salt water

We Eat an Apple In My Bed

Sun, 19 May 2013 23:35:12 +0100

We’ve been kissing for months. Three times a week our toothbrushes share a chipped porcelain mug in my bathroom. As my lips reach for the juice falling from her laugh, her mom calls. I listen as she talks about Biology, her new job, asks about her sister. Her eyes drop as she whispers, No, I still don’t have a boyfriend.

On cue, I stop chewing. She looks at me, waiting for my face to flush, for me to tear from the bed, but I won’t get mad at her. She shouldn’t have to explain why we can’t go swimming in public, why I don’t own a razor, why she doesn’t need to buy birth control. She hangs up the phone; I pick up the fruit, tell her Apparently, there’s a tiny amount of cyanide in apple seeds.

She shrugs, says she can handle a little danger, but I’ve studied how her dimples disappear when she lies, and I know she’s thinking about a man she could parade around her family, who could kiss her scratchy with stubble. The kind of man I’ll never be.

She squeezes my hand in the movie theater dark but tosses it to the side in front of her friends. Says she just needs time. She walks on the sidewalk. I walk in the street. She closes the door. I kiss it goodnight. She goes home for Thanksgiving. I promise not to call.

If I were a postcard, she could hide me in her pocket. If I were clay, she could mold my body into something easier to love. If I were the guy who sells her a cup of coffee every morning. I could smile at her anonymously, safe as a stranger.

She kisses down my neck, my peel hiding the rotten fruit inside me. As I tell her about the cyanide, her head resting on my chest, she talks about cider, autumn pies. See, she says, Apples are harmless. But she saves the last bites for me, scared to let her lips wander too close to the core.

(From my new book, What the Night Demands, available HERE)

my roommate suddenly said, “do you like audrey hepburn?” “i’ve never watched...

Sun, 19 May 2013 22:04:22 +0100

my roommate suddenly said, “do you like audrey hepburn?”

“i’ve never watched her in anything but i think she’s cute”

“i think you could do make-up like audrey hepburn, for prom”

“ok”

“…”

“do you want to do it? have you thought about make-up for prom?”

“no. i don’t know. i. eh.”

“…”

“do you have high heels for prom?”

“no, i’m, i’m not wearing high heels because my dress is pretty long and i, i don’t want to get it messed up in my heels or anything”

“but you have to wear high heels!”

“why?”

“because your dress is long, what if it gets dirty…”

“i’ll wash it? i mean, whatever. it doesn’t matter.”

“sure? you can borrow my high heels.”

“no, it’s fine.”

“ok.” (said in a “fine, whatever” tone)

i don’t know, i really like my roommate, she is extremely sweet and kind and cheerful but my god i have never met someone so image-conscious and fuck she makes me so conscious of my own image as well? like, it takes so much for me to even decide to go to prom and still i worry that i’ll be too self-conscious to have any fun or too worried about how i look to appreciate how everyone else looks or that i’ll think too much and end up creating barriers for myself everywhere. i mean, sometimes i just don’t want to worry about make-up or high heels or anything, ok? every time she asks me about what i’m wearing, or what i’m doing with my face for some event i get so clammy inside. and i get the feeling that she judges what i wear everyday. one time she asked, “are you wearing that to school?” right before i walked out of the room and i changed my entire outfit for that day. and i don’t know how to tell her to stop. how do i tell her “fuck off, just fuck the fuck off, i don’t want to give a fuck about how i look today or tomorrow or any other day, i don’t care what you do with your face or your body, i really don’t care and whatever you want to do i’ll support it, just fuck off away from me” without, like, making at least one of us cry?

ellieeeee hiiiii

Sun, 19 May 2013 20:09:00 +0100

miiicchhheeelllllleeeee hi! hi! hi!

Ellen! Your photos are gorgeous and you look so happy in the one of you at the beach and I'm so jealous and wow this is a nice font.

Sun, 19 May 2013 19:35:00 +0100

ohhh dang what!!! thanks noura that means a lot from you because i think YOUR photos are gorgeous i actually cannot get enough of your photos from england and france <3____<3

and i can’t believe YOU’RE jealous of me for going to the beach when i’m just sitting here being jealous of you because you’re in malaysia and i miss malaysia so much and i miss beaches and being able to go to beaches without wearing like three thousand layers?!??!?!??!!

security guards

Sun, 19 May 2013 19:05:56 +0100

security guards

girlsgetbusyzine: Photography project by Cait Oppermann &...

Sun, 19 May 2013 12:09:01 +0100

girlsgetbusyzine:

Photography project by Cait Oppermann & Yael Malka

“My girlfriend and I went on a 2+ month long backpacking trip across Morocco, Turkey and several European countries. We are both artists and are making a book of photographs from the photos we collected on our trip. We created a few series throughout the trip and one of them is called “twenty one beds”, in which we took self portraits in every bed, couch or floor we slept on throughout the trip.” - Yaek Malka

They’ll also be launching their book Sea Blues at Molasses Books in Brooklyn on Friday May 17th!

Today I went to Watergate Bay with some of my friends as a...

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:17:50 +0100

Today I went to Watergate Bay with some of my friends as a boarders’ trip thingy and it was so good to visit the beach again, even though it was so windy and I couldn’t really feel my hands. We were supposed to watch some people play polo there but for the most part we just explored the beach, wrote insults to each other in the sand, took a bunch of photos, ate nachos, ate fries, ran around, got sand in our shoes, walked around in soggy socks (the worst thing), talk, talk, talk, feel tiny

I’m so tired right now, way way way too tired to talk about everything and, besides, I feel like if I try to put today into words it will all come out messy and underwhelming. So here are some pictures of me and my friends.

i. Vicky’s hands ft. a shell / ii. Vicky / iii. ME / iv. Carolina’s feet drawing the letter B in the sand / v. our names in Russian, thanks to Vicky / vi. Carolina looking happy as a clam / vii. Ophelia - but we call her Phe / viii. Lucy’s feet, I really wish I had a good photo of her face but I don’t and this makes me sad

I’m on the bus ride back from the beach right now and...

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:13:11 +0100

I’m on the bus ride back from the beach right now and I’ll have a bunch of photos uploaded later but for the time being have a picture of Serim being weird

"i love lipstick. i want to write an essay about the politics of lipstick. i like lipstick that’s..."

Sat, 18 May 2013 11:38:09 +0100

“i love lipstick. i want to write an essay about the politics of lipstick. i like lipstick that’s deep, deep red. i like lipstick that’s purple, lipstick that’s black and dark for when i want to dress up my melancholy. i like sharing lipstick with sisters. and i laugh at boys that think i wear lipstick for them to notice, i laugh, lipstick is an art you can’t ever understand. from picking out a color, testing it on the inside of my wrist, pursing my lips during the application of it. i like when i kiss a baby and leave lipstick on their cheek, when you hug someone and leave lipstick on their shirt, when it gets on your teeth and you use your tongue to get it off, when you sleep in lipstick and wake up with it on your pillow case. in 1997 mama left for ethiopia to see her mama for the first time in 12 years. i was six and i cried the entire way home from the airport. and when we came home there on the kitchen table was the teacup mama had been drinking out of. at the bottom a sip of tea and black cardamom seeds. and there on the rim of the cup the lipstick imprint of my mama’s kiss.”

- nomad manifesto (via theseasonofthebitch)

mid-funk: Ezra Koenig (Vampire Weekend) by Steven Brahms [HQ]

Sat, 18 May 2013 11:27:21 +0100

mid-funk:

Ezra Koenig (Vampire Weekend) by Steven Brahms [HQ]

I spent the past hour trying to compose a post in the dark on my phone because I’m supposed to...

Sat, 18 May 2013 00:03:01 +0100

I spent the past hour trying to compose a post in the dark on my phone because I’m supposed to be sleeping but I couldn’t and I gave up on the entire thing. I’m annoyed with myself. I’m annoyed with tumblr. I’m annoyed with my roommate. I don’t understand why. This room is too hot, this blanket is too heavy. The boundaries of my mind are so suffocating, I think tonight I’m going to drive myself mad with the thought that for the rest of my life I will never be able to live in anyone else’s mind but my own. I just want to go to sleep I don’t know why I am being so awful to myself.

"We tend to think animals are lower than us, but all the scientists in the world couldn’t design and..."

Fri, 17 May 2013 17:19:22 +0100

“We tend to think animals are lower than us, but all the scientists in the world couldn’t design and operate a bumblebee’s wing. We can’t jump or run very fast, and we can’t carry vast weights like an ant can. We can’t see in the dark and we can’t fly except crammed in a noisy tube like sardines, which doesn’t count. Humans compared to animals are almost totally deaf, and we can’t smell a fart in an elevator by their standards. We are finite and separate, and neurotic, while the consciousness of an animal is at peace and eternal. We strive and go crazy to become more important. Animals rest and sleep and enjoy the company of each other. We think we have evolved upwards from animals but we have lost almost all of their qualities and abilities. The idea that animals don’t have consciousness or that they don’t have a soul is rather crass. It shows a lack of consciousness. They talk, they have families, they feel things, they act individually or together to solve problems, they often care of their young as a tribal unit. They play, they travel, and medicate themselves when they get sick. They cry when others in the herd die, they know about us humans. Of course they have a soul, a very pristine one. We humans are only now attempting with the recent rise in consciousness to achieve the soul that animals have naturally.”

- Stuart Wilde (via commovente)

sermna: you look a little uncomfortable there, Marcie

Fri, 17 May 2013 09:25:39 +0100

sermna:

you look a little uncomfortable there, Marcie

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Fri, 17 May 2013 09:17:46 +0100

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Entry from Page 158: Sept 1903 - May 1904 of F. Scott...

Thu, 16 May 2013 19:31:00 +0100

Entry from Page 158: Sept 1903 - May 1904 of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ledger, 1919-1938, a ledger started by Fitzgerald sometime in 1919 or 1920 as he was moving to New York to begin life as a professional writer. He used the ledger to record his earnings, spendings and an outline chart of his life.

At seven years old, F. Scott Fitzgerald had a birthday party to which no one came.

sainteffie replied to your post: Let me tell you about a boy. This past Monday, I… theres this...

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:23:20 +0100

sainteffie replied to your post: Let me tell you about a boy. This past Monday, I…

theres this guy at my exams who looks exactly like a douchewad i used to have a crush on (i liked him b4 i knew he sucked) and i get so uncomfortable to think about a time when i used to like guys bc theyre so gross

it is it really is the worst thing liking guys oh my god eleven times out of ten the guys are all misogynists but still i like them anyway it’s annoying as HELL but i don’t know how to stop it because i have no idea where the root of the problem is so i don’t know how to cut it out

I started thinking about my parents all of a sudden. Nearly all of my problems can be sourced back...

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:12:11 +0100

I started thinking about my parents all of a sudden. Nearly all of my problems can be sourced back to them and yet I still find myself “protecting” our relationship. From time to time my roommate will ask, “I never see you skype or call your parents. Why?” and I’ll tell her, every time, “oh, I don’t skype or call them but I e-mail them. They’re very busy, they work all day and all night and all that and time differences and all.” What a load of bullshit. I e-mail them like once a month and even then it’s only one-lined messages like “has the school received my IGCSE results yet” or “my summer break starts on july 5th” or “what should I put in as the billing address for my credit card”. I rarely ever talk about my parents and when I do it feels weird, like the rest of the world was having a party and I suddenly burst through the doors and started yelling stuff about my problems to everyone’s surprised faces. And somewhere someone is already telling someone else to turn up the volume on the music. A few days ago Bisola asked me whether I’d told my mom about me getting the highest for art yet and I said no and she asked why and instead of lying like I usually do I took the risk and said well we don’t really talk much. This led her to ask why again and I said I don’t know. We didn’t pursue the subject further because I think one of us changed the topic. No one wants to hear about bad parents. When you tell them anything, they go all quiet and they say something like “aw” or they look at you in a kind of pitiful way and you want to smack them for it because you don’t understand why they should find it pitiful when you’ve been living it your entire life, way past the point where you feel anything at all about your situation, much less pity. Sometimes though, there’ll be people who try to help instead of just saying “oh” and letting the subject drop. But they say stuff like “have you talked to them about it?” Everyone who tries to help always tries to help with the wrong thing. I don’t want help in fixing the relationship with my parents. Of course I’ve never talked to them about it because I didn’t even realize “it” was happening, until gradually “it” kept on happening and happening and it became normalized and before you know it you’re at a point where you’d rather fly halfway across the world to live in completely foreign surroundings than talk to your parents about anything at all. I don’t want you to tell me how to fix the relationship between me and my parents. I want you to tell me that in spite of them, I’m still going to grow up and be a much, much better person than either of them are and that not everyone grows up to be a reflection of their upbringing. I want you to tell me that even though I can’t fix it there are still ways of living with it and eventually growing out of it and learning to really unconditionally love people. That’s all.

Let me tell you about a boy. This past Monday, I was following Jon to get something from the school...

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:23:22 +0100

Let me tell you about a boy. This past Monday, I was following Jon to get something from the school kitchen and because the food line extended past the entryway into the kitchen, we had to ask for some people in line to excuse us so we could get past. The people in line happened to be some of Jon’s friends, some year 12 and year 13 people I’ve seen around but have never talked to because I can’t speak Mandarin nor do I take any of their lessons. One of the boys played around a bit and didn’t move when Jon asked him to and they laughed at each other in Mandarin. I didn’t understand anything but a few times the boy looked at me and I smiled at him with my eyebrows scrunched together, kind of like in a “what are you doin’” way because I was too shy to say anything. This was the first time I made face-to-face “contact” (if you can call it that, since neither of us actually said anything to each other) with him and my first thought then was that he reminds me of a boy I know back home and that, oh my god, he’s actually really really cute, oh my god? Anyway, three days have passed now without me thinking about him but I just all of a sudden remembered how cute he was and how much he reminds me of one of my friends back in Malaysia. Now I can’t stop internally kicking myself for not befriending him earlier because now it’s so late into the school year and spontaneously starting a conversation with someone, especially someone you haven’t talked to or even looked at much ever since you arrived, can’t really be brushed off under the guise of “hey I’m new here let’s be friends”. I don’t know why my brain keeps doing stuff like this to me. Thinking about boys is a waste of time and effort but my brain keeps doing it. Never mind I’m just going to make tea and maybe read or study now and not think weird thoughts about weird boys

PEOPLE!!!!!

Thu, 16 May 2013 11:18:36 +0100

PEOPLE!!!!!

supersonicelectronic: Nick Iluzada.

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:01:36 +0100

supersonicelectronic:

Nick Iluzada.