From John Ciardi’s Translation Of “the Inferno” By Dante Alighieri

Last night, I told my mother "I wish I was dead" in a fit of rage and winter clouded her eyes. But it wasn't white and it wasn't quiet, it resembled something like helplessness and rage. She was in pain and I knew I hurt her. I wanted to say something, anything, but how do you withdraw a declaration of war? How do you stop the bombs that already destroyed homelands? In that moment I remembered how she always told me that when she was a kid, she was too afraid to sleep with the lights on. Not because she was afraid of monsters, but because she feared her grandmother would die. Because when you're a kid, not seeing it means it doesn't exist anymore. I saw the winter in her eyes again and I knew I had switched off the light, she wasn't angry, she was afraid.

And I also remembered how she always told me I'd always be 3 years old for her, always a child, and for the first time, I heard in the voice of a three year old "I wish I was dead". My heart broke. And I wanted to hug her and hold her, tell her I was sorry, that I didn't mean it. Before I could move a hand, she left the room. The entire evening, I saw myself as she saw me, a 3 year old child. I saw the child hurt herself and cry herself to sleep every week, fight her friends with her tiny hands and two ponytails, I saw her depression and her anxiety, I saw her yell "I wish I was dead" and I knew. I knew. I wanted to shout through the walls, yell and cry and tell my mother that now I KNEW, but I didn't. I wept and wept until I heard a quiet knock and a soft familiar voice whispered, "Dinner is ready".

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire

*drowns myself in romanticized idealizations*

She grows up feeling wrong, out of place, too dark, too tall, too unruly, too opinionated, too silent, too strange. She grows up with the awareness that she is merely tolerated, an irritant, useless, that she does not deserve love, that she will need to change herself substantially, crush herself down if she is to be married

Hamnet - Maggie O’Farrell

“Vive vitam tuam, nam morte tua morieris.”

Live your own life, for you will die your own death.

I’m not sure if I’m going to continue working on Achilles and the London Boy.

I’m not sure where the plot is going, and I don’t think my characters are really thought-out, so I think I’ll scrap the project. But, I’ve really enjoyed working on it, and I think that a lot of the scenes have promise on their own. Well, I just wanted to let you all know.

Questions To Ask People You Like:

Favourite classical authors?

Favourite poem?

Favourite book?

Preferred writing utensil?

Favourite place?

Favourite memory?

Most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?

Favourite library?

Favourite flower?

Sense and Sensibility or Pride and Prejudice?

Favourite quote?

Favourite Latin phrase?

British or American spelling?

Favorite obscure fact?

Favorite historical figure?

Favorite romance novel?

Favorite big city?

Favorite small town?

Favorite constellation?

Favorite university?

Favorite British town?

Favorite obscure author?

Favorite fabric pattern?

Favorite song?

Story of their first love?

Ideal plans for tomorrow?

Favorite old French author?

Favorite turn of phrase?

Favorite capitol or city hall?

Favorite old building?

Favorite museum?

Favorite book store?

Favorite folk tale?

Favorite historical story?

Favorite historical battle?

Oxford or Cambridge?

Edinburgh or London?

Favorite Italian town?

Favorite palace or castle?

Favorite noble family?

Favorite royal family?

Favorite century?

Ever written a love letter?

Favorite weather?

Tea or coffee?

If your name was Adelia, which nickname would you choose, Addie or Delia?

Favorite Greek, Roman, or Norse myth?

Opinion on Oxford commas?

Favorite word in a foreign language?

Favorite English word?

Favorite historical time period?

Favorite song lyric?

Favorite things?

Can any of us really claim to be happy if we haven’t danced in the rain? Held hands with the moon? Had poetry carved to our name? Had our favorite book annotated and presented as a token of full fledged alliance?

This is what I found when I searched Giulia on Pinterest.

I believe that a morning should never describe a day. Of course, I don’t believe mornings listen to mortal pleas and reasoning, but I try to enact this rule myself. Yet, it is a morning’s nature to bleed into your perception of a day, tint it with sorrow or with beauty. The only times when I forbid myself from enforcing this rule is when my day is unknowingly stricken with a morning of perfect quiescence, an awake before the world has begun to turn. Those rare mornings can feel free to pour through the seams of time and stain the parchment of afternoons and evenings a beautiful shade of rose. I’m quite a hypocrite, I do know.