how does naming depression as a physical ailment, absolve us a society of culpability for suicide? How does immediately leaping into a medicalized dialogue around individual mental health allow us to avoid discussing the fact that we have created social environments that make us suicidal? Suicide is always a tragedy, but it also often a message, a message that points to injustice and suffering in the world that has everything to do with the way we treat each other. When we look at anyone’s suicide and say, ‘'that happened because of a mental illness, this person died of illness,’‘ we are also saying that said person did not die of abuse, of neglect, of isolation, of horrifying individual circumstance, of social oppression, of the fact that just living in this place and time is very often an incredibly difficult thing.
― [Kai Cheng Thom] (via qubb)
(Source: youngist.org)
Some places are like people: some shine and some don’t.
― The Shining (via wendydarling-lightofmylife)
(Source: saccarin)
8 lessons on loving a boy in a history book (alternatively, ‘8 lessons on loving an unknown soldier’)
[inspired by jeanann verlee’s vastly superior ‘lessons on loving a prophet’]i.
lie down and realize you have no idea how this ends. start to prepare for uncertainty to wash over you like seawater. soon, the salt on your lips and cheeks will feel like kisses.ii.
get up. when you meet him, his name will mean nothing to you. be aggressive. read and pretend your fingers are tracing skin instead of pages.iii.
wish that you could tell him there’s a place where he can live forever. wish that it was true. console yourself with searching for photographs.iv.
be gentle. wait for the day when waking up feels like part of something bigger.v.
when his eyes speak to you, listen. know that what you don’t know about him could number stars, count dust particles, could drip blood onto the kitchen floor. try and be okay with it, even though your stomach is turning flips.vi.
climb the crumbling walls, scrape your arms while scrambling up the high beach bluffs, wander the now-quiet, sunlit paths over which the hedgerows still tower. hear his voice in the stones, the trees, the rushing water. pledge yourself now, to the act of listening.vii.
fall in love with a boy who hears the voices too. share stories and feel the water you’ve taken in start to evaporate. kiss him until the salt is gone, and let him do the same. keep the memory of it with you.viii.
know that you cannot bring them back to life. know that together, you can try.s.r.s