Nadir

If we must cheat ourselves with any dream,
Then let it be a dream of nobleness:
Since it is necessary to express
Gall from black grapes--to sew an endless seam
With a rusty needle--chase a spurious gleam
Narrowing to the nothing through the less--
Since life's no better than a bitter guess,
And love's a stranger--let us change the theme.

Let us at least pretend--it may be true--
That we can close our lips on poisonous
Dark wine diluted by the Stygean wave;
And let me dream sublimity in you,
And courage, liberal for the two of us:
Let us at least pretend we can be brave.


Elinor Wylie


I don't know why I'm digging out the poetry. Just feelin' it, I guess, and that almost never happens, so I figured I'd better go with it while the feeling's there. Poetic bitterness is just so much tastier than my own right now.

You have to understand that my heart is still saaaad.

I tripped, and fell into some emails. Yes, I still have some of them.  There was that one weekend, early on, while I was still being all together'n'shit and being kind of cautious, and that one weekend, well, I asked him if he was "wooing me" and he admitted he was doing it. And after that, well, I just sort of let myself go with it, and I let him do it to me. He was very, very skilled at it, too.  And looking back on it, well, all I can say is, "How cruel. And oh, how very, very stupid I am."

My dad never prepared me for shit like this, and goddamn if it doesn't catch me off guard every fucking time.

Assholes I can deal with, but something like this, man, it's mean, and it hurts my heart.

I hope no one ever does this to his daughter. Or yours, for that matter.

You think I exaggerate? Come on over to my house some time. I'll let you read every page.