Autumn Wings

She/They, 19, Feminist, Queer. This is just a blog for me to post whatever comes to my head. Poetry, rants, thoughts, etc.

[autumn-wings]

This is not a Love Poem

I am not in love with you but I know the exact way that you smile when you say something that you don’t mean, and the way that your laugh sounds when you are just a little bit broken inside.

I am not in love with you but I can describe the exact way that your body moves as you dance, arms up to the sky as you pray the night will save you.

I am not in love with you but I want to feel your hand on my heart, squeezing just tight enough that when I try and speak my voice comes out as a whisper.

We dance on top of blurring lines until our world caves in and we collapse, teeth and hands and fingers clawing, clawing, scratching.

We fall into each other like stars imploding, lips colliding on exposed bones and chapped lips and broken heartstrings.

I think I am in love with you and that scares me because if there is one thing I know it is that you are far too good at saying goodbye.

[inkskinned]

hey if this storm ends up being as bad as it looks, you need to take it seriously, particularly if you're in a southern state and not used to storms like this. i'm not a professional but my new england experience for losing power/etc is:

fill your bathtub with water before the power goes out. in an emergency where the pipes freeze, you'll have semi-clean water. you can use this water for your pets, to wash dishes, flush your toilet, and other small important stuff. if you have no bathtub, fill as large a bin/pot/etc as you can find.

air is the best insulator. if you can tape plastic over your windows and major drafts, it will genuinely help. (they have kits for it, but i've used trash bags and duct tape). blankets/tarps/etc also work. leave space between the covering and the window - the layer of air protects you. shove towels under your doors.

in a true emergency, you can ball up newspapers and shove them into your coats/pants/etc between your base layer and your coat. it won't be comfortable but it does insulate a little better.

have an emergency plan for your pets, particularly animals like reptiles that need constant heat to survive.

the weight of the snow and ice will be an issue. plan accordingly.

black ice is a bitch. if it looks "wet", assume it is frozen. actually just assume everything is frozen for a little while.

if you do not have a generator or other emergency power source, DO NOT bring outside-use heat sources (like propane stoves) inside. you can gas yourself and die.

instead, if you truly have no heat source: focus on insulating a small amount of space in your house - a few rooms - and bring as many bodies and supplies in there as possible. do not break insulation if you can avoid it. you are a ~100-degree object. make your safe space into a blanket fort. you may go stircrazy but it is better than freezing.

if you have a fireplace you never use, check the flue and the chimney before the storm holy shit. i am not kidding about this. do not just start a fire willy nilly. you will burn your house down.

relatedly, if you start a fire and notice smoke is billowing back into the house: stop the fire immediately. your flue is closed or your chimney is backed up. you will burn your house down.

keep the fridge closed as long as possible; it lets the air out. but honestly like, my family has used snow as a fridge a lot. stuff that needs to stay cool will be less of an issue than things that need to get warm. plan accordingly.

most canned things can be eaten cold, but check the label. if you have a little sterno fire, it can go a long way.

if you develop a headache and feel weirdly sleepy, you may be forced to open a window. you might have carbon monoxide poisoning.

every year people die while shoveling snow. it is actually not very safe as a chore tbh. you need to go slow and take lots of breaks. you should also 100% wait until the snow has actually passed, only because when it starts shifting and undoes all your work, it will piss you the hell off.

have drinking water somewhere easily accessible. a lot more of it than you think completely necessary tbh.

fill your gas tank. it will help prevent your lines from freezing.

if you have a battery-powered light that's not very strong, put it under a water jug, it'll throw more light. idk why it works but it works.

just because you know how to drive in the snow doesn't mean other people know how to drive in the snow. better to just not.

your device probably has a "low power mode". probably best to just keep it on asap rather than be taken by surprise tbh. the battery will last longer.

great news to fanfiction writers: it really is better if y'all take one bed and huddle together for warmth. do not strip out of your clothes, though, i have no idea who the hell decided that was the smart thing to do. you want to keep at least a layer of leggings and a tight shirt on. the goal is to find the fine line between "warm" and "sweating" - you want to stay as dry as possible for as long as possible.

your hair, eyelashes, and nosehairs can freeze. just from personal experience: try not to rub or touch them, it can snap your hair off and then you'll be very sad.

hypothermia is a lot faster and more evil than most people expect. watch for shivering, confusion, and unexplained exhaustion. if someone stops shivering, that is not always a good sign. if you think you/someone you love has hypothermia, warm them up slowly. often this is through rubbing/friction (or a heat source if available) but i just learned it's not safe to rub someone's frostbitten skin. keep them awake and try to feed them something.

same for frostbite: don't just shove your hands into a fire. warm any affected area slowly. fair warning, as the blood recirculates, it will hurt :(

those blue rubber examination gloves under other gloves can help even very-cold hands stay warm.

liquor is not a good idea to drink right now, sorry beloved. but vodka/rubbing alcohol does work as an excellent de-icer if you need something small done quickly (like a lock/door handle). it's just, like, expensive in comparison to other things lol

"i don't eat that much anyway i'll be fine" that's the devil talking. you will not be. you will also probably be burning way more calories than normal. let the soft animal of your body eat a bunch of delicious snacks.

good luck i love you stay warm out there everyone

[autumn-wings]

I don't want a soft, quiet love; I want a loud love. I want the kind of love that makes you sing in the shower and laugh on the subway and scream from the rooftops at 2am. I want the sort of love that you tell everyone about because you are just so happy. I want to know that you are proud to love me.

[anistarrose]

If the people in a relationship say it's platonic, then it's platonic, regardless of your preconceived notions about commitment, cohabitation, gender, sex or other physical intimacy, and anything else you associate with a strict position on a romantic/platonic binary. Likewise, if the people in a relationship say it's romantic, then it's romantic, again regardless of your preconceived notions about commitment, cohabitation, gender, sex or other physical intimacy, and anything else you associate with a strict position on a romantic/platonic binary. Friends can have sex and/or live together, and romantic partners don't need to. People can also do either of those things or neither without placing themselves in a platonic-romantic binary.

Platonic and romantic relationships (as well as, frankly, sex itself, if you take a look at the way sex has been typically defined in such a cisheteronormative way) are way too socially constructed for your stereotypes to overrule the actual intent and self-understanding of the people those relationships most matter to.

[autumn-wings]

I came home from college for the first time and my mother has changed my mattress so that springs no longer stick out. I do not have the heart to tell her it feels wrong: She is so happy to have me home.

I came home from college for the first time and my father has just had surgery his arm tied up in cast, his eyes so tired. I give him a hug when I arrive and we both pretend not to notice how fragile it feels.

I left my lamp in another city so I try and read by the light of the moon before remembering that in this town I always keep my curtains closed- an old habit from a girl who found comfort in the darkness

Nothing has changed Yet everything is different. These streets feel like an old friend I no longer know: there is the concert hall I played in a hundred times, there are the streetlights we once danced around, there is the place they told me they loved me.

How is that no longer my life?

[autumn-wings]

Being 18 hurts. I'm still living in my hometown, my childhood home but the seconds are counting down, sand falling out of an hourglass. I drive by my school and for a second think that I am 11 again, walking through the doors for the first time- it hasn't hit that I'm never going back. I tried to call up a friend to hang out before realising that they moved out weeks ago, I argued with my sibling again before realising that in a couple of weeks we'll be living in different cities, I made my mother coffee and she started to cry. Does everyone feel like the world ends when they turn 18?

[autumn-wings]

I think I knew I loved them when they became the first person I thought to tell about anything, about everything. I think I knew I loved them when I smiled even thinking about them, when the sound of their voice made my whole word brighten. I think I knew I loved them when I stayed up late at night, scared about how hard I was falling. The world may not understand our relationship but unfortunately for them I've decided to live my life anyways.

[autumn-wings]

Surface

On the surface it is all fine- an overreaction, a lie that I told to make the haters react and  the audiences in my head grieve for me.  On the surface I am a fraud hiding who I am inside, an artist who has gone blind and started painting outside the lines.   On the surface I am fine- a happy girl without a care in the world and a penchant for loving too much.  Beneath the surface I am trapped- memories shoving me into a cage too dark and twisted to ever find  my way out of. I guess I never told you that I was scared of the dark.  Beneath the surface lies the truth, and it so much more complicated  than you’d imagine; if only you knew all of the words I wish you would listen to.  I guess I never taught you how to listen.  Beneath the surface I am scared all of the time- it is a habit now ingrained into my DNA, my bones trading fears like secrets at a middle-school party.  I guess I never told you how sorry I am. 

[my-chemical-mermaid]

Genres of Twenty One Pilots songs:

Depression and anxiety suck

Suicidal thoughts/ideation suck

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my wife?

Josh Dun exists and that's awesome

L O R E™️

I cope by externalizing my mental illness and personifying it

This one's just a meme

My family is important to me

The music industry and being famous are weird

My fans and the community I've built mean so much to me

Many people relate to my experiences with mental illness and I feel the weight and responsibility of that acutely

I have a complicated relationship with my religious upbringing

Yes it's the car motif again

[autumn-wings]

Essay writing is literally just the art of bullshitting, like half the crap I put in my essay came from tumblr and the other half I wrote in a trance but you can bet my english teacher loved it.

[autumn-wings]

Does anyone else get irrationally angry at how naturally strong males are? Like I know that there's a biological difference, blah blah blah, but I worked so fucking hard for this strength that I have only to be outpowered by some 14 year old boy who's not even trying.

[dynastyandtree]

Aro/aces will try to explain attraction and wind up with a theoretical model with dimensions that can no longer be graphed in Cartesian coordinates.

[twobruhsinahottub-deactivated20]

Just sent my friend a link to the wikipedia article on QPRs and said "is this play about us?!" Is this what the allos call shooting their shot?

[autumn-wings]

Glad to see its a universal experience

[autumn-wings]

Dating not in a romantic way, or a sexual way, or even a queerplatonic way but a secret fourth thing (I love them so much but our relationship does not fit inside the boxes society wants to put us into)

[autumn-wings]

My english teacher paired me with the most sexist boy in class for a study partner. Time to see exactly how feminist I can be in one essay.

[thefloralmenace]

This is the Over-Achiever's guide to deprogramming essentially. That mega capitalistic productive drive they tried to beat into you in high school? It'll kill you in college. This is the pamphlet that helps you prevent that. The front is here and on the listing, but to get it front and back, you can buy it for $2 here.

[autumn-wings]

I've been thinking a lot about the way that theres just an inherent rage that comes with being raised as a girl. You are constantly told that you aren't enough until they need you, then you are told you have to be everything, you are told that you aren't strong but they put the weight of the world on your shoulders and expect you to hold it without shedding a tear. The contradictions are endless and start so young, little girls told to sit still and act pretty when all they want is to run free and be wild, told to do well in school but ridiculed for thinking they are smart, allowed to show emotion unless it is rage- then they are hysterical . We are born with fire in our bones that they try to quench but let me tell you now it doesn't go out, it just fizzles beneath the surface until one day it finally explodes. Have you ever seen a woman angry, I mean truly angry? She holds the power of a thousand suns in her hands and will use it to burn down the world that tried to break her spirit. We aren't born angry but we are born into a world that won't hear what we have to say unless we scream the words.