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swdyw · Oct 7, 2025

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Naila · swdyw

— What did defeat mean to you?

— To seek, and not find. To start, and not finish.

Mahmoud Darwish, Journal of an Ordinary Grief

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

In Montreal, sitting on the large wooden bench drinking coffee with S, in the fading warmth of the sun. An older man leans his bike up next to us and asks us to watch it. He comes back out and we chat with him about how he doesn’t lock his bike up.
I don’t want to not trust the world  
sometimes I need a firm hand.
sometimes people have more patience for you than you think, A was right
LOVE AND LOVE DEEPLY scrawled on the bar bathroom door, I read as I maneuver around the piss covered ground
fuck love just live written by the sink in marker, 2 sides
I pulled The World reversed
we sat in the park and read each other our sad lists, pinned reminders not to cave into ourselves —
how could he do that
He’s done worse
I told V, walking quickly in the night with long legs, to look at the moon, but the building had swallowed it
so she backtracked to the church courtyard to see
Sleeping quietly with O, angels on a four-poster
I need something new to tear through me,
or I, through it
and then I’ll feel better
Impromptu sleep over and spending the day at the bookstore —
Burying myself in books and not finding answers
Most things are feeling exactly the same. Most places are looking exactly the same:
I picked up a book about temporary structures, and I think about how
we are living in inauthentic wastelands, everything is a simulated spirit of something that doesn’t exist there:
Aesthetic turns signifier turns castrated feeling —
ornamental acknowledgement
What is real?
Perhaps this is in part completely engineered psychic terrorism.
You extract the essence and provide a surrogate impression, that is void of anything characteristic of its reference point:
restaurants, bars, shops as themed “experiences”, podcasts as surrogate “conversation”, explicit porn or empty serial encounters as anti-erotic substitutes for “sex”, plastic hotel apartment complexes as “home”, algorithm face as “beauty”, surgerized trend body as “real”, meaningless mantra as “action”
What else?
I’m sad when I go out and I’m sad when I’m in bed with anyone and I’m sad when I leave and I am sad when I am still —
What I’m drawing from is half memory half dream.
maybe-fantasy
I will keep what I have written for you, I won’t let it find its way out
I haven’t slept well, constantly tossing, racing visions that may be light dreams. None of them stick
I feel the cord of connection even when I pray not to.
I pulled The Star reversed
Engonopoulos, The Surprise:
the one thing constant:
the wonderful
the marvelous
the fleeting vision
of the rosy network
with the jet black hair
the blood?
Rosy network, as in veins, the sun illuminating the blood vessels behind your eyelids, biting into fruit flesh, biting into my flesh
with the jet black hair, as in postcoital collapse, love
the blood, as in everything, or the end
Let’s open each other up and see what we’ve accumulated, read each other’s tree rings —
the ultimate erotic investigation:
curiosity
Lispector, For The Time Being:
Because that’s how things are. Sometimes you don’t have anything to do and so you pee.
But if God made us so, then so be it. With empty hands. With nothing to talk about.
Sometimes I have to sit very still
But It’s intolerable.
How did you stay that still?
That night I stayed in your arms for hours.
I understand why hummingbirds only come close to us when they are in desperate need of sugar water 

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