Administrator's blog | Leanna Banana

"When it's over,

leave. Don't continue watering a dead flower."

truth

tro͞oTH/

noun

that which is in accordance with fact or reality.

"truth is stranger than fiction"

synonyms:

veracity, sincerity, candor, honesty

'For you I undress down to the sheaths of my nerves.
I remove my jewelry and set it on the nightstand,
I unhook my ribs, spread my lungs flat on the chair.
I dissolve like a remedy in water, in wine.
I spill without staining, and I leave without stirring the air.
I do it for love. For love, I disappear.'

via apgibson

'Untitled' by Sarah Moon

I was
the girl full of talk of coffins and keyholes,
the one with an old red hook in her mouth,
the mouth that kept bleeding
into the terrible fields of her soul.
The one who kept dropping off to sleep,
for hours and hours
and then she’d wake,
after the small death,
and then she’d be as soft as,
as delicate as,
an excess of light,
with nothing dangerous at all,
with no trap doors,
with nothing more honest
than your hand in her hand -
with nobody, nobody, but you.
Anne Sexton

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“All my desires are born of my dreams. And I have proven my love with words. To what fantastic creatures have I entrusted myself, in what dolorous and ravishing world has my imagination enclosed me? I am sure of having been loved in the most mysterious of domains, my own. The language of my love does not belong to human language, my human body does not touch the flesh of my love. My amorous imagination has always been constant and high enough so that nothing could attempt to convince me of error.”
— Paul Éluard, At the Window

.

The memories of the past inhere in what might be called the "Soul Memory" or in that portion of the person called the Atman (Over-Soul or Sutratma)-- in other words, in the Permanent Identity which periodically reembodies for each earthly experience. Through meditation one stills the conscious mind process and once the habitual state of agitated thought is transcended, the center of consciousness of the personality-self becomes identified with the center of consciousness of the Soul-Self. In this state, one obtains clear access to the past and future.
-- Gina Cerminara, Many Lives, Many Loves

.

"She's known sadness,
and it has made her kind."
.

.

The undoing of everything I've ever known commences.
.

It is dark because you are trying too hard.

“It is dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling.”
— Aldous Huxley

via

"Lolita Discarnate"

“Suddenly,

all at once,

she knows,

knows that he doesn’t

understand her,

that he never will,

that he lacks the power

to understand

such pervasiveness.

And that he can never

move fast enough

to catch her.”

Marguerite Duras, The Lover

For this particular set that David and I created together, I desired to be captured in my most natural form, free from nearly all cosmetic constraint. Although this aspect was indeed very liberating, I had been unexpectedly perplexed with an onset of emotions during the culmination of these photographs. Happiness, sadness, unease, and revelation all accompanied me during the creation process, much to my dismay. I have been plagued with a longing that I can never quite satiate. This feeling encompasses me like the ghost of a long-lost lover, and she is so much a part of me-- all at once disturbing and comforting-- that I can't quite let her go. Regardless of bouts of fluctuating temperament (and perhaps empowered by them), I am pleased beyond words at the end result. Behold, Leanna and her ghosts.

more

*

.

There is a second skin inside my skin
that gathers to your touch.
.

she never left

"I am haunted by you.
I can't get you out of my head.
You creep in my memory after so long,
after so many days gone
that it feels like it all happened yesterday.
I smell you on the sheets
and I feel your breath on my neck
and your fingertips down my spine.
I can remember your face
and I still hear your voice
and I thought I saw you on the street,
but it was something else."

a poppy made of ink

“

Secrecy flows through you,

a different kind of blood.

It’s as if you’ve eaten it

like a bad candy,

taken it into your mouth,

let it melt sweetly on your tongue,

then allowed it to slide down your throat

like the reverse of uttering,

a word dissolved

into its glottals and sibilants,

a slow intake of breath –

And now it’s in you, secrecy.

Ancient and vicious, luscious

as dark velvet.

It blooms in you,

a poppy made of ink.

”
— Margaret Atwood, Secrecy

.

“I am sick of haunting myself

from within

like an old house.”

— Erica Jong, from Bitter Herb, "Witches”
.

*

rose beds

' Rose beds blazed magenta and carmine and tropicana orange in the fading light.
Clouds of sweetheart pink, tumbling in great drifts; blowing spicy and evanescent past her as she coasted, free. '
-- Donna Tartt, The Little Friend

Doll Life Photography
Fuller Rose Gardens, N Hampton, NH

.

"Flowers don't worry about how they're going to bloom.
They just open up and turn toward the light and that makes them beautiful."
.

all ghosts are

Unknown sitter and extra by spirit photographed by Ada Deane, 1922

Eleven and she was gone.

Hold,
Your light,

Eleven lead me through each gentle step,

By step,

By inch by loaded memory 'till,

One,

And one are one,

Eleven.

So glow,

Child,

Glow.

I'm heading back home...

Unearthly

maybe perhaps you are pensive because you'd like to feel like yourself and look like yourself and behave like yourself and in doing so, you'd like other souls to recognize you as one of their own and accept you somehow in their world despite your being from another planet.

the one looking back at you isn't you. you've stared at your reflection for so long now that you don't remember what you're supposed to be.

c h a n c e

If you obsess over whether you are making the right decision, you are basically assuming that the universe will reward you for one thing and punish you for another.

The universe has no fixed agenda. Once you make any decision, it works around that decision. There is no right or wrong, only a series of possibilities that shift with each thought, feeling, and action that you experience.

Deepak Chopra

.

Be happy with less.
.

.

Remember that sometimes
not getting what you want
is a wonderful stroke of luck.
— The Dalai Lama

*

"
I don't know about birds
nor do I know the history of fire.
But I believe that my solitude
should have wings.
"
Alejandra Pizarnik

"couldn't love you more..."

Must be your skin that I'm sinking in

Must be for real 'cause now I can feel

And I didn't mind

It's not my kind

It's not my time to wonder why

Everything's gone white

And everything's grey

Now you're here now you're away

I don't want this

Remember that

I'll never forget where you're at

Don't let the days go by

Glycerin

I'm never alone

I'm alone all the time

Are you at one

Or do you lie

We live in a wheel

Where everyone steals

But when we rise it's like strawberry fields

If I treated you bad

You bruise my face

Couldn't love you more

You got a beautiful taste

Don't let the days go by

Could have been easier on you

I couldn't change though I wanted to

Should I have been easier by three

Our old friend fear and you and me

Glycerin

Don't let the days go by

Glycerin

Don't let the days go by

Glycerin, glycerin

Bad moon white again

And she falls around me

I needed you more

You wanted us less

I could not kiss just regress

It might just be

Clear simple and plain

That's just fine

That's just one of my names

Don't let the days go by

Could've been easier on you, you, you

Glycerine

in twilight time, dream with me awhile

twilight time to dream awhile
in veils of deepening blue
as fantasy strides over colorful skies
of form disappearing from view

in twilight time, dream with me awhile

the girl

The Girl Selling Flowers by Jan Marcin Szancer, 1928

-----^--@

.

mercurial.
.

*

“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.”
— George R. R. Martin
.

Ephemeral

"'During those moments when you are longing for a familiar time and place, know that is your heart breaking open and telling you that it is okay to feel everything this way. Your contentment intertwines with bittersweet memory, and so it shall be. Always remember where you have been and how far you have come along; you will realize that you could not have been blessed with a greater gift, for you my darling have survived it all. So just laugh even if you feel like crying, count your blessings, and move forward without fear. You will continue to have days of much sadness and much happiness too, and that's the beauty of it... That is what makes life meaningful, it's impermanence. And I love you more.'"

fading grace photography