a rough draftĀ
Cosimo Galluzzi

Discoholic šŖ©
todays bird

tannertan36
styofa doing anything
we're not kids anymore.
Claire Keane
Sweet Seals For You, Always
macklin celebrini has autism
d e v o n
NASA

ā

@theartofmadeline
AnasAbdin
Not today Justin

ellievsbear

⣠Chile in a Photography ā£
Aqua Utopiaļ½ęµ·ć®åŗć§čØę¶ćē“”ć

Kaledo Art

Janaina Medeiros
seen from United States
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seen from Germany
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@awanderingsheep
a rough draftĀ
Little poppies, little hell flames, Do you do no harm? You flicker. I cannot touch you. I put my hands among the flames. Nothing burns And it exhausts me to watch you Flickering like that, wrinkly and clear red, like the skin of a mouth. A mouth just bloodied. Little bloody skirts! There are fumes I cannot touch. Where are your opiates, your nauseous capsules? If I could bleed, or sleep! If my mouth could marry a hurt like that! Or your liquors seep to me, in this glass capsule, Dulling and stilling. But colorless. Colorless.
Sylvia Plath,Ā Poppies In July (via remnantsofapoet)
i am starting to notice roughness around the edges / it is coming for me / it is coming / imminent / grand // if i leave a crumble / ants will come / and scare you away // i always liked graveyards / and how their trees sing / silently / about nothing / and about no-one // losing myself in you is the equivalent of death /
I always have such need to merely talk to you. Even when I have nothing to talk about ā with you I just seem to go right ahead and sort of invent it. I invent it for you. Because I never seem to run out of tenderness for you and because I need to feel you near. Excuse the bad writing and excuse the emotional overflow. What I mean to say, perhaps, is that, in a way, I am never empty of you; not for a moment, an instant, a single second.
Virginia Woolf, from aĀ letterĀ to Vita Sackville-West (via swingmeyourbones)
God occupies me as a shapeless hunger.
Scherezade Siobhan, The Mirror I wonāt (Published in Rattle)
night of jasmines, poignantā
see how tears trickle like pearls
in everglades; come sadnessā
no more.
If only I could find the poetryĀ embedded in the DNA of everything,Ā pluck the stardust out of our gene poolĀ and examineĀ galaxies in miniatureĀ that have taken up residenceĀ within our hearts and in our heads, Ā made in the image of the Father, the Son,Ā and the Holy Forgotten Ghosts of all the starsĀ and systems we left behind when we found life,Ā the ones we drew upĀ millenniaĀ ago and left to strew the skies inĀ ancient maps reminding us that we were all borne from the same gaping mawĀ of the unseen infinite,Ā menacing and miraculous. I will fine-tuneĀ myĀ eyes in the meantimeĀ until every unknown colorĀ comes into focus,Ā colors either lost or forgotten to timeĀ and a slew of unnecessaryĀ mutations,Ā as theĀ kaleidoscope confusionĀ clouding my perceptionĀ of the worldĀ ultimately collides and collapsesĀ in and upon itselfĀ into a single imageĀ and the universe becomes whole againĀ and is no longer a splintered memoryĀ whose fragments have allowed us only toĀ keep forgetting, to keep yearning, to keep wonderingĀ what it is that we are missing, as if we knew once and have become so far removed in our knowingĀ that we know-not, no, not any longer, and the cycle completes itself and repeats again ad infinitum. And upon the completion of the universe, maybe it will swallow me up alongsideĀ the multitudes of galaxiesĀ I live knowingly beside but mayĀ regrettablyĀ never come to see.
Brittany Rubio, The View from the Edge of the Void. (via songofanothersummer)
How to Lose Weight in 10 Easy Steps
Some excerpts from my latest Medium post, āHow to Lose Weight in 10 Easy Steps,āĀ a lyric essay about taking up spaceĀ (these are my favorite bits; the beginning, middle, and end):Ā
00. This is apparently how counting starts. I donāt make the rules. Maybe the ādouble zeroā jeans size was invented because negative numbers on tags might tell women that we can or should take up negative space in the universe, which is to say that instead of displacing air with our bodies, we can or should create more empty space with our presence.
10. There is something magical about women and it is not about the creation of life, it is simply this: once we grow to a certain size, once we occupy a certain amount of space, it is as if we arenāt there at all. There are numbers in this list above 10, but you cannot see them because they are invisible.
00. I have come to appreciate roundness in many forms, and I have come to love the round parts of my body more than I once did, the way my round waist curves forward and gives way to my round belly, my round breasts, and those mounds of flesh that hang down from the tops of my arms when I spread them out to fly. Everything still jiggles when I shake, even after all that I have lost.
Read the whole thing here at Crossing Genres.Ā
One of the poems from my book! Buy a copy at lulu.com/spotlight/flashingexitsigns
* iām sitting for an interview to be the only streetlight on the corner of 15th and Lake
overlooking a vacant lot where lovers are known to meet; a pulblic space partially obscured
by bushes left sprouting on the side of an empty shell of a building long-scheduled for demolition but this cash-strapped municipality - ehhh - casting a formidable shadow or so they believe
figure iād be great for the job - i emit intermittently low illumination chronicling the parade of the hopefuls for my novellas on commission
ever ready to occupy a semi-barren realm nightly,Ā amidst brighter lights down the block
iām patiently able to pass the time in meditation, watching my breath - in & out Ā - & in again - & outā¦
i think iām great for the job.
darkness never bothered me much nor does it ever fuss over my presence, alighting every dusk-brushed evening;
wish me luck. * 8/16 - lebuc - the interview
Stop Telling Our Future President to Smile
Hey tumblr friends -- Iāve been meaning to post about this for a while and now it feels a little dated, but I want to let you know that a post on my Medium blog got featured on the Editorsā Picks page last week! Yay! Hereās an excerpt:
...SoĀ I encourage you to think just a little bit harder before you criticize Hillary for being cold. Or that she āshould smile more.ā What are the gendered implications of your criticism?
(Iām reminded of the strange men who tell me āsmile, babyā as I walk past them on my way to work.)
These days, the #NeverHillary and #ImWithHer folks are busy writing thinkpieces that often call the other side āprivilegedā for their point of view. (Hereās an example from each side, if youāre curious.) Among my generation, privilege seems to be the theme of this election season, whether youāre talking about an actual platform or criticizing its supporters.
So letās talk about Hillaryās privilege.
Sheās got buckets of white privilege and class privilege going for her, but hereās one she doesnāt have: the privilege of smiling a lot. That is a luxury you can only afford if people are willing to take you seriously by default.
You can read the whole thing here.Ā
(Also, Iād encourage you to check out Medium as a platform for your work, especially when it feels too long-form for tumblr -- Iām still new to it, but really liking it so far. It has this nice, aesthetically-pleasing green theme.)
In the dark, a frantic effort to hold. Or be heldā the luxuryĀ
of heat, of promise. Of course I cannot afford it. Too much
to lose if I have. An arm or another or both! Impossible,
the return. But I allow this. Suit the feral heart of need,
let it at least try. In vainā still, its howling calms
and when the dream comes, I am not startled by it.
Jabbercoffee
āTwas frothy, and the slithy beans Ā Ā Did grind and trimble in the shabe; All mimsy were the ice-o-treens, Ā Ā And the tea bags outgrabe.Ā
āBeware the Barista, my son Ā Ā The beard that waves, avuncular! Beware the Managers, and shun Ā Ā The frumious customer!ā
He took his vorpal wallet in hand; Ā Ā Long time the manxome cup he soughtā So rested he on a stool by the window, Ā Ā And sat awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he sat, Ā Ā The Barista, with apron of flame, Came sniffling through the trambly pat, Ā Ā And burbled as it came!
Mocha! Latte! And swiftly there Ā Ā The vorpal wallet produced a bill! He ordered three, with such great speed, Ā Ā It left the server dead.
āAnd hast thou slain the Barista? Ā Ā Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!ā Ā Ā He chortled in his joy.
āTwas frothy, and the slithy beans Ā Ā Did grind and trimble in the shabe; All mimsy were the ice-o-treens, Ā Ā And the tea bags outgrabe.
Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts
I patch the holes in my chest with lucid company, filtering in a filmed transparency I donāt distinguish in need. I cut the corner of my lips to forge a smile but itās lost behind my eyes to a truth I canāt fight and Iām struggling for breath in the night air because my walk home thickens to a clarity not even intoxication can forget. Tears write regret until sleep finds sanity beneath the dome of darkness, counting crosses on my pillow itās another night before progress.
but youāre sleeping fine. (via whitterings)
Now girls are often raised to see love only as giving. Women are praised for their love when that love is an act of giving. But to love is to give AND to take. Please love by giving, and by taking. Give and be given. If you are only giving and not taking, youāll know. Youāll know from that small and true voice inside you that we females are so often socialized to silence. Donāt silence that voice. Dare to take.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, commencement speech at Wellesley College (via alwaysinyouratmosphere)
someone please shake me and say these words to me every few days thank you
ālove shook my mind...ā (found: Sappho and Plath)
love shook my mind like a wind falling on oak-trees on a moutain where the oak-trees are not pliant enough to bend with the wind, they are not young saplings anymore. when the trees saw their reflection they knew they were beautiful, they had no reverence for the atrocity of sunsets, I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.
limbs, images, shrieks shook my mind like a wind falling on oak-trees on a mountain where snow rests upon my branches like heavy balloons. the snow has no voice and I have no voice, too shaken by limbs and images and shrieks and wind and pressed into this passive voice, I am putty. clear vowels rise like my soulās reins in your hand, not knowing that you hold my soulās reins in your hand. your hand is tin-white, like arsenic.
I am the irreplaceable golds and empty glitters - love shook my mind with perfect fidelity and mortal breath. like a wind falling on oak trees on a mountain.
ā
(I mostly found this poem in translated fragments of Sappho and also some Sylvia Plath ā about half the words are mine)