Emily Dickinson - Blog Posts

Because I could not stop for Death –

He kindly stopped for me –

The Carriage held but just Ourselves –

And Immortality.

~Emliy Dickinson

PLEASE tell me more about emily dickinson. she looks so rad.

Ah, ofc!

My process for her was basically this:

I wanted Chuuya to have another foil, one that functioned similarly to Dostoyevsky being a foil for Dazai. I wanted Chuuya to have his own Fyodor character, someone who can rival his prowess in battle while having polar opposite ways of handling the way they live.

I needed a poet, and I needed one that had similar vibes to Nakahara Chuuya's poetry, from what I've seen of it. And this is a hot take, but I think Emily Dickinson deals with a lot of the same themes? They both deal with grief and beauty and a lot of their poems are melancholic in nature. There's also some similarity in their biographies. Both of them were pretty obscure before their death (though Dickinson published even less). Both had an antagonistic relationship with education. Dickinson is also sometimes classified as a "transcendentalist" (though a lot of scholars don't agree on that front, and that her verse is a lot more innovative for the time).

I'm sure there's probably another poet who is more similar, but I was also a big fan of Emily Dickinson before this so...yeah.

I'm rearranging a lot of my ideas for this character, especially when it comes to her power. Lets just say I was deliberately avoiding an obvious choice for her power, but then I was like "Why, when that poem is rad". So, maybe I'll reveal more later?

Dear god, today I got a notification from tumblr that this blog is two years old…

That just feels so wrong. Maybe because I only started being on here regularly in mid November of last year (I got pulled in by wanting to know peoples thoughts on the new MCR stuff, shout-out to all those fuckers, now I’m addicted to this app) and only made my first reblog a little over a year ago. That’s not even accounting for how recent my first original post is.

But uhhhhh yeah the passage of time is freaky. May this blog last many years more and to anyone reading this, check me out on ao3; a single kudos can change a life and I desperately need inspiration to pick my longfic back up.

Happy most of the way through Passover to those who celebrate and keep trucking transgenders! Remember that the song of hope never stops singing, even if you can’t hear the tune!

A classic! Afterall what are we, except inconsequential nobodies in this vast stretch of universe? 🤍 Emily Dickinson Supremacy 🤍

Another masterpiece by the legend- Emily Dickinson... 🤍🤍🤍

The unique persona of Emily Dickinson has made her poetry immortal. The elegance with which she has often defined or reflected Death, never ceased to capture the readers' admiration.

🤍🤍🤍

"Un uomo può casualmente fare un'osservazione inoffensiva, ma tale da infuocare la scintilla assopita in un'indole tranquilla. Dobbiamo essere cauti, parlare con misura: la polvere da sparo è nel carbone, prima d'esser nel fuoco."

- Emily Dickinson, Tutte le poesie

Emily doesnt believe in Love. Its a simple fact. Its a chemical reaction in the brain. A trick to feel less alone. To believe in something that is good. A stomach can not be filled with butterflies it's simply not true.

And yet.

When someone dares to interrupt her from her own world writing furiously in a notebook attempting some resemblance of a poem as the world around her crumbles. She can't find it within herself to be upset.

The girl is young. Around the same age as her she guesses. Dressed all in black the girl looks out of place on such a bright and cheery day and she tries to argue with herself that the reason she has been staring at this poor girl is exactly that. The girl is out of place. And yet that can't be true.

If it was simple confusion would she feel like a bumble bee while the sweet smell of the girls purfume comparable to nectar of the worlds most beautiful flower.

If it were confusion would she feel the caterpillars crawling their way into her stomach, looking for somewhere to live.

If it were confusion would her voice be comparable to the song of the lark in the early morning.

The girl speaks again her voice a little confused likely because she is still staring but she doesnt hear it over the burst of poetry exploding in her brain. She quickly looks back down to her paper. It doesn"t seem so hopeless anymore.

The blank spaces on the pages dont seem so plain. Instead they are filled with the girls smile, her eyes, her odd black dress. And writing has neve felt easier.

The girl sits down opposite a curious look on her face as she watches now silently as she writes, not close enough or quite at the right angle to read the words and yet she stays and watches anyway.

Hours pass.

A shout can be heard from the distance, loud and shrill. Emily looks up from her writing at that and notices the girl still sat with the same curious look on her and she blushes lightly at the realisation.

The shouting gets louder and its becoming more and more obvious what they are saying. The name Emily becoming clearer by the minuite.

She stands up wiping the grass off of her dress and spots her sister calling for her to come set the table for dinner. With a groan she agrees.

Turning back towards the girl she finds no one. A piece of her paper and a pencil in the girls place. She picks it up a smile on her face as she reads,

same time tomorrow?-Sue

Emily doesn't believe in love at first sight. It's a simple fact. But she might believe in it at the second.

"You are so quite." Baby I'm not even here. I am fantasising about a book I read weeks ago. Move on.

I am half afraid to hope for what I long for.

Emily Dickinson

You are in his DMs and I am ardently sending him handwritten letters with the most raw feelings and hand-made sketched envelopes. We are not the same girl!

💫

"Have you got a brook in your little heart"

by Emily Dickinson

Have you got a brook in your little heart, Where bashful flowers blow, And blushing birds go down to drink, And shadows tremble so?

And nobody knows, so still it flows, That any brook is there; And yet your little draught of life Is daily drunken there.

Then look out for the little brook in March, When the rivers overflow, And the snows come hurrying from the hills, And the bridges often go.

And later, in August it may be, When the meadows parching lie, Beware, lest this little brook of life Some burning noon go dry!

“Dear friend, — Your sweetness intimidates” Emily Dickinson, from a letter to Sarah Tuckerman (January 1880)

—Emily Dickinson

I'm out with lanterns looking for myself

-Emily Dickinson

I try not to fall in love. I really do, because I know that I'll think about them, those things that will make it hard to forget. The curve of his back, the outline of his hips, the way his necklace falls at the base of his neck, the way its only something I can admire when his back is turned, because he likes to tuck his necklaces inside his T-shirt, the matching bracelet hangs off his wrist and sparkles in the light the way his eyes do when morning comes the next day. I have his sleepy smile when I'm the first thing he sees as he opens his eyes, memorized, and his low playful drawl to"take a picture, it'll last longer," before he scoops me up in his arms with the strength of someone who had definitely-been-awake-for-a-while and I'll remember it all. These are the things, the things I'll think of when you're gone, so I try my best not to fall in love.

—Camille Lee, I'll remember everything

He was the first guy, I tried the "talking stage" with. I told him slow, glacially slow, like a candle burning into the late hours of the night, but he didn't hear over his own wants, his own needs. It was part of the reason it was the end of our season, on his way out the door he broke my heart all over and I knew I dodged a bullet when his ego started talking. Suddenly, oh so suddenly, I wasn't worthy of someone like him. Suddenly my beauty was too little and there was something wrong with me, so much for "you're my ideal girl" because now apparently I "wasn't even that pretty" and my version of normal was a problem. The way I was, was a problem. You said if I'm not happy with you, I'll never find a boyfriend. At the mere age of twenty with so much life left to live ahead of me, did you really think that's what I'd believe? The audacity— to try to convince me I wasn't worth loving, if I didn't want to be with you. My only regret is I didn't laugh in your face, so much for the "talking stage."

—Camille Lee, you'll never find a boyfriend

You and I were stranded. Trapped, in the school’s gymnasium. The rain was starting to coming down, it was pouring. There was this hummingbird rhythm in my chest, loud as drums, where you and I lie, side by side, in dark blue skirts and white school shirts, on worn gym mats. The sound compelling, if I let it. Supposedly my feelings lie on some sort of spectrum? All I know is you and I, no matter what, aren't clear cut. I fantasize, or do I fetishize? I'm hoping you don’t realize, I want to kiss between your eyes, and that mine linger on your thighs. Echoes in a empty colosseum, ourselves as our own audience and with no one to witness it. I’m too young to know what I want, young and confused, in a "phase I'll grow out of eventually." Does it mean anything? If your hands linger on my waist? You make a mistake in your haste, kiss the corner of my lips instead of my cheek, before you leave. You giggle, because what else could it possibly mean? 

—Camille Lee, her

She's sickenly sweet like honey with her crooked teeth, her breath smells like candy and her pretty stray eyelash, decorates her cheeks. She's a Venus fly trap. She's got stickers in her hair, glitter on her face and paint on her shoes. She gives her heart away like she has nothing to lose. She's the kind to make wishes on dandelions and to believe that when the stars align she can communicate with the divine in her dreams. We drove out to a field, laid under her "special tree" and watched the tall grass sway in the sunlight. It was something out of a movie. Do I want to be her or do I want to be with her? I couldn't pull it apart without leaving behind spider webs of her and I, traces of each other, like perfume clinging to a sweater I haven't worn in months. She's like a dream.

—Camille Lee, dream girl

If you were coming in the fall

-- Emily Dickinson

Púrpura

A cor das rainhas é esta -

A cor de um sol, no poente;

Ainda, além dessa, o âmbar;

E o berilo – se o dia vai a meio.

Mas quando à noite amplidões de aurora

Atingem de súbito os homens – 

Essa cor, e o feitiço. A Natureza, porém,

Reserva ainda um lugar para os cristais de iodo.

—

Emily Dickinson. Poemas escolhidos: 436, 2007.

The Pained Heart or Sigh No More, Arthur Hughes (1867 - 1872).

This is my letter to the world That never wrote to me.

Emily Dickinson

Yet each man kills the thing he loves,

By each let this be heard: Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword! Some kill their love when they are young, And some when they are old; Some strangle with the hands of Gold: The kindest use a knife, because The dead so soon grow cold. Some love too little, some too long, Some sell and others buy; Some do the deed with many tears, And some without a sigh: For each man kills the thing he loves, Yet each man does not die.

Oscar Wilde

We are accused of terrorism

We are accused of terrorism If we dare to write about the remains of a homeland That is scattered in pieces and in decay In decadence and disarray About a homeland that is searching for a place And about a nation that no longer has a face

About a homeland that has nothing left of its great ancient verse But that of wailing and eulogy

About a homeland that has nothing in its horizons Of freedoms of different types and ideology

About a homeland that forbids us from buying a newspaper Or listen to anything About a homeland where all birds are always not allowed to sing About a homeland that out of horror, its writers are using invisible ink

About a homeland that resembles poetry in our country Improvised, imported, loose and of no boundaries Of foreign tongue and soul Detached from Man and Land, ignoring their plight as a whole

About a homeland to the negotiating table moves Without a dignity or shoes

About a homeland That no more has steadfast men With only women therein

Bitterness is in our mouthsin our talkin our eyes Will draught also plague our souls as a legacy passed to us from ancient times?

Our nation has nobody left, even the less glorified No one to say "NO" in the face of those who gave up our homebread and butter Turning our colorful history into a circus

We have not a single honest poem That has not lost its virginity in a ruler's Harem

We grew accustomed to humiliation Then what is left of Man If he is comfortable with that?

I search the books of history For men of greatness to deliver us from darkness To save our women from fires' brutality

I search for men of yesterday But all I find is frightened cats Fearing for their souls From the authority of rats

Are we hit by national blindness Or are we suffering from color blindness

We are accused of terrorism If we refuse to perish Under Israeli tyranny That is hampering our unity Our history Our Bible and our Quran Our prophets' land If that is our sin and crime Then terrorism is fine

We are accused of terrorism If we refuse to be wiped out By barbarians, the Mongols or the Jews If we choose to stone the fragile security council Which was sacked by the king of caesuras

We are accused of terrorism If we refuse to negotiate the wolf And reach out for a whore

America is fighting the cultures of Man Because it lacks one And against the civilizations because it needs one It is a gigantic structure but without a wall

We are accused of terrorism If we refuse current times Where America  the arrogant the mighty the rich Became a sworn interpreter of Hebrew.

-Nizar Qabbani

Qana

The face of Qana Pale, like that of Jesus and the sea breeze of April… Rains of blood.. and tears.. They entered Qana stepping on our charred bodies Raising a Nazi flag in the lands of the South and rehearsing its stormy chapters   Hitler cremated them in the gas chambers   and they came after him to burn us Hitler kicked them out of Eastern Europe and they kicked us out of our lands They entered Qana Like hungry wolves Putting to fire the house of the Messiah Stepping on the dress of Hussain and the dear land of the South We saw the tears in Ali's eyes We heard his voice as he prayed under the rain of bloody skies Qana unveiled what was hidden We saw America Wearing the old coat of a Jewish Rabbi Leading the slaughter Blasting our children for no reason Blasting our wives for no reason Blasting our trees for no reason Blasting our thoughts for no reason Has it been decreed in her constitution, She, America, mistress of the world, In Hebrew .. that she should humble us al-Arabs? Has it been decreed that each time a ruler in America wants to win the presidency that he should kill us... We al Arabs?

-Nizar Qabbani

Jerusalem

I wept until my tears were dry I prayed until the candles flickered I knelt until the floor creaked I asked about Mohammed and Christ Oh Jerusalem, the fragrance of prophets The shortest path between earth and sky Oh Jerusalem, the citadel of laws A beautiful child with fingers charred and downcast eyes You are the shady oasis passed by the Prophet Your streets are melancholy Your minarets are mourning You, the young maiden dressed in black Oh Jerusalem, the city of sorrow A big tear wandering in the eye Who will halt the aggression On you, the pearl of religions? Who will wash your bloody walls? Who will safeguard the Bible? Who will rescue the Quran? Who will save Christ? Who will save man? Oh Jerusalem my town Oh Jerusalem my love Tomorrow the lemon trees will blossom And the olive trees will rejoice Your eyes will dance The migrant pigeons will return To your sacred roofs And your children will play again And fathers and sons will meet On your rosy hills My town The town of peace and olives.

-Nizar Qabbani

Granada

At the entrance of Alhambra was our meeting, How sweet is a rendezvous not thought of before. Two soft black eyes in perfect frames enticing, Generating after-effects from the past ages afore. Are you a Spaniard? I asked her enquiring, She said: Granada is the city where I was born. Granada! Seven centuries awoke from slumbering, In her eyes, after the clothing of sleep they wore. And Umayyad, with flags lifted high, flying, Their horses streaming by, unnumbered they pour. How strange is history, how is it to me returning? A beautiful granddaughter, from my pedigree of yore. With a Damascene face, through it I was seeing, The eyelids of Sheba and the neck of Suad once more. I saw a room in our old house with a clearing, Where mother used to spread my cushions on the floor. And the Jasmine inlaid in its stars were shining, With the golden singing pool, a picture of splendor. Damascus, where is it? I said: you will be seeing It in your flowing hair, a river of golden black ore. In your Arab face, in your mouth still storing The suns of my country from the days of Arab lore. In the perfume of Generalife with waters gleaming, Its Arabian Jasmine, its sweet basil and citron odour. She came with me and her hair behind her flowing, Like luscious ears of grain in an unharvested meadow. The long earrings on her neck were glittering, Like Christmas Eve candles that sparkle and glow. Behind her like a child I walked, she was guiding, And behind me, history, piles of ashes row after row. The decoration of Alhambra I almost hear pulsing, And the ornaments on the roof, I hear their call grow. She said: Alhambra! Pride of my ancestors glowing, Read on its walls my glories that shine and show. Her glory! I anointed an open wound festering, And in my heart anointed another that refused to go. If only my lovely granddaughter had a way of knowing, The ones she meant were my ancestors of long, long ago. When I bid her adieu, when I knew I was going, I embraced in her Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād, that Arab hero.

-Nizar Qabbani

We used to meet at dusk Sitting on the old bridge While fog surrounds the hills It covers the road past our sight

No one knows where we are Only the sky and the autumn leafs When you said "I love you" The miserable clouds disappeared

-Al Rahbani Brothers