Poem for the Day: August 31st, 2021

Why Bother? by Sean Thomas Dougherty

Because right now, there is                      someone 

out there with 

a wound                                       in the exact shape 

                                                        of your words.

Quote for the Day: August 31st, 2021

Why shouldn’t gay people be allowed to marry? Those against gay marriages say marriage should only be between a man and a woman. God…I of all people know that that doesn’t always work.
Elizabeth Taylor, receiving the Vanguard Award at the GLAAD Media Awards, 2000

Book Review: How to Be You by Jeffrey Marsh

*How to Be You: Stop Trying to Be Someone Else and Start Living Your Life* by Jeffrey Marsh

I have followed Jeffrey Marsh on Twitter for years. Before I found a therapist, before I got on medication for my anxiety and depression, their videos helped me to be able to take a breath and center myself so I could get through the day. I’m sure I’m not the only person whose life has been impacted by them in this way, but I will forever be grateful for their calm voice affirming my place in the world over and over again until I started to believe it for myself.

How to Be You is the self-love manifesto that everyone in the world needs to read, but it is especially essential for those of us in the LGBTQ+ community. We live in a world that is often hostile to us, a world that bullies, beats, threatens, harasses, disenfranchises, and belittles us to the point of fracture, to the point where our very existence is seen as a threat to the standing order. Jeffrey’s assertion throughout their book is that it is our choice whether or not we are going to capitulate to the people who would make us smaller. We can be expansive or we can shrink. We can grow and learn and change and accept ourselves in all of our glorious complexity or we can draw lines of demarcation around ourselves and always exist as less than our true selves.

We can be expansive or we can shrink. We can grow and learn and change and accept ourselves in all of our glorious complexity or we can draw lines of demarcation around ourselves and always exist as less than our true selves.

I’m not going to lie, a lot of the self-help material circulating in the world today is worthless pablum at best and an avaricious money-grabbing scheme at worst, but Jeffrey Marsh is the real deal. Their work comes from a deep place of understanding what it feels like to be marginalized and maligned for being queer, and I am so grateful for their existence. I am grateful for this book’s existence. Thank you, Jeffrey. A thousand times, thank you.

Favorite Quotes from How to Be You

Confidence comes naturally if trust is present.

Aren’t you lucky that you get this life, this chance, to learn to set aside the yuck and muck of other people’s sometimes nasty words and do your best to live your life as fully as you know how?

Even if it seems like the whole world is against you, you’ve got to trust yourself. Even if no one else will honor you, you must honor what your truth is in any given moment.

Beginning to see yourself as worthy and trustworthy is the start of something beautiful. Why? Because you can finally let go. You don’t need to spend all your time trying not to be too much. You can relax. You can feel safe. You deserve that. Everyone deserves that.

Trusting yourself is the way to claim the life you’ve always been waiting for.

Trust your own self-examination more than you automatically believe someone else’s pronouncement.

Worry and hate are habits, and so are love and forgiveness.

Whatever your imagined crimes were in the past, they are not worth ruining your today for. You deserve to feel free. You deserve to be let off the hook.

Bonus: Jeffrey Marsh’s TedTalk

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Poem for the Day: August 30th, 2021

*Reconnaissance: Poems* by Carl Phillips

The Strong By Their Stillness by Carl Phillips

Most mornings here, mist is the first thing to go —first
the mist, then the fog, though hardly anyone seems to 
     know
the difference, or even care, the way for some a dead buck 
is a dead buck: the road, the body, a little light, the usual 
dark, light’s 
          unshakeable escort...You can love a man
more than he’ll ever love back or be able to, you can 
     confuse
your understanding of that 
                                            with a thing like acceptance or,
worse, all you’ve ever deserved. I’ve driven hard into 
the gorgeousness of spring before; it fell hard behind me:
the turning away, I mean, the finding of clothes,
the maneuvering 
                                awkwardly back into them...why not drive
forever? Respect or shame, it’s pretty much your 
own choice, is how it once got explained to me. I’ve already
said—I’m not sorry. Magnolia. Wild pear. So what if one
wish begets a next one, 
                                   only to be conquered by it, if the blooms
break open nevertheless like hope?

Bonus Graphic

So, some of you probably remember those batches of graphics I dropped on here a few weeks ago. Most of the ones I made at the time were lyrics from Taylor Swift’s folklore, but I also made some using snippets from my favorite poems, and it just so happens that I found one containing lines from today’s poem. I hope you like it. Disclaimer: I am not nor do I claim to be a professional graphic designer.

Quote for the Day: August 30th, 2021

People ask me all the time — what kind of stories do you want to tell, Viola? And I say exhume those bodies. Exhume those stories — the stories of the people who dreamed big and never saw those dreams to fruition, people who fell in love and lost.
Viola Davis

Poem for the Day: August 29th, 2021

Good Bones by Maggie Smith

This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine 
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways 
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least 
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative 
estimate, though I keep this from my children. 
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. 
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, 
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world 
is at least half terrible, and for every kind 
stranger, there is one who would break you, 
though I keep this from my children. I am trying 
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, 
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on 
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

Quote for the Day: August 29th, 2021

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
Lao Tzu

Quote for the Day: August 28th, 2021

People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.
George Bernard Shaw

From the Archives: How We Fight For Our Lives: A Memoir by Saeed Jones

**Book Review: How We Fight For Our Lives: A Memoir by Saeed Jones**

***Note: This review was originally posted to my Goodreads account in October of 2019.***

Everyone has a lie we’re quietly waiting to believe.

With startling economy of language, Saeed Jones tells his story with such precision that after turning the last page you feel as if you’ve been borrowing his skin.

If you read one book this year, let this be it. Please.

Quote for the Day: August 27th, 2021

If you get close to what you love, who you are is revealed to you.
Ethan Hawke

Today’s quote resonates with me in a very profound way. I think the most beautiful thing in the world must be witnessing, or better yet experiencing, certainty to purpose. So many of us stumble through life chasing things that don’t really hold any value, but when we find something we love, we’re fools if we don’t grab ahold of it and never let it go.

We only have one shot at getting this right. One chance at deciding what matters and who we’re going to be.

My hope for myself, and for all of you reading this, is that we have the courage to wake up every day and choose ourselves, to prioritize our dreams over life’s routines and mundanities. We only have one shot at getting this right. One chance at deciding what matters and who we’re going to be. The stakes couldn’t be higher. Live—and love—with no regrets. Or don’t. It’s up to you.