inside you there are two wolves
and you need to be nice to both of them
this week’s Thought (singular)
it’s all fun and games until you remember the stuffed toys you gave away when you had turned ten-years-old and begin to wonder who’s playing with your One-Eyed Barney now.
hi
it seems like i’ve been orbiting these ideas for a while, or perhaps they’ve been orbiting me.
a) i recently came across the term ‘inner child healing’.
b) i was encouraged to take stock of the way i interact with myself.
these are both concepts that flit around each other, concepts that sort of forced themselves onto my radar, until they quite simply had to be addressed.
how do you talk to yourself? it’s got me thinking about my relationship with myself, and my distance from myself.
in my head, Me, Myself, and I are three different people. when Me breaks down, Myself and I rub her back and hold her hand. when Myself makes a mistake and starts beating herself up, Me and I cajole her back to sense, reassuring and tough-love providing. when I makes a terrible joke, Me and Myself helpfully, graciously, laugh. all this semantic jugglery and grammatical butchering to say - we have had years to get to know each other. we will use the experience to make things easier.
this is not self-reliance, this is not going inward for support. this is simply offering yourself the same consideration and compassion that you would to a child who has just accidentally broken something and is ready to burst into tears. in some convoluted way, inner child healing?
English Recitation Competition
A Poem for Someone Who is Juggling Her Life, Rose Cook
Be still sometimes. Be still sometimes. Let it all fall sometimes.
What Is Broken Is What God Blesses, Jimmy Santiago Baca
we embrace we bury in our hearts, broken ornaments, accused, hunted, finding solace and refuge we work, we worry, we love but always with compassion
Gather your mistakes, rinse them with honesty and self-reflection, let dry until you can see every choice and the regret becomes brittle, cover the entire surface in forgiveness, remind yourself that you are human and this too is a gift.
Bonus: Two Poems by Rhiannon McGavin
Of course you love me, you’re wearing one of my socks.
A Poll!
Middle School Book Review
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
convoluted plot, incredibly powerful other-wordly beings, time skips, power imbalances and characters you want to root for, so very beautifully written in a non-flowery but succinct and to-the-point way. it’s got all the ingredients for an incredible fantasy novel.
A Picture!
The Good Side of the Internet
We weren’t meant to see this many beautiful faces
In a world of normalised filters, cosmetic surgery and beauty tweaks, “beauty overstimulation” is now a thing. But what’s it doing to our brains?
How to Write Iranian-America, or The Last Essay (autobiographical, origin story)
The essay will feel like it’s killing you and the ending will not be what you thought it might be.
I Smuggled My Laptop Past The Taliban So I Could Write This Story
My escape from Afghanistan
Say goodbye to the Tarantino and Kubrick heads: the cinephile has moved on – and further afield.
After the Zodiac Killer's '340' Cipher Stumped the FBI, Three Amateurs Made a Breakthrough (investigative journalism, tw: murder)
Now, the solution has brought authorities closer than ever to the serial killer's identity.
this week’s Song
thank you for reading, and see you next week <3
oui? non? enough with the french? let me know!