Shakespeare's Sister

The story goes something like that, but I can’t locate its actual truth. Truth lives where that piece of my soul once did and visits me briefly in sleep— only to disappear with waking. Gunfire, destroyed vehicles, dead Marines, and Iraq are the truth. The rest is equivocal. Everything appears to me vaguely or in fragments. I guess that’s how war is: It simply happens and the pieces never fit together. The mind numbs so you can look at the dead, kill the living. It keeps the absolute truth just out of reach, allowing you to march on— even through the soft spots.

“

—	Clint Van Winkle- Soft Spots: A Marine’s Memoir of Combat and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

I wasn’t sure what the chaplain in the warehouse could tell us that would make us feel better, or what kind of message of love he planned on preaching to the congregation of Marines who had spent the previous month violating several of the Ten Commandments. I did know this: Nobody would be resurrected that day no matter what he said. The Chaplain could say whatever he wanted: No body would rise after three days. Not in Iraq.

“

—	Clint Van Winkle- Soft Spots: A Marine’s Memoir of Combat and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

And for a brief moment, we weren’t Marines or liberators; just humans interacting with other humans.

“

—	Clint Van Winkle-Soft Spots: A Marine’s Memoir of Combat and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

I had to read this book for my American History class this semester, and I have to say, it was a little tough to get through. It’s not that he uses big words and long, drawn-out sentences (though he does give a lot of military jargon), but he describes such an intense experience in his life in such vivid detail that I almost felt as if I was intruding on something very private, like a diary. I think more people should read this book to get educated on what PTSD can do to a person.

story-dj:

Favourite character from one of my all time favourite shows. “Its like shooting fish in a pond.”

story-dj:

Hands down - the cutest animal picture I have EVER seen.

bookmania:

Le Bal des Ardents in Lyon, France (photo by Isa)

I didn’t know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of the throat and I’d cry for a week.

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—	Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (via bookmania)

Each time I told my story, I lost a bit, the smallest drop of pain. It was that day that I knew I wanted to tell the story of my family. Because horror on Earth is real and it is every day. It is like a flower or like the sun; it cannot be contained.

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—	Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones (via bookmania)

bookmania:

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (via teachingliteracy)

This is literally my favorite book besides The Hitchhiker’s Guide series.

bookmania:

from Peter Pan by JM Barrie (from the film adaptation ”Hook”)

bookmania:

from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

The world had made him extravagant and vain - extravagance and vanity had made him cold-hearted and selfish. Vanity, while seeking its own guilty triumph at the expense of another, had involved him in a real attachment, which extravagance, or at least its offspring necessity, had required to be sacrificed. Each faulty propensity in leading him to evil, had led him likewise to punishment.

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—	Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility (via bookmania)

You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason.In those days, though, the spring always came finally but it was frightening that it had nearly failed.

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—	Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast (via weelittleactress)

story-dj:

Yesterday’s Preacher

Preach yourself at me,

As if you could do this,

As if all your rules,

Are everything I should be.

Think you know all the ways,

To sift my words perfect,

You don’t dare follow me,

Nothing in you like this.

You are sitting very high,

Raining words down from the sky,

It must be easy up there,

Spewing venom from your lair,

Funny, I don’t see you try,

Ghost behind those empty lies.

If you know everything,

Why don’t you get down here?

Lets see just what you’ve got.

You could have it all,

I know you own the answers.

All I have is questions,

Lets see you next to me,

Time to act yourself down.

You are sitting very high,

Raining words down from the sky,

It must be easy up there,

Spewing venom from your lair.

Funny, I don’t see you try,

Ghost behind those empty lies.

We’re the little children,

Don’t know what we’re doing,

Need someone to guide us,

Guess you’ll save us from us,

What does a new generation,

Know against you?

Dare to do things different,

Must be tempting failure.

Oh no, its not the same,

Original is to blame,

Yes you hate what you don’t know,

Better make the change go slow,

Let you settle in there first,

Anything new is the worst.

You are sitting very high,

Raining words down from the sky,

It must be easy up there,

Spewing venom from your lair.

Funny, I don’t see you try,

Ghost behind those empty lies.