Please SHARE your Poems, Quotations, and Personal brief Writings

[Sephirah]

"It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me." - Stephen Fry (amazing guy).

[Sephirah]

"That's what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is. Most people love you for who you pretend to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending - performing. You get to love your pretence. It's true, we're locked in an image, an act - and the sad thing is, people get so used to their image, they grow attached to their masks. They love their chains. They forget all about who they really are. And if you try to remind them, they hate you for it, they feel like you're trying to steal their most precious possession." - Jim Morrison

[Lori Dee]

"That's what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is. Most people love you for who you pretend to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending - performing. You get to love your pretence. It's true, we're locked in an image, an act - and the sad thing is, people get so used to their image, they grow attached to their masks. They love their chains. They forget all about who they really are. And if you try to remind them, they hate you for it, they feel like you're trying to steal their most precious possession." - Jim Morrison

That reminds me of the lyrics to the song, Persona (meaning mask) by the Blue Man Group. It speaks to how we try to fit into society and become corporate drones, but I also see how it applies to our transgender experience.

Persona

Every morning I put it on
I walk outside and I am gone
And I don't seem to mind anymore
I can't think what it was like before
I wore it all the time
Ah...
In the evening I take it off
But there's another one underneath
And I can't seem to find the bottom of the stack
I might just lose my mind and never get it back
But at least I'll get inside
Ah...
At least I'll get inside
Ah...
There's a feeling that I get sometimes
It's so small that it's easy to hide
It's like a howling voice from the distant past
It seems I've got no choice, when it comes to this
It's building up inside
Ah...
It's building up inside
Ah...

[Sephirah]

That reminds me of the lyrics to the song, Persona (meaning mask) by the Blue Man Group. It speaks to how we try to fit into society and become corporate drones, but I also see how it applies to our transgender experience.

Persona

Every morning I put it on
I walk outside and I am gone
And I don't seem to mind anymore
I can't think what it was like before
I wore it all the time
Ah...
In the evening I take it off
But there's another one underneath
And I can't seem to find the bottom of the stack
I might just lose my mind and never get it back
But at least I'll get inside
Ah...
At least I'll get inside
Ah...
There's a feeling that I get sometimes
It's so small that it's easy to hide
It's like a howling voice from the distant past
It seems I've got no choice, when it comes to this
It's building up inside
Ah...
It's building up inside
Ah...

Love that, Lori.

I think people get this a lot more than we think people get this. And express it thusly.

[Sephirah]

"Get Off The Scale!

You are beautiful. Your beauty, just like your capacity for life, happiness, and success, is immeasurable. Day after day, countless people across the globe get on a scale in search of validation of beauty and social acceptance.

Get off the scale! I have yet to see a scale that can tell you how enchanting your eyes are. I have yet to see a scale that can show you how wonderful your hair looks when the sun shines its glorious rays on it. I have yet to see a scale that can thank you for your compassion, sense of humor, and contagious smile. Get off the scale because I have yet to see one that can admire you for your perseverance when challenged in life.

It's true, the scale can only give you a numerical reflection of your relationship with gravity. That's it. It cannot measure beauty, talent, purpose, life force, possibility, strength, or love. Don't give the scale more power than it has earned. Take note of the number, then get off the scale and live your life. You are beautiful!"

- Steve Maraboli (what a wonderful quote. This guy gets it.)

[Sephirah]

"The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the whole moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook on life. That I feed the hungry, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ -- all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren, that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all the beggars, the most impudent of all the offenders, the very enemy himself -- that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness -- that I myself am the enemy who must be loved -- what then? As a rule, the Christian's attitude is then reversed; there is no longer any question of love or long-suffering; we say to the brother within us "Raca," and condemn and rage against ourselves. We hide it from the world; we refuse to admit ever having met this least among the lowly in ourselves."

-Carl Jung

[Sephirah]

For all the guys out there:

"I used to be self conscious about my height, but then I thought, f**k that, I'm Harry Potter." - Daniel Radcliffe.

[Sephirah]

"The older you get, the more you understand how your conscience works. The biggest and only critic lives in your perception of people's perception of you rather than people's perception of you." - Criss Jami

(sorry for spamming this thread but there are a lot of amazing people out there who tell it like it is. And heck, it's helpful to me. )

[Sephirah]

"The image that concerns most people is the reflection they see in other people's minds." - Edward de Bono

[Sephirah]

"My theory was that if I behaved like a confident, cheerful person, eventually I would buy it myself, and become that. I always had traces of strength somewhere inside me, it wasn't fake, it was just a way of summoning my courage to the fore and not letting any creeping self-doubt hinder my adventures. This method worked then, and it works now. I tell myself that I am the sort of person who can open a one-woman play in the West End, so I do. I am the sort of person who has several companies, so I do. I am the sort of person WHO WRITES A BOOK! So I do. It's the process of having faith in the self you don't quite know you are yet, if you see what I mean. Believing that you will find the strength, the means somehow, and trusting in that, although your legs are like jelly. You can still walk on them and you will find the bones as you walk. Yes, that's it. The further I walk, the stronger I become. So unlike the real lived life, where the further you walk, the more your hips hurt."

-Dawn French (amazing gal).

[Sephirah]

"I wish you could see what I see when I look at you."

- Allison Pang

(I kind of want to say that to everyone here). <3

[Sephirah]

Telling yourself you like the way you look is easy. Believing it is an entirely different kettle of whales."

- Andrew Bliss

"...No one ever told her it was okay to make mistakes. No one told her there was nothing wrong with needing help. No one told her it was normal to feel upset, or angry, or overwhelmed now and then. Everyone in her life took her perfectionism for granted and didn't realize how suffocating it was. And because no one gave the young woman permission to be human, she thought she was a failure for being one."

-Chris Colfer

[Sephirah]

"Those of us who suffer from severe anxiety and PTSD, in my case due to inferiority complexes and repeated emotional, physical and religious trauma from a young age, know that the fear of being found out by family is terrifying. Combine that with the fear of God's wrath (something I can never seem to shake off completely, despite becoming an atheist many years ago), the fear of being jailed in a country where being queer is illegal, and the fear that your partner will sooner or later realise that you're this shaken shell of a human being and leave you because of it –it all creates this ultra-alert yet sad and anxious, broken robot. One with zero confidence and zero self-trust, and who is incapable of vulnerability or even allowing themselves to have wants and desires. I existed to please others, not myself. I existed to crave love so hungrily. I had a hole inside me that nobody's love could fill because I never learned to love myself. I didn't know how to."

- Elias Jahshan

[Sephirah]

"Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass. It's about learning how to dance in the rain." - Vivian Greene.

[Mrs. Oliphant]

"I wish you could see what I see when I look at you."

I wish we all could see what you see, Sephirah. But being seen, well, for me, that suffices for the moment. Thanks.

[Mrs. Oliphant]

Sorry, dear friends, this one is a bit of a downer. In my defense, the words began to take shape while thinking of someone I love. Personally, I'm almost certain that somewhere, someday I will get the chance to hang out with the likes of Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay. But just in case I'm wrong, I intend to re-read all the words they've ever written on the off-chance eternity is the moment I'm in. If nothing else, I can unequivocally assert this poem was written with love.

One

I linger on the edge of a forever that will not end
Despite my prayers and protestations time will not bend
Backwards for a single moment, a single smile, or an errant tear.
I comfort myself with illusions of heaven and hell, the gift of a year,
Reincarnation or subsumed into the One as though I am not already one
And nothing more regardless of all the hearts I've held or touched
On a journey that seems without destination, no matter how much
I believe I flit willy-nilly closer to the place I am destined to be.
Happiness? There are moments amidst glimmers of ecstasy
But in the end, and there will be an end, I cannot encompass the meaning
Of being me, assuming I ever was.