[aclockworkplum]

What does your username mean?

Holy shit. I haven't had an anon in so long.

So, you know the book A Clockwork Orange? It comes from the cockney phrase 'queer as a clockwork orange' where something looked natural outside, but was unnatural inside. But I liked the idea of a plum, which unlike an orange, has a soft outside and a hard inside.

Plus, purple is the best.

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Goes from Threads to Tumblr to Threads just to check the *vibes*

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I just partied with a bunch of 60 year old ladies and I... cannot.

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Today I learned 2 of my students did not think the following were real: King Tut, Cleopatra, Vikings as a whole. Because they learned nothing about them their entire education. ...how are they graduating?

Also ....

Me: What are we calling an alien? Because technically like an amoeba could be an "alien" if it was found on another planet.

E: What's an amoeba?

Me: A type of single-celled organism.

E: Can you see it?

Me: ... through a microscope.

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D: Are you okay? Do you need a hug, C?

C: No. I'm good, thanks.

D: You don't seem good. Are you sure you don't need a hug?

Me: D, stop harassing C.

D: I'm not harassing him. I think he needs a hug.

Me: He told you no. Respect his boundaries.

D: But what if he doesn't mean no, and he really just needs me to convince him to say yes?

Me: *gives him the look* That's called rape.

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I have a question -- so, Medusa was the only mortal of her sisters, but was also beautiful until being raped and turned into a gorgon as punishment by Athena, while they were always gorgons? What am I missing here? Or is it just multiple myths about her blending together in a way that doesn't make sense?

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Graveyard Girl

I’m not sure when the sleep walking began. I wake next to rivers, in lovers’ beds, in graveyards. I piece myself together, stitching dream memories into a shroud; I never wake the same. Maybe that’s why I felt comfortable, a ghost of a girl, sleeping on someone else’s grave.

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They warn you about the thin line between love and hate, but they don’t tell you what to do when everything starts tasting like nothing.

Ask me if I love him; ask me if the sky is blue – I’ll tell you yes, except when it’s washed with a million shades of grey.

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I’m naming bruises in the bath again: William Wallace above my knee, Boudica at my thigh, Henry VIII on my ankle, Augustus at my wrist.

He is laughing, asking why such ancient people. I try explaining the way some bruises deserve names that stick, that this is the history of my body and not everything fades. He only hears a lecture.

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Bitter Pill.

Some days I remember you are like him – that history, history, history.

I was stuffed with content watching the light play on shattered glass, on his opiate eyes.

We ate lotus petals pretending there was nowhere else, his hands warm and gentle.

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Goodbye.

It took me too long to realize hatred tastes like bile. The difference between butterflies and anxiety stains my teeth; I’m done with hurricane nausea.

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Hiding in plain sight.

You knew it instinctively as a child: the proper way to lie in bed. You never dangled a limb over the edge. It would be too much like taunting, like someone setting a warm slice of apple pie in front of you and telling you not to take a bite — only the pie was your leg, and you could almost feel the monster’s teeth clamping down hard enough to break the bone through the tender meat of your calf. Even in college, when you learned the only way to stop the room spinning when you were too drunk to pass out was to put one foot over the edge and flat on the floor, it felt wrong. You knew better, you always knew better. Head hung over the edge of the toilet and your insides purging from your mouth you felt better than with a leg out of place. You knew where the monsters were, how to protect yourself.

You knew it instinctively as a child: the proper way to lie in bed. You never let your whole body be exposed. Naked, during the sweltering summer days, you would play with the percentage of your body that had to be covered. The sheet was thin, translucent, but it was strong enough to protect you as long as you could handle the extra heat of it. A leg, at least, and the lower half of your stomach covered and the sheet was a shield. If it moved an inch lower you’d hear it, the claws scratching on the steel, like nails on a chalkboard, your own fingers toying with the edge of it. Even now, the room cold enough he settles the blankets over his shoulders as he sleepily thrusts inside you, you know you’re too exposed. You know better, you always know better. The monsters were never under the bed, you invited them to cuddle up next to you.

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Arachnophobia.

    It’s entrenched in you, this dislike – this fear – of spiders. You shudder at the thought, swipe at your skin as if you can feel their legs pricking you. You don’t know if you’re more afraid of their venom or the idea of being caught in a web.

    Arachne took pleasure in her craft, following the steps like a well-choreographed dance: shearing, cleaning, carding, dyeing, spinning, weaving. There was so much beauty in her skill people would travel great distances simply to watch her work, to see the magnificent shades she could create, and marvel at the exquisite cloth she produced.

    It’s an old wives tale that killing a spider inside brings rain, but I’ve never minded a good storm. I stare at it, watch it crawl across the floor and feel an unshakable sadness. I let the spider live; I’ll keep the storms under my skin a little longer.

    The gods do not understand the difference between pride in a job well done and hubris. Maybe it is a finer line than we care to admit. Arachne took Athena’s challenge. Athena wove a tapestry depicting her contest with Poseidon for the city of Athens. The Olympian gods, stern and gorgeous, were all present, judging. Poseidon’s trident was caught, frozen, in the middle of splitting the earth open. You could feel the water gushing forth from the crack, could see the horse forming in the foam. Athena was kneeling, nurturing an olive tree from the rich soil. You could see how the branches would grow, would prosper.

    Would you wear a spider around your neck in a walnut shell? It will protect you from the plague. In the morning look for dew on spider webs in the grass, it will tell you of the beautiful day to come. Watch for spiders climbing up walls, they carry your wishes upward.

    Perhaps it was hubris that persuaded Arachne to weave her tapestry with Zeus’ infidelities. The rape of Leda, the swan so lifelike you could feel the beat of its wing; Europe astride the white bull, the waves lapping at her tunic; Dana visited in her tower by the Zeus, the rain falling so that you could hear it.

    Athena transformed Arachne into a spider after she hung herself. I think that’s why I’m scared of spiders, the reminder that no amount of skill with weaving – thread or words – can save you from your fate, from the gods.

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Pharmakos.

I was tempted to smash it. I was curious about the texture — would it pop like a grape? I had made study of the way a blade cuts, I was no stranger to the slippery feel of internal organs, but I knew nothing about the texture of an eye.

If only I had smashed it.

They put a task before you: complete this and you will be great. They never tell you the whole tale, the way the monster was created. Save us, protect us, they say. Kill the beast, slay the monster, they say. Be great, be heroic, they say.

The gods give you winged sandals: vanity. The gods give you a shield: ego. The gods give you a task — clean up their mess, and you will become renowned as a hero. They don’t tell you how dirty you become. You bathe and the sea becomes red, but you are never clean.

I still see snakes.

I was curious, but not curious enough. I wanted to know the feel of the eye as it was smashed.

I should have smashed it.

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scrapes and scabs.

I had a scar covering a quarter of my face, around my left eye, from the time I tripped and fell on a friend’s driveway playing Cops and Robbers. I still look for it sometimes, but it’s completely faded now. I’ve always been clumsy, never really able to find my center of balance. My childhood was all skinned knees, scrapped elbows, and scabs.

I was fascinated by each. I’d sit on my bathroom counter, with a needle or tweezers, and pick the gravel out of the wounds. It was like a real life version of the game Operation. When I missed, and hit the raw cut instead of the pebble, the pain racing through my nerves to my brain would sound like the buzzer. My nose would turn red as tears streaked down my face, but I’d be too focused to be distracted — I couldn’t stop until every piece was removed and I was always sad when I got the last one out.

Looking back, I wonder if I haven’t spent my whole life trying to figure out just how my wires work, only managing to strip them instead.

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Seer.

She couldn’t help it, she had to feed it. It looked so lost, stuck standing in the corner. It’d been shoved aside, but clearly wasn’t going anywhere. Everyone else tiptoed around it, pushing themselves against chairs, against walls, against other people, to be able to move around it, but never acknowledging it. She gave it the scraps off her plate, and named it Peanut.

She never wanted an elephant, though she supposed they were kind of cute. She was more likely to think of Hannibal’s elephants dying in the Alps than Dumbo, but she found his ears amusing and didn’t mind peanut shells scattered across the floor.

The tattooed lady walks by it softly, the kind of soft that only comes with being comfortable in your own skin. She looks at the lady’s tattoos, wondering how it would feel to scream your story without speaking. Some day she’d ask the lady to tell them to her, but for now she studies the images as the lady slides past the elephant, all pin pricks of ink.

The fire breather has heavy steps, angry steps. She expected him to put his shoulder right into Peanut but, as fearless as he is in the face of flames, even he curls his shoulder. She liked talking to him, even if he is flammable. His words are hot, smoke snorting out of his nose but he is only ever a danger to himself.

Peanut is covering the showgirl’s mark. She watches the girl falter slightly, shake a little in her stiletto heels, but she’s a consummate professional and recovers gracefully. She speaks in winks and giggles, in grand hand gestures. But she never touches Peanut — she never touches anyone.

She expects him to lean in and talk to Peanut, to whisper into his big ears. He’s all feline grace and puppy love from years of speaking to animals, but elephants must not be on the list and he walks by, distracted by whatever it was the lion was saying with its roar. He is so often listening, and so rarely speaking in words that people understand.

There is no crystal ball in her hand, and she refuses to tell them their fate. She doesn’t know it all, but she knows enough. She is not the bearer of bad news — she prefers to not be the bearer of any news. Peanut’s trunk sniffs out the apple she kept in her pocket, and she smiles as he eats it, scratching behind his ears.

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Voyeur

He told me to watch myself In a mirror — and I tried But she kept shifting And slippery fingers Made it hard to Pin her down. I had to look Away when I came.