I find myself starting to write a poem and it always ends as a letter to you. Always stuck halfway between nobility and malice, but wrapped in the overwhelmingly obvious notion that I love you. It makes me miss my typewriter. I always thought it was more honest and methodically neat. It felt messy coming out, but the ink made my words permanent somewhere, even if afterwards I sometimes threw them in the trash. The words existed. The courage I showed, to string them together in flagellating way I’ve mastered, was justified. Now, I’m tempted by this little button that deletes the words that keep spilling from my fingertips in a hasty attempt at honesty - quickly erased by the voice in my head I try to keep muzzled. When I push it, my courage deflates like a balloon. A memento holding the power of happiness slowly decaying into nothing but a reminder of how much I suck at this humanity shtick.
I like a lot of what this stands for and identify with a large part of it. Not all of it, but it is nice to see an opinion represented from a perspective more accurate to my own life.
(via prettyhandsomemangina)
(Source: youtube.com)
The L Word
...Langston. Duh. But in this case, also the show.
I got to choose a poem to analyze for my Harlem Renaissance class.
I chose this because:
1. It's my favorite of Hughes work.
2. Because Bette reads it to her father as he is dying.
I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
