what happies me

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste;
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste:
And therefore is Love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd."

"Lord, what fools these mortals be!"

"Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is the madman; the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That, if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear!"

"No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no excuse. Never excuse; for when the players are all dead, there need none to be blamed."

"If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream."

-A Midsummer Night's Dream

more from ayn

"XI.

I am. I think. I will.

My hands . . . My spirit . . . My sky . . . My forest . . . This earth of mine . . . .

What must I say besides? These are the words. This is the answer.

I stand here on the summit of the mountain. I lift my head and I spread my arms. This, my body and spirit, this is the end of the quest. I wished to know the meaning of things. I am the meaning. I wished to find a warrant for being. I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.

It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty to the earth. It is my ears which hear, and the hearing of my ears gives its song to the world. It is my mind which thinks, and the judgment of my mind is the only searchlight that can find the truth. It is my will which chooses, and the choice of my will is the only edict I must respect.

Many words have been granted me, and some are wise, and some are false, but only three are holy: 'I will it!'

Whatever road I take, the guiding star is within me; the guiding star and the loadstone which point the way. They point on in but one direction. They point to me.

I know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the universe or if it is but a speck of dust lost in eternity. I know not and I care not. For I know what happiness is possible to me on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it.
My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.

Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their altars.

I am a man. This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before!

I do not surrender my treasures, nor do I share them. The fortune of my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the poor of the spirit. I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom.

I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others. I covet no man's soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet.

I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must do more than to have been born. I do not grant my love without reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim it. I honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned.

I shall choose friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire. For in the temple of his spirit, each man is alone. Let each man keep his temple untouched and undefiled. Then let him join hands with others if he wishes, but only beyond his holy threshold.

For the word 'We' must never be spoken, save by one's choice and as a second thought. This word must never be placed first within man's soul, else it becomes a monster, the root of all the evils on earth, the root of man's torture by men, and an unspeakable lie.

The word 'We' is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages.

What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom, if even the fools can dictate to me? What is my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and impotent, are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree, and to obey?

But I am done with this creed of corruption.

I am done with the monster of 'We,' the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame.

And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride.

This god, this one word:

'I.'"

-Anthem, Ayn Rand

answers

"The secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who will seek them. We know, for we have found a secret unknown to all our brothers."

"Our dearest one. Fear nothing of the forest. There is no danger in solitude. We have no need of our brothers. Let us forget their good and our evil, let us forget all things save that we are together and that there is joy as a bond between us. Give us your hand. Look ahead. It is our own world, Golden One, a strange unknown world, but our own."

"And now we look upon the earth and sky. This spread of naked rock and peaks and moonlight is like a world ready to be born, a world that waits. It seems to us it asks a sign from us, a spark, a first commandment. We cannot know what word we are to give, nor what great deed this earth expects to witness. We know it waits. It seems to say it has great gifts to lay before us, but it wishes a greater gift from us. We are to speak. We are to give its goal, its highest meaning to all this glowing space of rock and sky."

"They have nothing to fight me with, save the brute forces of their numbers. I have my mind."

"These are things before me. And as I stand here at the door of glory, I look behind me for the last time. I look upon the history of men, which I have learned from the books, and I wonder. It was a long story, and the spirit which moved it was the spirit of man's freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. This and nothing else."

"Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but it will break through. And man will go on. Man, not men."

-Anthem, Ayn Rand

picture 55

Now I'm married to cacophony
There were the smiles, and of course, the afterthoughts
And I still see the poetry in your face, but it's a
New kind of light that makes your eyes flash

Isn't it strange how we could be so bold with our words,
When we once devoted hours to the sound of our breath?

on meaning

Meaning comes from that place in your brain from which you feel. Every barbaric, every rudimentary phrase and idea blossoms in the head, not in ink. The storm last night created some sort of inescapable consciousness. Everything that can be felt can and should be expressed. It's fascinating to say something that does not exist and to watch it try to mean something. To intend is to feel alive. To state the abstract is to want to feel one with one's art. Our brainchild has got your eyes. Meaning is idealism -- nothing is so objectively perfect.

the end of ap lit

Your voice closes you off to living because of its perfection.
But, so, it is not perfect.
Open your chords to fault, to mistake, or the more it comes without your approval.
And yet, you there, holding your hair, have yet to learn all the answers but respond to them as if you have.
Closing yourself off to a life, you react when we reflect.
I don't have ideas to write your poems.

little death

Only 'til the end of time? Should the world itself drown or starve and be no more, then are our souls forgotten? Oh, selfish earth, to take my mind and being, erase them from an eternity of space. That our forever should end, that it should be barred by finite sciences, I shudder. Should I never be known in a thought on a distant world of true eternities? When time stops, perhaps I may live on in space, or in the memory of it. Or, that when every piece and particle of this planet shall vanish by the stars' eyes, every word of the human tongue should echo no more, every idea never reverberate again. Is this the fate of the earth, and am I to submit to it?

german literature can be okay

"Being ill when you are a child or growing up is such an enchanted interlude! The outside world, the world of free time in the yard or the garden or on the street, is only a distant murmur in the sickroom. Inside, a whole world of characters and stories proliferates out of the books you read. The fever that weakens your perception as it sharpens your imagination turns the sickroom into someplace new, both familiar and strange; monsters come grinning out of the patterns on the curtains and the carpet, and chairs, tables, bookcases, and wardrobes burst out of their normal shapes and become mountains and buildings and ships you can almost touch although they're far away. Through the long hours of the night you have the church clock for company and the rumble of the occasional passing car that throws its headlights across the walls and ceiling. These are hours without sleep, which is not to say that they're sleepless, because on the contrary, they're not about lack of anything, they're rich and full. Desires, memories, fears, passions form labyrinths in which we lose and find and then lose ourselves again. They are hours when anything is possible, good or bad.
'This passes as you get better. But if the illness has lasted long enough, the sickroom is impregnated with it and although you're convalescing and the fever has gone, you are still trapped in the labyrinth."

"Sometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily. Because happiness is only real if it lasts forever? Because things always end painfully if they contained pain, conscious or unconscious, all along? But what is unconscious, unrecognized pain?"

"But waking from a bad dream does not necessarily console you. It can also make you fully aware of the horror you just dreamed, and even of the truth residing in that horror."

"Does everyone feel this way? When I was young, I was perpetually overconfident or insecure. Either I felt completely useless, unattractive, and worthless, or that I was pretty much a success, and everything I did was bound to succeed. When I was confident, I could overcome the hardest challenges. But all it took was the smallest setback for me to be sure hat I was utterly worthless. Regaining my self-confidence had nothing to do with success; every goal I set myself, every recognition I craved made anything I actually did seem paltry by comparison, and whether I experienced it as a failure or triumph was utterly dependent on my mood."

"I didn't reveal anything that I should have kept to myself. I kept something to myself that I should have revealed... I know that disavowal is an unusual form of betrayal. From the outside it is impossible to tell if you are disowning someone or simply exercising discretion, being considerate, avoiding embarrassments and sources of irritation. But you, who are doing the disowning, you know what you're doing."

"Is it possible that when you say 'knew,' the most you can actually do is assume, and that when you say 'believe,' you are actually just making things up?"

"There's no need to talk, because the truth of what one says lies in what one does."

"The tectonic layers of our lives rest so tightly one on top of the other that we always come up against earlier events in later ones, not as matter that has been fully formed and pushed aside, but absolutely present and alive. I understand this."

-The Reader, Bernhard Schlink

contraction III

When you rub your eyes together, your vision blurs and the little lenses inside stick to your corneas so that they cannot escape into clarity. I am writing from this part of life, when my vision is so impaired by my own weakness that I struggle to put things back into perspective. Recently, I've begun a new phase of looking into people's eyes and searching, of breaking down the colors and rings and focusing in on some apparent passion hidden by action or expression. I remember the first time I sunk into my mother's stare and saw pure fear, pure worry. She was exhausted and nervous, feelings she was comfortable giving away to me, but her pupils betrayed any sense of calm she could contrive to comfort me. Shockingly, I was not afraid or saddened by her fear. I admit I felt a sense of power in that I could detach myself from her being for one moment and see her objectively for what she was. That there is fear in the eyes of those whom I love does not disturb me. Rather, it holds me closer to those people, my fellow world-inhabitants, and makes me feel as if my darker depths of emotion are justified and shared. I can feel closeness, I can yearn for it, but it is not my ultimate passion in this life. Now that I have found someone so similar to myself, someone who knows the exact word or touch to happy me, I feel a delight I've never known. I also feel a sadness pull at me from inside. It's my subconscious, it's an imaginary world, it's my voice, it's everything I have ever created for myself on my own. It is everything of which I am proud. The inner peace I experienced in solitude has been masked with the peace of mind that accompanies knowing one is comforted and secure by another physical being. Since I have spent a life alone for all my time, I find most safety there, most comfort. Now that I have found one special soul with whom I can share a life, I must relinquish that solitude now and then, and, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure I know how to do that. I could say I am misunderstood, but I am not and must realize the joy that lay within this idea. He holds me in his arms and under the sheets as though I were a barely-born child, sitting innocently in her mother's womb. This is the comfort, the security. However, there is no visible lifeline that connects us. He cannot physically jump into my head and feel his way into my mind and be one with my thoughts. He listens and responds perfectly, but I need to consult my own thoughts before proceeding. The easiest tune I could sing would be to just say I am complicated, but would that do it? Where is the meaning, the passion, the analysis in that one word? Taking deep breaths doesn't put it any more in perspective. I need the space to push back from my thoughts and see that I am a girl in a chair writing out ideas in words with a black ink pen. I see it now, but does the distinction between my solitude and social being make that wombed feeling more like being in an unending pit? Do you help me out or do I? You make me happier than a world's laughter, but there is still work to be done and there are still thoughts to be pondered. I often feel as if others cannot reciprocate the analysis of eyes for me, because I numb them when I am confused. This is the actual fear I feel: that others feel with truth and purity while my emotions vary from overwhelmed to contrived to numb. I love you more than I thought I ever could, but where and whom and how does that shape me? My vision crawls back into my eyes slowly, even if I have to take the contact lens out and clean it a few times before putting it back in my eye. Do these thoughts cleanse and clarify my mind, or are they just a tapping noise at the back of my feet that I can easily relinquish by removing my shoes?

contraction II

There's something in your eyes I so tenderly adore and savor. Yet there is something in you that used to block me from you. I didn't know which feeling belonged to my heart, and which one to my mind, if I can confess. I thought I could have been in love with you, but also that I may never be in love because of the way I cling to myself and hold myself back from feeling things and letting go. I have ignored my resistance, though, while back then I genuinely didn't know how and I didn't know differently. I thought I just needed to analyze all things and know everything before it happened. You taught me how not to do so, were the first cure, and I can give you all my love.

contraction I

I've never really filled anything entirely. Thoughts, notebooks, obligations are all left dangling in the nothingness of possibility and the possibility of nothingness. I look back at my scattered work, at my dying passion, at my halfhearted attempts at being something one day or doing something the next and wonder if it is merely from a largely overwhelming laziness that limits me with an exhaustion of spirit and mind, or if I'm just stuck in a spiraling trend of outgrowing my surroundings over and over again. I'm reaching out for new space. I'm detaching myself from those things that are dead and minimizing the dying or constricting things around me. I am living a debauched and obsessive journey of needing something new always until it becomes old the next day and pushes me out of its space. My words are growing more and more tightly together on these little lines because my thoughts are suddenly so compressed. Yet it is quite paradoxical, then, that I find myself yearning for sumptuous open space and believing it will just appear before me without my effort. Do I expect too much out of the world, out of fate? Or am I really meant for greatness? Or am I not? No, I've never filled anything and it would be a somewhat pleasant struggle to do so.

new hedonism

I want a sensation new to me. That I have touched danger, that my pen has tasted new paper has excited my passion. I find it amusing to tease the weak and watch them crumble. My mind gropes to catch a new disease, to be found out, to purge the dull and feed on the shock of the new, to play sick games with its contemporaries, to prick itself and live twice, to disrupt the atmosphere. I am thinking in shades of teal and orange and cream, instead of my usual plum and midnight. I want to inhale the thing of death to breathe it back out and acknowledge my persistent reality, my yearning existence. The chain and lock around the style of my peers dulls the air and I'm a victim of new hedonism ideals. Find the space between my ears and feel your own way out. I have no new material, only sensations. I'm young and new, but feel as if I have been asleep for a lifetime and am waking to a world charged with color and feeling. The ugly are uglier, the unimportant more so. My only fear is that once I give a part of me away to sensation, something common and unfrowned upon by my fellow humans, I may never come back again to my center of being, my wholesome soul and spirit. I made the mistake when attempting to write for an audience of not controlling myself and then submitting to the influences around me. But now I know how to tame my craft and share it with another. I can trust and feel and these things comfort me, yet my only potential demise is my own weakness and reticence. Assure me I have nothing about which to worry. Tell me my craft is pure and secret and well-guarded. Now that I have confessed, I am ready to sin.

register receipt paper

You've sunburned me, stranger. I'm not entirely aware of how we became so warm or how we've ended up so far away from the earth, but if you were to leave me alone on this sun now I'd instantly heal. I like the pain of knowing I'm alive, though. I embrace the itch, twitch off the burn. My body needs more to feel whole again, it's sick from the cool earth atmosphere, so inconstant. Flames consume me and I see nothing but eyes on the other side. I no longer need a pinch out of this consuming dream. I have become it. I always worshiped the sun and threw rocks at her starry shield to break the heavenly barrier, but now I'm here breathing her fire. I don't know heat. I know peace and passion. I know that I'm alone here with another who has brought me here. Clarity rises from the smoke, and we're detached from suppressing ground; the center point of the universe, seeing and believing all the planets and their inhabitants as they pass. We enjoy this sight, the worlds passing us on our own time. We're in a yellow kitchen with light switches and faucets and energy, laughing over the fates. Am I existing? I must be, as you're whispering from across a glass table that I need to cut my fingernails.

the best sext ever

From: BOSIE

"i'm pulsing with anticipation for your luscious body... the vampire within craves to mark on your neck a display of all that is forbidden and drive you insane with bad grammar that you won't even have the energy to correct."

Jun 1, 9:29 pm

song song song

"My rhyme ain't good just yet,
My brain and tongue just met,
And they ain't friends, so far,
My words don't travel far,
They tangle in my hair,
And tend to go nowhere,
They grow right back inside,
Right past my brain and eyes
Into my stomach juice
Where they don't serve much use,
No healthy calories,
Nutrition values.
And I absorb back in
The words right through my skin
They sit there festering inside my bowels

The consonants and vowels
The consequence of sounds
The consonants and vowels
The consequence of sounds

Got a soundtrack in my mind,
All the time. Kids-
Screamin' from too much beat up
And they don't even rhyme,
They just stand there, on a street corner,
Skin tucked in
And meat side out and shot,
And I'd like to turn them down
But there ain't no knob.
Run into picket fences
Not into picket lines.
All this hippie-shit for the 60's
And another cliche for our time. But,
But a one of these days your heart
Will just stop ticking,
And they sorta just don't find you till your cubicle is reeking.

The consonants and vowels
The consequence of sounds
The consonants and vowels
The consequence of sounds
Ahh ah ah ah ahh ah ah ah

Did you know that the gravedigger's still
Gettin' stuck in the machine
Even tough it's a whole other daydream.
It's another town it's another world,
Where the kids are asleep, where the loans are paid
And the lawns are mowed.
Whad'ya think?
All the gravediggers were gone?
Just cause one song is done
There's always another one,
Waiting right around the bend,
Till this one ends,
Then it begins
Squeaky clean, then it starts all over again.

The weather report keeps on
Tossing and turning,
Predicting and warning,
And warning and warning of,
Possible leakage from news publications and,
Possible leakage from news TV stations.
That very same morning right next to her coffee
She noticed some bleeding and heard hollow coughing and
National Geographic was being too graphic,
When all she had wanted to know was the traffic
"The worlds got a nosebleed" it said
"And we're flooding but we keep on cutting
The trees and the forests!"
And we keep on paying those freaks on the TV,
Who claim they will save us but want to enslave us.
And sweating like demons they scream through our speakers
But we leave the sound on 'cause silence is harder.
And no one's the killer and no one's the martyr
The world that has made us can no longer contain us
And profits are silent then rotting away 'cause

The consonants and vowels
The consequence of sounds.
The consonants and vowels
The consequence of sounds.
Ah ah ah...

My rhyme ain't good just yet,
My brain and tongue just met,
And they ain't friends, so far,
My words don't travel far,
They tangle in my hair,
And tend to go nowhere,
They grow right back inside,
Right past my brain and eyes
Into my stomach juice
Where they don't serve much use,
No healthy calories,
Nutrition values.
And I absorb back in
The words right through my skin
They sit there festering inside my bowels

The consonants and vowels
The consequence of sounds
The consonants and vowels
The consequence of sounds"

-Regina Spektor, "The Consequence of Sounds"