Patti Smith
one of the best books ever written imo
Jan 15, 2025
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I’m not much of a reader, but I recently finished reading Just Kids and it really made my heart happy. To read about a real love story that transcends the traditional structures of love stories we usually see is so beautiful. It reminded me how people can be truly pure and loving.
Patti is also just very inspiring to me. I didn’t know really anything about her prior to reading it, but I really admire her now.
Nov 6, 2024
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Crying in H Mart I read it a few years ago and it has stuck with me. Absolutely beautiful and poignant. Highly recommend.
Just Kids was the book a bunch of my friends and I read in our early 20’s and in art school. Patti Smith is a legend, always and forever.
May 26, 2024
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genuinely one of the greatest books i’ve ever read. a series of profiles of famous artists in and around new york throughout the 20th century, and the relationship that social isolation had to their work. also, some amazing accounts of struggles during the aids crisis.
Sep 8, 2024
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A weird and whimsical adventure through the rabbit hole of American culture. It’s like if the internet were real.
Mar 16, 2025
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i didn't think they were when we first met. i mean, why would i? they were suave, confident, hot. filled to the brim with sticky hubris and emotion. but everyone has a vice, and the best of people keep theirs well hidden. so i find myself here, the place where all good characters begin-- in love. i definitely wasn't expecting it, but that's another story entirely.
i think insecurity is a cautious devil. like the fairy stories i was raised on, it's cunning, a trickster. it masquerades as many things- pride, confidence, and anger being the most prevalent flavors. my lover is none of these things, save maybe a bravado that only comes from finally having the courage to live truly as oneself after years of running. this bravado is enticing, but not necesarily a symptom. perhaps the greater fault is that i am entirely consumed by their personhood. i, like a crocodile on a winters day, bask in the sunlight of their soul. if my limbs were iron i would carve wheels from pure stone and a wagon of aged wood and use it to drag myself to their feet. yet, love is farsighted, and time has revealed the true deliciousness of their personhood rests on the facet that they too, are human.
so, we make our bed in the meadows and we fight our battles in the night. i speak more than i listen, they keep feelings like secrets. they shrivel and burrow to avoid, whereas i become louder to confront. our love is indeed an unlikely story. but i like it, and i want to make it. so, i find myself getting quieter, conceeding more. i let them win and ask them to decide. they do, and we fight sometimes. they would rather be disappointed than rejected. god, don't we all.
i speak in riddles and they in fact. maybe we are too different but we don't let it deter us, for we are far more the same than we could ever realize. still, when i speak plainly they assume puzzles, when i gently correct they quiver, when i say too much they internalize, communication rought by years of passive agressive parents and partners before me. i, who have known none of this, continue my ramblings, wanting only to share more of myself with my lover. i say the wrong thing. there is no wrong. i say things. they hurt.
i don't often mean it the way they take it. their interpretation is a faulty compass that rarely points to true north. sometimes the sheer polarity of their interpretation shocks me. i say i'm tired, they ask if i want them to leave. my direct mind cannot wrap around their curved one. if i wanted them to leave i would have asked. and i would never want such a thing. i say i am scared to become dull. they apologize for ruining me. i ask them what they want, they cannot give an anwer. insecurity is not a trait, it is a tyrant. i see them beneath the ruling scepter but i cannot budge them out from under it.
so i try to be gentle. i speak softly. i conceed. i give them exactly what they ask for. i have been trained on what to avoid. i wonder if this training is making me trickier, or more like the partners and parents that made them this way in the first place. i am no saint, i wish i could learn to shut my desperate eager mouth, a chore i have resisted and fought since childhood with the will and stubborness that remains unchanged. still i ache. the constant intent on misunderstanding me ages my soul. i feel the ache begging them from within my loving eyes. "see me as i am, lover," it cries, "please hear me as i am."
Jan 13, 2025
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if love is static, my lover is a fuse. hot, bright, and full of wonder, my love catches my eye and catches flane. if love is an orchestra , my lover is the conductor, i am never afraid for what is coming next. if love is fast, fickle, or angry my lover is not my lover. they are a star instead, a metaphor and the antidote, an achievement but never a trophy, a captured heart but never a conquest. if love is the reason they are the light. i am coming like a vision before the end. we are together and unique, seperate but conjoined. i am not alone in the night. what a joy! what a joy! what a joy! i am not alone in the night.
Jan 23, 2025