These Poems Are My Birthmarks

digital junk-drawer of a 20-something (former) poet

[fantodsdhrit]

each moment you face something

you mist it with an accusal to preserve those infinities within

those knife impasses that —

are merely

you

with fern seekers after their hunt along the river current

a pocketheart

they picked

up

earlier

among scores of voices became a medium which only relays

what others have strum at them

at you & clairvoyant it to others queued

like all we invent in name of cicero truth

[birthmark-poetry]

Don’t tell me a ghost story on a date, I will turn into Shane Madej and I WILL question every aspect of the story and it WILL go something like “I do believe you saw your grandma, aged down as a teen, standing at your bed, but that also sounds like sleep paralysis”

[peppers-ghost-posts]

Winter Stars by Sarah Teasdale

I went out at night alone;  The young blood flowing beyond the sea Seemed to have drenched my spirit’s wings—  I bore my sorrow heavily. But when I lifted up my head  From shadows shaken on the snow, I saw Orion in the east  Burn steadily as long ago. From windows in my father’s house,  Dreaming my dreams on winter nights, I watched Orion as a girl  Above another city’s lights. Years go, dreams go, and youth goes too,   The world’s heart breaks beneath its wars, All things are changed, save in the east  The faithful beauty of the stars.

[birthmark-poetry]

it only took 15 years but I finally saw The Academy Is…!!!!!!!

[d1pperyslip]

[destiel-news-network]

(Source)

Cheney strongly pushed for the Iraq War, lied to justify it, and then made millions of dollars through military/industrial contracts.

[findejournee]

is tumblr aware of the controversy in the race for lieutenant governor of virginia because allegedly the republican candidate reblogged porn on his tumblr account?

[findejournee]

@cringekind gladly.

So last week, it was announced that former Richmond radio show host would be the Republican candidate for Virginia's lieutenant governor after the only other person in the race, Pat Herrity dropped out.

Important context for this story: Reid is openly gay.

Fast forward a few days, Virginia's Governor Glenn Youngkin asks Reid to drop out of the race. Why? Because a Tumblr account with the same username as Reid's Instagram handle was found reblogging gay porn from at least 2018 to 2020.

The Instagram handle and Tumblr blog were both jrdeux but notably, the Tumblr blog no longer exists.

Now, I wasn't able to view the blog before it got taken down so I can't independently verify what was on the account but from what I've read it seems to just be your typical porn. It's also unclear whether this Tumblr account ever posted a picture of themselves or their name to further connect Reid to it besides the username.

Reid is denying the account belongs to him and claims this is all a coup because the Republican party doesn't want a gay man to be the nominee.

Now there's Republican Party infighting as they continue to pressure Reid into dropping out while he keeps refusing.

Legally, there's nothing they can do until election day in November since there's no Republican primaries with the ticket being set.

[birthmark-poetry]

Idk if this is an aggressively Obama-era pitch but I do need a Portlandia special where Fred, Carrie, and Kyle Maclachlan as the Mayor of Portland react to the National Guard coming to town

[lux-astrorum]

average experience of being on the internet rn

[greyspectreofkirkwall]

I hope that, whenever Trump dies, I'll first learn about it in this hellsite through the Supernatural meme.

As God intended.

[ceevee5]

[tinstol-archive]

“But violence will make the pendulum swing back! Violence only begets more violence!”

The right has been committing violence, swinging the pendulum hard towards us for years. Over and over again. If you can see any violence resulting from Charlie Kirk’s death as inevitable, you should be able to see that violence against right-wingers has also been inevitable for a long time.

[ostolero]

[birthmark-poetry]

save your posturing about fathers and mothers and families in the wake of this shootings. Why? Because every day, I go to work, and I work with COUNTLESS families who lost children in mass shootings. At Parkland. At Uvalde. At Sandy Hook. At Tree of Life. At El Paso. At Charleston. At Virginia Tech. At Georgia Tech. At Aurora. At Las Vegas. At Pulse. At Columbine. At mass. At the mall. At a parade. At a park. At a grocery store. At a library. In their own fucking homes.

You’ve never had to sit with a family whose 14-year-old was made unrecognizable by an AR-15 which LIQUIFIED THEIR INTERNAL ORGANS ON IMPACT. And until today, you were perfectly fine with folks like me having to sit with families like that EVERY DAMN DAY.

Charlie Kirk said empathy was virus. Forgive me for simply following his own wishes with regards to his death.

[birthmark-poetry]

Some of the families of victims I work with, and some of my work. My day-job is writing and telling their stories. Why do you think I don’t know the statistics about gun violence and firearm deaths?

Brett Cross’s son Uzi was killed at Robb Elementary School with an AR-15 that shot out his stomach.

Patricia and Manuel Oliver’s son Joaquin was killed at Marjory Stoneman-Douglas High by an AR-15 just months after he advocated for banning the very gun that slaughtered him at 17.

Alex Schachter, Sam Schwartz’s cousin and best friend, was murdered in the halls of MSD, too. He was 14. His classmates heard him take his last breaths.

The Wrights lost their son Jerry at Pulse Night Club. Last month, Trump’s buddy DeSantis destroyed a memorial to him and other victims of the shooting. But god forbid anyone so much as quote Kirk.

This is just a handful of the families I work with.

A couple of things to consider, if we’re going to discuss gun deaths in the US, and if you’re so concerned about Kirk’s death:

Why Did Trump’s admin slash more than 47 firearm regulations?

Why did they fire more than 2/3 of the ATF’s firearm sales inspectors?

Why make cuts to public health funding that will surely lead to a rise in gun violence of all kinds?

Why cut $169M from community programs to prevent violence?

Why propose re-arming violent convicted criminals?

Why disband a federal school safety board that could have prevented school shootings like this and others?

All of these actions, and the other reckless anti-gun-safety actions that the administration has undertaken, have been determined to have the potential to increase the likelihood and scope of firearm deaths of all kinds across the US by experts.

And that’s on top of the memorial to victims of gun violence and mass shootings that Trump had the ATF take down just months before he stood up and venerated a man who dismissed those very deaths, while becoming one of their number.

[saywhat-politics]

Both of the co-founders of Turning Point USA died from things that were preventable, but which they mocked and urged this nation to ignore. Bill Montgomery was killed in 2020 by COVID and Charlie Kirk was killed in 2025 by gun violence.

[antifainternational]

“Members of Charlie Kirk’s organization spent two years aggressively stalking me, harassing and threatening me and my family, spreading lies about me, wasting my time and energy with a bogus lawsuit, attempting to end my academic career, and attempting to incite violence against me. They did similar things to hundreds of other academics who they saw as easy targets or obstructions to far-right goals. Kirk was not simply a guy with different views who liked to debate. He actively worked to try to destroy the lives of people like me. He lied to donors to keep the money flowing to his organization and he filled its leadership ranks with racists, misogynists, Islamophobes, and anti-LGBTQ extremists. He encouraged his young and impressionable followers to be cruel to vulnerable people. He taught young people that empathy is weakness and that laughing at people facing hardship and exclusion is cool. He treated the young murderer Kyle Rittenhouse as a hero and a celebrity that other young people should emulate. He supported racial profiling and the persecution of working-class migrants. He raised money for and publicized the most fascistic politicians pushing the most authoritarian policies. He added nothing of value to society. The world is worse for having had him in it.” - an academic targeted by Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA.

[lena-oleanderson]

also a poem from the new, unreleased collection. very possibly my own all-time favourite.