The Feel Of Shaking Out Your Cramping Hand As Your Chopin Vinyl Comes To End, Looking Up From Your Notebook

and i think there's nothing more beautiful than finding songs, movies, books, places or any form of art that are similar to each other but still different, you know? in a way that it refreshes your heart and mind- like yes, i loved this vibe. i wanted more of it but in a new way.

Hopes and expectations

Ps: I’m doing a survey on Dark Academia for a university project, if you like DA, I’d be happy to have you do it: https://forms.gle/bhFRX9ivTs9BXXdj8

How to: Confidence

Hold your head high

Look others in the eye

Laugh at yourself but not at others

Smile

Stop apologizing

Good manners (please and thank you)

Dress in a way that shows you have self worth

Expect others to believe you

Expect others to like you

"Real confidence is walking into a room and assuming everyone likes you."

Fake it till you make it. Before you know it, it's no longer fake.

23 years old and I’ve never had a significant other.

I’ve never held hands with someone. I’ve never gone out on a date. I’ve never even been kissed. It never used to really affect me, all of this. I always had this innate confidence that it wouldn’t be like this forever; that my person would come when they’re meant to. But lately, it’s been weighing on me. I’m not a middle-schooler anymore, or a teenager. As each year goes by, it seems more and more out of reach.

Maybe it’s seeing all of my old friends from school getting engaged on social media or moving in with their SO. Maybe it’s because we’ve been in a pandemic for two years and having someone to love and feel loved by would bring a sense of comfort and lightness. I’m not really sure. All I know is, it’s a heavy feeling, this feeling like you’re not desirable or wanted. It makes you so afraid that you’ll never find anyone, because how could you if all you’ve ever known your entire life is being single? The thought of being in a relationship *EVER* is like a pipe dream to me. And it’s awful to feel that way.

But I still hope for it, just the same. It’s just that the hopefulness if starting to get painful.

when remco campert said "poetry is an act of affirmation. i affirm that i live, that i do not live alone."

CAMILLA MACAULAY

Thank you.

Diana Giacometti stood on a crowded platform of St. Pancras Station in London, not quite sure what to do with herself. Her suitcases stood next to her, brown leather accents on green fabric. There were three of them, one and a half were occupied by clothes and toiletries, and the rest were other necessities (mostly various books in Italian and English). She also had a matching messenger bag crossing along her front to rest effortlessly on her hip. This contained her phone, a journal, and a battered copy of The Iliad, which was, quite strangely, in modern Greek, a language which Diana did not know, nor the language of the original text.

She’d just gotten off a two-and-a-half-hour train ride from Paris, which she’d taken after a harrowing journey through Europe. Said journey had started with a nearly ten-hour ferry ride from Olbia (in Sardegna, an island off the coast of Italy) to Rome. Then, after staying in quite a classy Roman hotel (at quite an expensive price) for a night, she hopped on an eleven-hour train ride from Rome to Paris. After that, she took a train across the channel to London, and here she was. The worst part of the journey was the fact that she was travelling entirely alone. Now, she was a thirteen-year-old girl standing alone in St. Pancras Station at 9PM.

Two more trains. She took the tube from King’s Cross (the station attached to St. Pancras) to Paddington Station, her first time on London’s infamous subway system. She was a bit sad that she was leaving London before she’d even stepped outside of a train station, but the fact remained that she needed to be at school the next morning.

After arriving at Paddington, she took her last train to Windsor and Eton Central, only a half-an-hour.

Standing in the eerily quiet streets of Windsor at a time which Diana reckoned was quite near midnight, the cold, just-rained air pressing on her; the past few days felt like a fever dream. Paris and Rome and countless views of European countryside blurring together while clashing with the shiny, linoleum trains and stations, and processed snacks from overpriced stores. She hadn’t seen very many travelers her own age. A band of three British boys, a scared Danish girl, and no less than five French siblings traveling with their mother.

She thought now that she might’ve stood out quite plainly in the crowded European stations, a middle-school-age girl in a tweed jacket standing idly. She’d sometimes whisper lines of the Greek in her copy of The Iliad, sounding out words and phrases that she didn’t know the meaning of. This invariably startled anyone seated near her, while simultaneously shutting her up for the foreseeable future.

Well, now might be a good time to describe the way that Diana looked. She had chocolate hair that poured from her head in coils and swirls, draping itself across her shoulders in a charming way. Her nose was a bit big, and a light, red blush stretched across the middle of her face, like a cat lounging in the sun. Her face was harsh but not ungraceful, an elegance hidden in the way she composed her features. She had large, red lips that complemented her face perfectly, along with unkempt but not untidy eyebrows that arched slightly. Her large eyes were a deep blue, a sea of dark waves, outlined by long eyelashes.

I might also tell you of her character here. It was not unlike the harsh, beautiful Greek that she read from that book. Her voice was eloquent, even-tempered, and she commanded respect around her. The wall that she placed between herself and the world was almost unnoticeable, her façade pinned up on it. She seemed sure of herself and what she said, kind at moments when you’d least expect it, nearly perfect to most people. Some thought her cruel and cold, while others thought her too loud with her opinions, but most saw this perfect self that she had instructed herself to portray.

In reality, she was afraid. She was afraid of herself. She was afraid at every minute that she’d say the wrong thing, wear the wrong outfit, tell the wrong lie. Who she was changed slightly from person to person, and she hated it. The wall of lies she built was splotchy and built of different materials at different sections, having been carefully constructed for years. She prayed that everyone thought they were looking at the same wall, that no one would dismantle it, brick by brick, or knock it over, sending it crashing down on her. Clermont was her opportunity to paint over it all in one stroke.

Only one person had ever managed to build a back door to this wall, and he was dead. It was his Greek book that she carried around, complete with his annotations in a mix of Greek, English, and Italian. She’d catch herself running her thumb over the words scrawled in the margins of that book, knowing that he’d written them all those months ago.

This is the post I want you all to spread as much as you can. Do anything but I want it to be seen as much as possible. I don't care for any of my other posts as much as for this one. IF I DIE I WANT THIS POST TO BE SEEN. I WANT THE WORLD TO HEAR.

This is the memory of a 16 year old girl Katya from Mariupol. I translated it to English and I cried while translating. Please read this. Don't scroll. Don't be ignorant and indifferent.

Do you know the feeling of pain? Once I fell in love with a boy but he didn't love me back, and I thought that it was painful. Turned out that the real pain is to see your mother dying with your own eyes. And to see your brother coming to her again and again, asking her: "Mommy, please, don't sleep, you'll freeze". And we'll never visit her grave. She got left in the cold and dark basement.

We peed, slept and ate our last portions of food in the same basement.

Once uncle Kolya caught a pigeon, I think on the fifth or sixth day, and we fried it and we ate it. And then we all puked.

Mom held on until the end, she died three days before we evacuated.

I told my brother that she's sleeping deeply and that we shouldn't wake her up. But, I think, he understood everything. He understood back then when our lady neighbor died and we couldn't put her outside and she started smelling. And then it became quiet for awhile, uncle Kolya put her outside and got blown up by a hidden grenade (my note, this word "rastyajka" means a grenade with a string attached to it, not a stray bomb. It was put to kill civilians coming out from the basements). Mom cried a lot. After Dad's death, uncle Kolya was the closest person to us.

The dead bodies stink so much.

They were everywhere. I closed my brother's eyes with Mom's scarf so he didn't have to see it. When we were running I almost threw up several times.

I don't believe in your god anymore.

If he existed, we wouldn't have had to suffer so much. My Mother never, you hear me, NEVER did anything bad. She never even left uncle Kolya in another room until she got married. She went to church and confessed often, and so did I. Uncle Kolya gave up smoking so Mom wouldn't worry about him sinning. And your god took her away. The pastor told me something about her helping god there, but it would be so much better for her to help god here, by bringing us up.

I hate russia.

My own uncle is there. Do you know what he said to me today on the phone? "Katya? Which Katya? Girl, I don't know you. What war, which Katya?". And then he wrote me from a different number: "Katya, don't write me. It's dangerous for me and my family. And your mom won't come back".

I hate them! It was his own sister?! How possibly can a person do this???

You know what? I think I'm going to come back to Mariupol. And I'm gonna live on the same place as before. And everyday come into the basement of the new building to put flowers.

It's also scary when the kids cry when it's forbidden. It's forbidden because we needed to not be heard.

These monsters found people in the basements and killed them. Those, who survived, told us that the russian soldiers could rape kids, the elderly and even dead bodies.

If there is a god, why does he let it happen?

I don't want to live anymore. We may be separated now, I suppose. I may not ever see my brother again. And why? Why did this putin "save" us? We lived so well, we even bought a car. Uncle Kolya promised to teach me how to drive. And they even burned the car. And our flat is no more. I want to die and I can't.

Please, hug your kids! Otherwise when you die, they might not remember your smell. If I handle it all and have kids, — I'm going to hug them 24/7.

***

This is it. Now it's time for you to do your part. Do a tag game, tag all your mutuals, do EVERYTHING BECAUSE THIS SHIT IS IMPORTANT. THIS IS MY HONEST HUMAN SCREAM TO YOU AND I SCREAM TO YOU TO SPREAD THIS MEMORY. THIS IS THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS, NOT OSCARS, NOT MEMES, NOT EVERYDAY LIFE. EVERY DAY OF WAR, EVERY DAY WE DON'T GET OUR VICTORY IS THE DAY WE LOST MORE OF OUR INNOCENT PEOPLE. MAKE A GODDAMN CHANGE, PEOPLE!!!

Yours truly

I’m so sorry that I haven’t been able to post lately, but I’ve just been very busy. For the last two weeks, I’ve had a summer course at a *certain British university*, and now I’m in Italy to visit my family and friends (while also taking French classes in the mornings). Between all that and the insane heat in Europe, I’ve been completely exhausted every night. I’ll try to post more, darlings (aka the two people who like my posts)!