I just found out five minutes ago that one of my short stories will be accepted for publication in the online literary journal trans lit mag.
I’m in shock. This is the first time anything I’ve ever written is being published. Naturally, I burst into tears of joy when I read the email. I’m so grateful.
Now that a piece has been accepted, it feels more legit.
I’m a writer.
I stumbled across this poem recently (on Facebook, of all places) and was awed. I don’t know how I couldn’t have seen it before. It’s so beautiful.
I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.
-Pablo Neruda
Last week, I bought this book:
Poetry is a medium that I really enjoy writing (even if I am terrible at it), and recently I’ve had the epiphany that maybe the reason why my writing ventures always failed is that my goals are too lofty for a beginner. I always thought I would write a novel or even short stories, and yet it’s poetry that I find myself writing in my sketches notebook. So I’ve decided to hone my interest in that for the time being until I get inspired to write something longer again. Anyway, I’m woefully ignorant on poetry and decided that I will never improve my form and experimentation with words if I don’t immerse myself in it more.
I am enjoying this collection very much – it mixes poetry from both classic and modern poets, and separates the poems into themes such as “Lovers,” “Music,” “Scenes,” etc. Here is a poem that I really enjoyed and want to share with you.
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W.B. Yeats
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
