlotte Brontë, from ‘Jane Eyre’

There was a silence between them, and a strange tension of hostility. They always kept a gap, a distance between them, they wanted always to be free each of the other. Yet there was a curious heart-straining towards each other.

⁠— D. H. Lawrence, from 'Women in Love'

I could feel the inevitable magnetic polar forces in us, and the tidal blood beat loud, Loud, roaring in my ears, slowing and rhythmic.

⁠— Sylvia Plath, from ‘The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath’ ⁠— 15th May 1952

The tides inside your heart still pull me towards you.

⁠— Richard Jackson, from 'After All This', published in 'Salt Hill 22'

By then I was used to silence. / Though something stretched between us / like a whisper, like a rope:

⁠— Margaret Atwood, Interlunar; from ‘Orpheus (1)’

⁠— what still deepens pulls us back together.

— Caitríona O’Reilly, The Nowhere Birds; from ‘Possession’

We're connected by a thread / If we're ever far apart / I'll still feel the pull of you

Please increase your contribution to The Sameer Project.

My dad is a science teacher at a public middle school. A month after turning 50, he suddenly learned he has stage 4 colon cancer that's metastasized to his liver and lungs. When I visited him in the hospital, he kept repeating the words "I'm scared. I don't want to die." I turned my head to the wall and cried.

My mom, an LVN, has been driving to his place often in order to care for him and empty his ileostomy bag, which he's still too scared to even look at. Not being able to go to the bathroom normally, and dealing with accidents where the bag of his own waste bursts and leaks onto him makes him feel humiliated and is causing him to become extremely depressed.

We're thankful that my mother a nurse, but she makes much less than he does as a teacher, and has been draining her retirement for his treatment. She's also had to take ubers lately to go see him because she can't drive at night, as she has a serious vision disability due to a genetic condition that eventually results in blindness.

Most of the money received is from my mom, other family members, and former students of my father. But what's maybe even more important than the amount received, is the number of people donating. I can see how hopeful and excited it makes my dad to see just 5 donations in a day from people he doesn't know.

When multiple strangers donate even just $5 each in a day, I can tell that it makes him even more excited than it does to see that same amount donated by one person in a day. (which is still very exciting!! One person who reblogged this donated $100, which was so generous that my parents were scratching their heads trying to figure out who they knew with the name Adrian. Thank you so much to that very kind person who doesn't even follow me 😭🤍🩷)

The other day, I asked mutuals to donate, and 5 people sent $5-$25, bringing the gfm up ~$80. My mom called my dad to let him know, "all those donations came from her freaks on tumblr!!" He thanked me over and over and was amazed when I told him this post was shared 500 times. He said, that's so many people! It really brightened his day so much.

I would appreciate it if you could take the time to open his page, even if you can only donate $1. For you, it may be just a small dent in our goal that won't make a difference. But to him, it shows that there's one more human out there who sees him, who's thinking about him, who knows his name, knows what he's going through, and wishes for him to recover. Even a dollar means the world to us!!!

Please, think about saving this post and donating $1, $5, or $10 this week. Share it online, with people you know irl, with anyone who could help. If you can't spare anything now, I'd appreciate if you could take the time to just pray for him and his recovery. You can send an ask to let me know if you'd like, as prayers are something that comfort my dad a great deal.

Thank you everyone who's supported us so far, I love you all dearly and I'm so incredibly grateful for your help.

^ There's also a wishlist my mom put together for him as well