Illustration by The Ordinary Young Man

Each month, we dedicate a column to the most beautiful, inspiring and provocative letters from our readers. To participate, simply send up your work to info at artparasites dot com with the subject line Reader Submission.

“Let us sit down peacefully

While the sound of the waves calm our soul

Let us waste time connecting stars

When you tell me the sign of which you were born

Speak to me about anything, anything light

Or deeper that the depth of the unknown

Look at me in the eyes

While I dig the memories of your soul

Let me see your face through the light of the moon

And know you more than my dreams could ever show

I will let you hold this heart of mine

But promise, just promise not to let it go.”

– LK, Philippines

Illustration by bifng

“I always thought that depression must be purple
Like the veins of a high-key drug addict
Jumping up and down the scale of pure disappointment
in one’s self.
Loving you is also purple, maybe that’s the reason why
You look exactly like my depression.
Your eyes seize the darkness on a back alley
Of a bar I’m never too brave to leave.
So I pour myself one more drink,
Because I miss you like my depression never misses me
With its sharpest arrow.
I never intended to fall for you that night
Like I never intended to fall for my pain every time
It was gone.
So the world allowed me to cut my wings
whenever I felt like flying back to you,
leaving this messy bed I always considered a haven.
I don’t even weep anymore,
why bother?
No tears can shut up the voice in the back
of my head that makes me question
whether there’s another color in your eyes,
on your arms,
on your lips.
Just this mixture of red and blue,
Like there’s only in-between
And never a conclusion.
It’s not even midnight. yet, my darling
and my eyes are burning with the urge to see
more of you
and less of purple.”

– Georgiana Ghimes

Drawing by Federico Infante

“Hope is when you are three and set a balloon free, thinking it will reach the moon.
Hope is tooth fairy, hope is Santa Claus‘ gift and hope is a birthday-candle-wish.
Hope is when you are sixteen and stand by the traffic signal and shout your prices hoarse for people to buy your colouring books.
Hope is, waiting outside the intensive care unit for the doctor to bring relief.
Hope is when you are eighteen and still look at the door expectantly for your dad to return from the war-front.
Hope is, believing that your team will make it to the winners’ table in the dying minutes of a game.
Hope is anxiously looking at your phone as the clock strikes twelve, for that one long-distance call on your birthday.
Hope is getting into a moving train with bags bigger than you for sale, only to make ends meet.
Hope is when you are marooned on an island and spot a waving hand out-of-the blue.
Hope is when you are seventy two and stand on the pavement selling incense sticks on a bright and sweltering Sunday afternoon – undeterred, undaunted.
Hope is waiting for the weekend so you get to see your grandchildren and buy them ice-creams to soothe their screeches.
Hope is thinking about that long lost loved one each night before you go to bed, imagining how things could change even now, every striking minute of your life.

Hope is trying to put everything together when everything is crumbling into shreds of disappointment. Hope is painful. Hope is wonderful. Hope is the bird that sings when the dawn is still awfully dark and eerily scary.

Hope is a perspective.
Hope is the one thing that will ever be.”

– Swathi Sriram

Illustration by Ana Laura

“I’m not the type of girl to be satisfied with fancy hotels and valet parking,
Luxuries in life aren’t 5 star restaurants and top notch waiter service,
Luxury is sharing a small tent with your lover,
Curling up to them so the night doesn’t blow shivers down your spine,
Its waking up and inhaling the fresh crisp smell of the new day,
Stretching after a night of intimacy, stretching in front of a view that thrills you
One that makes you want to sit there and think of all your life choices,
Think of everything you’ve achieved and everything you have yet to,
Luxury is a great state of comfort, and my comfort is with you, the earth and our tiny tent.”

– Anonymous

Illustration by Mrzyk and Moriceau

“Music is a little like love. Sometimes you hear a song for the first time, and it becomes your favourite, you can’t stop listening to it. Eventually, however, you stop liking the song, you get over it, and you stop listening. But sometimes, you don’t hear a song for a long time, and when you hear it, even after all that time, you fall in love with it all over again.”

– Damien J Chelin

Ilustration by beetroot

“Sharing thoughts is the most intimate thing that can happen between two people. My love, if one we could talk, talk openly without hurting the other. I fear talking frankly, because every time I do I can feel the unvoluntary reactions and the wall being built that I can’t get through, I can feel the interpretations, the judgements being passed. No, what I say doesn’t threaten us. It threatens the filters, the conditioning. There are limitations that you have enforced on yourself without even knowing it and I wish I could do something to help you lift those chains. The weight of these chains is stiffling you without you even knowing it. The chains provide a certain amount of comfort and everytime you come across a situation in life that confronts those chains you shirk away, because you see it as something that’ll take away the comfort. No, sweetheart, it’s not the comfort that’s threatened, it’s the chains ! Screw the comfort. There is JOY beyond these chains. What would you rather have, comfort or joy? The comfort is illusory, it’s there to soften the feel of the chains on your being. If only we could talk, talk without blame, without insecurities. I love you my sweet. I hope one day our souls can meet, not the feelting meetings that accidentally happen because your soul manages to peep through a gap in the chains but really meet, at will! I love you.”

– Imhblbion

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Painting by Catrin Walz Stein

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