m. l. bradbury

i love reading sad books bc when your own grief is stopped up inside you like a clogged drain you can grieve for a character on a page and understand that you're also grieving for yourself a little bit

writing fiction be like i hate my art i love my art i wish i never made art i am a mother i am a child i am projecting my insecurities onto figments of my imagination i am making a self-portrait i don't know myself i am psychoanalyzing myself in the shower i might be the next william shakespeare no one will ever understand me i am a magician of words i am a failure i will be famous! and everyone will love me and especially myself i wrote seven pages today i have been staring at the blinking cursor for two hours without typing a word

some nights i wish to be alone with my thoughts. i ponder my need for nothing but myself, and in that sense, i find myself longing for someone who exists from long ago. imagining a life i never had, a love that never fades, and the thought of enjoying a night’s conversation under a moonlit sky. yes, in those lonely nights, i yearn

seeing glimpses of your past from old scribbles found in worn diaries, faded clothes that were once a signature style of your little self, dusty stuffed animals, children fairytale books, cracked glasses, a collection of coins and odd trinkets inside a cardboard box, just old things from an age that passed by, leaves a story, a reflection where once we thought of ourselves immortal now we’re in a path of finding ourselves, trying to find the same passion abundant in us as children, or spiraling down in another existential crisis, self-depreciation episodes, the thought of ending it all. we’re not as strong and capable as we thought we were. we become the villains we hate, yet identify with. it’s sad leaving the golden age of childhood, but as we lie awake in our rooms, staring at a dark ceiling, tears seeping uncontrollably, we find solace in our isolation, and sometimes even hope.

there’s something very special about secondhand books. a ghost of a stranger’s hand lurking, their scrawled thoughts remain, some even leave tears and ink, and coffee stains. the whole experience is seemingly intimate. those dog-eared pages, forgotten bookmarks, the remnants of a reader who dreamed. questions surfacing - who held these pages? such is the power of literature: it connects even the most far-off individuals under ideas that compels them to yearn

hey, also - to add even more length to this massive outpouring of words - i wanted to add that the other day i found this lovely used bookshop that had so many ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS classics and art books with beautiful vintage illustrations, and i literally wanted to BUY THEM ALL. obviously i couldn’t but i bought so many and i can’t wait to read them and show them to those close to my soul! i’ll post photos of them soon, probably regardless of whether anyones really interested in this or not tbh, but theres a heads up to anyone who cares i guess?

*uses difficult word i don't actually know the meaning of and hopes the other person doesn't know it either so i sound intelligent*

who gave oscar wilde permission to write stuff like “death must be so beautiful. to lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one’s head, and listen to silence. to have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. to forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace. you can help me. you can open for me the portals of death’s house, for love is always with you, and love is stronger than death is” with such ease? to touch my soul so casually? like who gave him all that talent and can i have some

there’s no greater enemy than that of yourself. sometimes we overthink and create these scenarios, where we fail, and succumb to the difficulty of becoming human. where we ache, bit by bit, break but we’d rather take silence as remedy. we hurt ourselves by doing this, is it to spare others from our pain? or becoming a feeling human, chained by our emotions, is a thing too difficult to admit? we stray from the thought of consolation; we become the broken villain, and the hero, the foolish dreamer, the wise savior and sometimes we’re corrupted, someone undeserving of love, or the unloved. in finding ourselves, we undergo the process of destroying our dreams, our hopes for the sake of starting anew