#romantic academia

you know what’s more intimate than a kiss? giving someone a personal copy of your favorite book. in all its tattered glory or near-perfect condition. ink highlights a memorable line— of a sentence that made your cry. or where countless post-its decorate the pages. in pinks, blues or yellows. others leave questions, or answers within hardbound copies, soft ones most of the time. it’d be even more surprising if someone left lipstick stains

Guelder Roses and the Venus of Milo, Edouard Vuillard

― Haruki Murakami, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

[text ID: I sometimes think that people’s hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what’s at the bottom. All you can do is imagine by what comes floating to the surface every once in a while.]

— Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

[text ID: It seems to me more than ever that I am a victim of introspection. If I have not the power to put myself in the place of other people, but must be continually burrowing inward. I shall never be the magnanimous creative person I wish to be. Yet I am hypnotized by the workings of the individual, alone, and am continually using myself as a specimen.]

― Ada Limón, Sharks in the Rivers

[text ID: … dearest, can you / tell, I am trying / to love you less.]

— Tathève Simonyan, Colourless Musings

[text ID: In my corner of the world, killing is a love language.]

— I stopped going to therapy, Clementine von Radics

[text ID: I think I like my brain best / in a bar fight with my heart. / I think I like myself a little broken. / I’m ok if that makes me less loved. / I like poetry better than therapy anyway.]

― Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red

[text ID: …there it was one of those moments that is the opposite of blindness.]

  "After the Movie" by Marie Howe

[text ID: Simone Weil says that when you really love you are able to look at someone you want to eat and not eat them. / Janis Joplin says, take another little piece of my heart now baby. / Meister Eckhardt says that as long as we love images we are doomed to live in purgatory.]

The Bull, Ocean Vuong

Broken and incomplete.

I wish I could write thee a letter,
For dear, I am at the end of my tether.
And still, I cannot speak of my passion or sorrow,
Not when I live on emotions I only may borrow.
For this, I must beg thee for pardon –
Not all of us grow with roses in our garden.
Yet on this I shall swear; one day I’ll pen thee none a sweet sonnet,
Only true words that will make thee blush under thy lovely bonnet.

Wait for me, my darling, and I shan’t betray my promise,
Meanwhile, may my artless deceit bring thee temporary solace.

people

take your book everywhere

don’t distract them, they’re on a date

flying fluffy butts

libraries should be open all night

moments in love

reading in bed

chaotic cat academia