update
Okay. Here’s what I’m going to do. Most of you have suggested that I withdraw the piece, and I tend to agree more with that line of reasoning. A few others of you have said that magazines “just do this kind of thing.”
And I understand that magazines can make minor edits. But the thing is, the magazine NEVER ONCE informed me before I submitted that there would be any edits made to my piece, specifically such drastic ones. That edited piece is not the original piece they accepted for publication. That edited piece is not me and it does not represent me as a writer.
I feel ripped-off. Therefore, I’m going to send them an email and ask if it’s possible that they could keep the original version. If they say no, I will withdraw my piece. I know some of you can’t understand that and you think that it would be good to get the exposure anyway.
The thing is, I can get exposure from another magazine that deals with my writing in an honest, fair way.
P.S. Thank you all so, so much for your input. I truly appreciate it.
advice, please!
Okay. I submitted some writing pieces to a magazine and they accepted one for publication. This is the piece that was accepted: http://writingsforwinter.tumblr.com/post/46218274984/what-i-meant-to-tell-you-on-the-first-date
Now this is the final piece, with their "in-house edits" that they want to put into the magazine.
"We meet for dinner, and over garlic bread
and dipping oil, you tell me about your brother:
he's in jail for a minimum sentence of five years.
You write a letter to him every day,
and in your eyes, I see you ask
for his forgiveness, because you were the older one
and you should have raised him better.
You sneak your way over
to my mouth when the waiter isn't looking
and I'm beginning to understand, finally:
Love is a tourniquet,
a bandage pulled on tight to staunch
the bleeding of a broken heart, and there's only so much blame
we can carry heavy on our backs like crosses,
all the brothers or sisters or cousins
we could have saved but didn't,
all the things we meant to say
but opened our mouths too late."
They basically rearranged my entire piece and took out some important chunks of it. I honestly didn't even recognize their edited version as being the same piece at all at first.
I really don't think that's right, to edit submissions so drastically like that. It's basically a different piece right now.
I'm honestly thinking of withdrawing my submission, because now it feels fake and phony to have a piece in there that this magazine edited so drastically. That version isn't mine; it's theirs.
And no, they did not ask for permission before editing my piece.
Advice? Thoughts?
creepyisascreepydoes: (via Chainsaws and Jelly: Artist | Iviva...
Favorite Lyrics Ever
And I am flawed but I am cleaning up so well (Dashboard Confessional)
It's pretty but you hate yourself (Kevin Devine)
That secret that you know but don’t know how to tell, it fucks with your honor and it teases your head (Bon Iver)
I leaned on the wall and the wall leaned away (The National)
And in the darkened underpass, I thought oh God, my chance has come at last (The Smiths)
Love is not for me, I promise (Lydia)
Last night I dreamt that somebody loved me, no hope no harm, just another false alarm (The Smiths)
I am finally seeing that I was the one worth leaving (The Postal Service)
I'd like to think I'm the mess you'd wear with pride (Band of Horses)
Everything I love gets lost in drawers (The National)
And for my final trick I'll make everyone who loves me disappear but I won't know how to bring them back (Touche Amore)
They think I’m beautiful for all my big mistakes (fun.)
I loved you with a fire red,
Now it’s turning blue (OneRepublic)
On my way home
Still wishing I was
Inside your bedroom
Just talking shit for the hell of it (Lydia)
In spite of real distance, we'll always be close (Keaton Henson)
I don’t care to be forgiven I only want to be forgotten (fun.)
I'm finally numb, so please don't get me rescued (Jack’s Mannequin)
If you promise to stay conscious I will try and do the same. (Bright Eyes)
human memory is fleeting
I stole a pair of your underwear three years ago
as an excuse for having to see you again but it only
made me wonder why we say “pair” of underwear
when there’s only one, or how full moons always remind
my father of the swollen belly of a pregnant mother,
red and ripe and distended with veins. That first night
together I kissed you hard because it was the only
way I learned to do things: to turn human beings
into crash test cars and run them into trees,
or don’t do anything at all. This is the way we learned,
shedding sleep from our new bodies like snakeskin,
and your thighs opened so readily for me
I was almost surprised there wasn’t a lever and pulley
behind them moving you like a marionette
attached to strings. Now whenever I see a kite
I’m reminded of the way you put your fingers into
my mouth, dizzily, searching, like something
climbing into the sky from miles of earth below.
Science has determined that human short-term memory
can only process up to three items at a time
so I stole two more pairs of your underwear
to make it an even three. Normally I make a conscious
effort to try and remember people; for you I made
an exception. I put them in the back of the drawer
where I only have to see them if I open it,
and I’m not the sort of person
who likes pulling things apart.
if there were rehab programs for love addicts, i'd be in treatment
I want to write to you and tell you that whenever
I stop by the café you broke my heart in, I never leave
a tip even though they have some of the best coffee
I’ve ever tasted. But praying mantises only fuck
each other before one kills the other, and that makes
me feel a little bit better about the fact
that we never had sex. And I guess I couldn’t even
tell you all this anyway since you never left your new
address when you moved. But if I could write you
an aerial banner from an airplane, I think it would say this:
I tried to go without loving you for a few months
but I was only a week clean
when I relapsed.
I've been chewing it over for hours and I've decided to give myself a fighting chance. I realize that I do want to live and I want to experience everything that's in store for me. I felt so close to death earlier but you really saved my life with your response. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have given myself this chance. I wouldn't be writing this to you. You made me realize a lot of things and I just cannot thank you enough. Here's to life.
My heart got choked up when I read this, because I've been wondering about you and worrying about you ever since I replied to your first message. I was hoping so badly that you wouldn't go through with your suicidal thoughts.
I am so, so glad and relieved to hear that you're going to give yourself a chance.
I'm raising a metaphorical glass to you right now, and I'm making you a toast.
Yes, here's to life.
You can do this, you beautiful girl.
One of my followers submitted this beautiful photo to me today....
One of my followers submitted this beautiful photo to me today. She got a line from my Fragment 18 tattooed on her foot. I'm in absolute awe that my words mean enough to her that she got them inked into her own skin.
Love you, dear.
I'm a seventeen year old girl. I have dealt with depression since my freshman year of high school. I have contemplated suicide many times but I had a breakdown yesterday and I planned my suicide and everything down to the last detail. I feel completely numb. I have written my last letter, left instructions for my parents, and left a note of who I want my belongings to go to. I think this is it. I have cleaned out my room and I think I'm ready. But I am still thinking. I don't know what to do.
The fact that you are still thinking means you're not ready yet. I want you to know that. If you'd wanted to kill yourself with all your heart, you would have done it by now. So there's a tiny slice of your heart that's still reserved for life. It might sound cheesy, but that slice is like a tourist that's booked into the hotel room of life. It's booked a reservation and it still wants to stay for a few more days.
And that tiny slice of hope left is enough hope to grow in the coming days and weeks and months. An ounce of hope is enough to hang on for a few more days. I want you to know something: a few weeks ago I saw an art installation piece, and it was a noose being lifted by a cluster of balloons. The noose had literally risen off the floor because the balloons were lifting it.
With every noose you want to tie for yourself, there will be twice as many balloons.
And listen. You are only seventeen. You've barely even lived yet. I once read an old story about a Japanese fisherman who was stranded at sea on a small fishing boat with no one to rescue him. And he was stranded on that boat for several weeks, until his food supply ran out. So this fisherman, thinking that no help would come and that his life was now over because he had run out of food, jumped overboard, into a sea of sharks that immediately devoured him.
Only an hour later, a rescue boat came.
Instead of bringing the man to safety, they brought his dead body back home.
So know this: if you were to kill yourself, who knows what would happen an hour after your death? Maybe the girl or boy you love would finally come knocking on your door. Maybe someone you haven't seen in years would run into you again.
Maybe something or someone that could change everything-your depression, your thoughts of suicide-would happen.
And you know what? They'd be an hour too late.
There are sixty minutes in an hour. There are 3,600 seconds in sixty minutes.
3,600 seconds. Seconds. Mere seconds that separate you from life and death, from ending your life and from something extraordinary happening.
You said you feel completely numb. But then you said you don't know what to do. Not knowing what to do is a feeling. You're not completely numb yet. You're not at the end yet.
Thomas Jefferson once said, "When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on."
Juliette Lewis once wrote that the "bravest thing [she] ever did was continuing her life when [she] wanted to die."
So I hope that now, you tie a knot in your rope and you cling to it for dear life, and you continue your life into the future, into all the wonderful, brilliant, confusing, magical, extraordinary things that are bound to happen.
Because they will happen. I assure you.
And you should be around when they do.
"Dear Samantha, I'm sorry we have to get a divorce. I know that seems like an odd way to start a love..."
"Dear Samantha,
I'm sorry
we have to get a divorce.
I know that seems like an odd way to start a love letter but let me explain:
it's not you.
It sure as hell isn't me.
It's just human beings don't love as well as insects do.
I love you… far too much to let what we have be ruined by the failings of our species.
I saw the way you looked at the waiter last night.
I know you would never DO anything, you never do but…
I saw the way you looked at the waiter last night.
Did you know that when a female fly accepts the pheromones put off by a male fly, it re-writes her brain, destroys the receptors that receive pheromones, sensing the change, the male fly does the same: when two flies love each other they do it so hard, they will never love anything else ever again.
If either one of them dies before procreation can happen both sets of genetic code are lost forever. Now that… is dedication.
After Elizabeth and I broke up, we spent three days dividing everything we had bought together - like if I knew what pots were mine - like if I knew which drapes were mine - somehow the pain would go away.
This is not true.
After two praying mantises mate, the nervous system of the male begins to shut down. While he still has control over his motor functions
he flops onto his back, exposing his soft underbelly up to his lover like a gift.
She then proceeds to lovingly dice him into tiny cubes,
spooning every morsel into her mouth.
She wastes nothing. Even the exoskeleton goes.
She does this so that once their children are born she has something to regurgitate to feed them. Now that… is selflessness.
I could never do that for you.
So I have a new plan: I'm gonna leave you now.
I'm gonna spend the rest of my life committing petty injustices, I hope you do the same.
I will jay walk at every opportunity,
I will steal things i could easily afford,
I will be rude to strangers,
I hope you do the same.
I hope reincarnation is real,
I hope our petty crimes are enough to cause us to be reborn as lesser creatures,
I hope we are reborn as flies,
so that we can love each other as hard as we were meant to.
- Jared Singer, "An Entomologist's Last Love Letter" (via therealmofpi)
poem for a pessimist who sees the ocean as half-empty instead of the glass
Every time I feel like I’m about to miss you, I stop myself
by taking a trip to the local hospital and watching
the heart monitors spike up and down, up and down-
a metaphor for our relationship, sometimes going
in the right direction, but mostly heading in the wrong.
Sometimes I leave you voicemails at the worst possible
times of night, because I know you’ll either be in bed
or about to step into the shower, and it allows me
to picture you better: naked, dark hair stroking
the nape of your neck like melted wax climbing
down a candle, the hollow between your legs
that I get lost in like the cleft of a peach.
They’re never really optimistic voicemails,
but then again I’m more of a pessimist on
the good days. I’m the kind
who sees the ocean as half-empty instead
of the glass. After all, the ocean leaves more room
for improvement since 243,658,298 glasses
can fit inside it. And that’s enough glasses
to throw out my dorm room window as a coping
mechanism for missing you, but the sound
of them shattering could never compare
to that of my heart.
the uses of you & me
1. Love, for us, was never about love. It was a matter of convenience. We fucked each other because it soothed our loneliness, not our lust.
2. Lemmings commit mass suicide by following one another off a cliff. The other women acted like that around you: I could never get past them and to you. Sometimes I wondered why I didn’t just push you off that cliff anyway.
3. Our friends came up with a new drinking game for both us: every time we thought about one another, we had to down a shot. We ended up hung-over and miserable every time we played.
4. Aquariums were created so human beings could take a slice of the ocean with them into their homes. Sometimes I treated your hoodies and jeans like that: I’d take them back to my apartment with me, so I could keep a piece of you with me at all times.
5. Two years ago there were four straight days with rain. For three of those days, every time we made love, it was like going swimming in each other’s bodies since we were so soaked.
6. My therapist advised me to get rid of you. I find that ironic since at our first meeting, she told me that people are not disposable like packets of instant coffee or grocery receipts. Just this once, I decided to ignore her warnings.
7. After praying mantises mate, the female automatically kills the male. Every time we had sex at your parents’ house in their upstairs bedroom while trying to be as quiet as possible, I was scared you would kill me in a fit of passion, too.
8. For you, loneliness was an instinct. It’s something you could do with your eyes closed and your hands tied behind your back.
9. I think that if someone drew me a map of your body, I could walk through it blind and still find the way to your heart.
10. Every time we didn’t touch it was a missed opportunity.
"That which does not kill us, makes us write."
"That which does not kill us, makes us write."- The Poet Dreamer (via hushblush)
What is your opinion of the quote, "Imitation is suicide."(Ralph Waldo Emerson)
I don't believe that imitation is suicide. In writing, imitation is often the very thing that can lead a writer to creativity and originality. If an aspiring writer starts out his or her career by imitating the styles of others, often that writer will begin to incorporate his or her own stylistic elements and techniques into that imitated style. Essentially, the aspiring writer will combine imitated techniques with original techniques.
And what develops from that blending is a totally unique style, because it's made up of so many different elements. It's like the "melting pot of writing."
This year, my creative writing teacher told our class that imitation is one of the best tools a writer has, because from imitation comes originality. At first the connection may be hard to grasp, but it is definitely there.
:)
Photo
I wish to talk about how I ache when the negative space of me becomes the positive of you; we are reaching back, hearts fluttering like the wings of a wounded bird. I wish to talk about the soft pink skin of your scars and how they are the brethren of my tongue and my voice; I want to breathe you forever. I wish to talk about how empty I am that you no longer fill me. I wish to talk about how my lips miss their brothers. But I must stop wishing to speak of you and stop wishing to speak at all.
People like you are the reason I've fallen in love with writing.
(please don't delete your answer too fast, I'm in a different timezone (europe) and am waiting for an answer – if you even give one ;)): I'm getting a tattoo and it will be a six-word-story or a (shorter) poem of you. But I cannot decide which one. Which one would you suggest? Are you going to write new ones about depression/hope etc.? Sorry for asking so much, but I really would appreciate your answer. And sorry my english is not the best. have a wonderful day <3
Hello! I'm sending love to you in Europe. :)
Hmm…I'll just suggest a few of my favorite six-word stories that I've written. The final choice is yours, of course! (And no, at this point I'm not going to write any more six-word stories.)
Here they are:
"The saddest word in English: Stay."
"Love's selfish: it demands two people."
"Their hands parted like passing ships."
"The morning undressed the night slowly."
"Finding you was like coming home."
It means a lot to me that you would even consider getting my writing as a tattoo. Thank you and have a wonderful day yourself! <3
I've noticed that blood oranges come up quite a lot in your poetry. Is there some significance of blood oranges in your life? (I understand if it's too personal to answer, but I just felt as if I had to ask.)
There is really no major significance of blood oranges in my own life, but I do enjoy using fruit as symbols in my poetry.
I guess you could say that blood oranges symbolize temptation and desire; they have that normal, orange outside, but that tantalizing, juicy red inside. It's hot and sweet, just like desire itself.
For me, blood oranges symbolize secrets. :)
how to bury love and reclaim it again
In New York there were so many people holding hands, kissing each other like dying stars or constellations with red mouths swollen from blood oranges and morning sex in cold hotel beds. There were two men holding hands who looked at each other like they were the last two humans left on earth after an apocalypse that destroyed everything in sight, and their tongues touched like fireflies glowing.
Thousands and thousands of bodies walking along those pavements and streets, through those alleyways and into stores. In the middle of the night I woke up to the sound of a siren and went to the window, but only the city lights were still awake.
See, this is what love does. Pulls water from someone else’s mouth like a sink draining, whittles hearts into brittle shells of their former selves. Lovers wear their excuses like the fanciest dresses, here in New York, and they always have a new alibi when they want to have sex with someone else. They have to run errands or meet up with a friend, have a quick lunch at a café, when really their bodies are fitting into one another like a flute into the palm of a musician, cradling, snug.
And at night the only sound is that of tongues trying so hard to reach the moon, to suck it down with dry lips and swallow it whole like an egg yolk. That couple, the two men holding hands on the sidewalk in plain view? Some day they’re going to break up. It’ll happen by a text or a ten-second phone call, maybe a plastic bouquet of wilted flowers tossed onto a rainy doorstep as an apology. All relationships eventually end, just like the universe. Even dark energy has to stop somewhere.
Somewhere in the heart of Central Park, a girl is writing a love letter to a man she’s never met, in the hopes of falling in love with this man she’s never met. She seals this letter with her eyes. Buries it forty feet beneath the ground, where the soil will grow over it and fold the letter into its rich, dark body.
Didn’t you know?
Love is always a part of the earth. It never lives anywhere else.
l-ettie: this has been a long time coming. i've wanted, for a...
this has been a long time coming. i've wanted, for a long time, to draw something that visualizes what i feel when i read writingsforwinter's poetry. for a while, i was trying to draw something universal, something that would resonate with everybody, but i don't think that can be done with something this personal. finally, i ended up with a drawing that may seem bland or generic to some, coupled with a quotation from mermaid that may not be the most memorable to some, but i think i finally managed to get out what i've been struggling to express for a very long time. i encourage you all to check out writingsforwinter's poetry, it's the closest thing i've ever found to love.
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