The Shadowden

Truck Driver/Writer/Artist/Bead Addict

[random-brushstrokes]

Leonid Pasternak  (Ukrainian, 1862–1945) - The Torments of Creative Work

[caressthosecheekbones]

oh leonid, we're really in it now

[wintersmitth]

Leonid, you really understand it.

[alexaloraetheris]

Save me Leonid, from my empty Word document

[elodieunderglass]

Leonid what should I do about the emails

[halfhardtorock]

[gayfeatherfiend]

reblogging to normalize. because we really should be uplifting sex workers as bread winners. Also because they should be able to show their face in public without fear of repercussions??? (cough cough), like this gentleman.

Honestly its unhinged and hilarious but yet also seriously something I want to see more of

[gayfeatherfiend]

image described in alt text

Anyway…👀

Reblog if you’re a cheap whore. Or respect cheap whores. Or have the power to turn young people into cheap whores. (they can never tell which)

[bisquid]

If you’re making enough to pay off your sister’s student loans you are not a cheap whore you are a wildly successful whore which is admittedly beside the point but damn

[headspace-hotel]

What about the goose

[deirashadeweaver]

I also want to be a wildly successful whore. Please give me some directions.

[parkchanwoohoo]

[alexaloraetheris]

Lion dancers: *beeing Good Bois, getting good grades in performance*

Baby lion dancer: *appears*

Lion dancers: *running fast as they can* BABY BABY BABY BABY BABY BABY BABY

[caicrisis]

Because I was Bored

[deirashadeweaver]

man's spot on

[tiktoks-for-dead-pope]

[the-smiley-blue-axolotl]

@elodieunderglass

[elodieunderglass]

Thank you!!

[deirashadeweaver]

can I please have a dozen

[stuckinapril]

Honestly it boils down to reparenting yourself & rewiring your own neuronal pathways & telling yourself a firm “stop” when you notice your mind slipping down negative loopholes & being present in the moment & enjoying being mid task rather than waiting for it to end & not thinking of inertia as your baseline and natural way of living

[stuckinapril]

So tempting to keep embarking on the same self destructive cycle over & over & over again . But at some point you have to put ur foot down w ur own behaviors & be the thing that truly saves u

[sicsicthewolves]

#this is unfortunately true#it’s not easy to tell yourself Hey Drop It#like you’re your own dog furtively eating pinecones and rocks#but you gotta#sometimes it’s a Hey We’re Not Doing That#you gotta though

[foxfaer]

Growing.

[takingstockofwhatmattersmost]

Poetry Is What Follows

it’s in the silence after the words have fled when the breath you didn’t know you were holding ...escapes you feel it then the echo of something deeper carved down to the marrow of your bones not a sound but a scream buried beneath skin the weight doesn’t ask for permission it just lands like a stone thrown into a lake ripples you can’t control drowning what’s left of you there’s no glory in the bleeding no triumph in the ache the past? it isn't forgotten ~ it’s embedded every mistake, every tear, every scream folded into the pages of your life held hostage by time that refused to stop but somehow, in the wreckage, you find a sliver of truth a broken truth sharp at the edges...but it cuts clean and for a moment the poetry vanishes in the pain

the words don’t die they just dissolve...like mist at dawn fading just as you begin to grasp them they haunt lingering in spaces you didn’t know existed you look for them but they are ghosts slipping between thoughts mocking your need to hold on and in that void...something else is born a different language one without sound or form it’s a knowing that grows from the cracks a whisper that doesn't need to be spoken to be understood this is where wisdom thrives ~ not in the speaking but in the quiet decay of what was said and when you finally stop searching that’s when it finds you and the poetry...the real poetry isn’t in the words it’s in the silence that follows

[deirashadeweaver]

fuck this is good

[bellecs]

[ofgeography]

so here’s a fun story about this movie. guess who loves this movie? me! i do! i love this movie. i love this movie so much that when i was in the 7th grade and i saw “first wives club 2” on pay per view i was like: HELL YEAH!! FIRST WIVES CLUB TWO!! NO ONE TOLD ME THERE WAS A SEQUEL!!!

here’s the synopsis for first wives club 2:

disgruntled first wives take their ex-husbands’ new lovers under their wing.

sounds great, right? awesome viewing material for a precocious 11-year-old.

so i buy this movie, and like, three minutes into it i’m starting to feel suspicious?? like it’s really low quality and my girls are nowhere in sight?? how come none of the first wives are the same?? how come they’re alone in a bedroom with mood lighting?? why is she taking off her shirt?? why are they both taking off their shirts?? WHY ARE THEY–

here’s what i did not know about first wives club 2:

it is a lesbian porno of no relation to the beloved 1996 classic.

so of course i, horrified that i’ve accidentally bought porn on my family’s account (and in that state of panic that kids work themselves into whenever anything regarding sex is mentioned), quickly shut off the TV and go upstairs and watch an episode of veggie tales to like, cleanse my soul and apologize to jesus, and that’s that.

EXCEPT, OF COURSE:

you have to pay for pay per view.

so the end of the month comes and i have completely put this incident out of my mind, haha, i accidentally bought porn, how funny, TELL NO ONE. right? and i’m sitting at a nice dinner with my mother, my stepfather, and my very religious aunt deb, and we’re just talking about farm things, whatever, when suddenly my mother puts her fork down and says, “okay, there’s something we need to discuss. as a family.”

AS A FAMILY.

and i’m like, running through a list of people i know who could conceivably be dead, and fantasizing about my mother announcing that she’s going to buy me My Own Computer Just Because U Earned It Kiddo, and she pulls out a piece of paper that says DIRECTV across the top. and i’m like: OH NO.

“i received the tv bill today,” my mother said, and i was like, shoveling potatoes into my mouth as fast as i could because i knew that when i went to PORN PRISON they weren’t going to feed me this kind of quality starch. “does anybody want to tell me who purchased the pornography?”

as a reminder, a quick table survey:

my mother, surprised and disappointed by the porn bill (innocent)

my stepfather, a grumbly old cowboy who just wants to sing along to kenny chesney and watch the hunt for red october (innocent)

my aunt deb, a super religious catholic whose best friend is a nun named Sister Placid (innocent)

me, the 11-year-old with a mouthful of potatoes who definitely purchased the lesbian pornography

silence.

my mother said, “i’m not going to ask again.”

silence.

my aunt looked at my stepdad. my stepdad looked at my aunt. NOBODY LOOKED AT ME, THE 11-YEAR-OLD WITH A MOUTHFUL OF POTATOES WHO DEFINITELY PURCHASED THE LESBIAN PORNOGRAPHY.

my mother shook her head and put the bill down. “this was incredibly inappropriate,” she said. “skip, deb, whoever. buy that shit on your own time. i’m not paying for it. what if molly had seen it?”

WHAT IF MOLLY HAD SEEN IT?

“don’t expose my kid to that crap.”

DON’T

EXPOSE

MY KID

TO THAT CRAP

“if you want to watch porn, fine, but do it in private and don’t expect me to pay for it. i can’t believe one of you did that in the living room.”

I CAN’T BELIEVE ONE OF YOU DID THAT

IN THE LIVING ROOM

but molly, why didn’t you own up to it and explain that it was an accident?

are you fucking kidding

i did not want to go to porn prison

the fun conclusion to this story is that i never owned up to it, which means that there are 3 people in the world who have not solved the mystery of the lesbian porn. a quick survey:

my mother, who lives every day wondering whose porn she paid for

my stepfather, who probably wishes he knew less about his wife’s sister’s porn preferences

my aunt, who probably wishes she knew less about her sister’s husband’s porn preferences

but molly, why don’t you own up to it now, with the safety of time and distance and the knowledge that porn prison isn’t real?

are you fucking kidding

this is the best thing i’ve ever done

[ofgeography]

for years people have doubted that the details of my stories are correct but in 2024 i received this text message from my mother so i ASK you to look me in the eyes and call me DISHONEST

[deirashadeweaver]

I love all of that.

[deirashadeweaver]

Ramblings

There's a pit in my stomach

A void waiting to be filled

I'm standing on a crossroads

Sun's rising, and the skies have cleared

I could set out on some new journey

I could take my dreams and give them away

Find a dance that lasts until morning

And hands that heal and set me aflame

I have stayed in this place and grew roots

The walls more like a prison than shelter

I feel weighed down so much I can't move

My thoughts are chasing themselves in a circle

I am tired but I can't find sleep

Darkness pooling around me in the room

You promised me love but not to keep

So when you went on the road you took it with you

Being open is simply not being closed

Being safe is different than not being hurt

You tried to make me into something I'm not

Now where there should be yearning, there's barely a thought

[allnightsong2]

294-1335

Wake up

warm dry autumn breeze

through the windows stirs the sheets

put my feet upon the floor

no stretching sit shoulders slumped

it's just today another today again

I look down at my knees

and repeat my mantra

'If I die today that would be okay'

then get up to brush my teeth

[allnightsong2]

October's Last

Sunday morning

a matte painting I've seen before

poorly executed

the colors muted edges indistinct

no depth to draw you in

frost on a rusted tractor

abandoned by the windbreak of a fallow field

I saw that image before

on the 5th of November

in 1977

endless identical townhomes

fill what was once a pasture

only the deer and I

see the subsummation of the bucolic

unwanted secrets sleep in cars

with windows opaque

under white shrouds of frost

gravel crunches under my boots

the bones of the earth

ground up to make our bread

and I have neither cow nor magic beans

there will be no beanstalk

offering up escape

from the banality of this weary apocalypse

I ordered some hope from Amazon

it was delivered to someone else's porch

I have a picture of a welcome mat

I've never seen

the automated voice on the customer service hotline

says that I will be refunded

in 10~14 business days

but I'm not sure

that I can last that long

[allnightsong2]

Gifts

You offer me inspiration and biscotti

an intimation of the dissipation of despair

like freedom portrayed perfectly

on an Etch A Sketch,

soft clouds of breath hang

over the frost on fallen leaves

we learn the lessons of life

and store the results on thumb drives

as shadows cast by cold sunshine

offer us a made-up world

tuck your chin

into your hand knitted scarf

our warmth is a tenuous possession

life is deadly and the days short

don't listen for the songbirds

they've all gone south

and maybe this time they won't return

[johannestevans]

the thing is like. i get that it's scary and makes people who do desire to get pregnant uncomfortable when we talk about the brutality and violence of pregnancy and the damage that pregnancy can do to your body

but you deserve to give informed consent to that process.

the lies around pregnancy - that it's inherently safe, that it doesn't do you permanent damage, that it's only extremely rare for people to die of pregnancy complications, etc like

all of these are lies constructed so that more people will get pregnant w/o knowing all that

there needs to be more talk about the impact of miscarriages and how common they are, how different abortion processes are and how accessible they are

but also like. talking about how pregnancy fucks your body up should not be taboo

this is a process that permanently changes most people's bodies, and that's even if the pregnancy doesn't do them like. severe illness or injury

and i just think everybody should have a right to KNOW that

bc to live in a society that intentionally obscures and hides facts about a completely optional and dangerous process does so for a reason, and that reason is based in a very sinister ideology that does not value bodily autonomy or informed consent

[thelittleblackfox]

the number of people who are pregnant and don't know about what induced labour entails and what post partum bleeding is horrifies me

[zenaidamacrouras1]

Here is a story about the depths to which pregnant people are seen as a vessel for a baby, and the importance of finding prenatal care that assumes you are a human and not a baby holder:

When I was pregnant I was in a million forums for pregnant people because (cough adhd hyperfixation) and I had something called SPD (Symphysis pubis dysfunction) (not Sensory Processing Disorder though I also have that) which is where your pubic bones separate early (more or less) because they get all loosey goosey as your body gets ready to crank that baby out.

Except my pubic bone got confused and got misaligned at like 3 months pregnant. I could barely walk. I couldn't roll over in bed. Doing something that required me to shift my weight from one foot to another like opening a door knob was like an excruciatingly painful knife being stabbed into my pubic bone, I can't express how intense and blinding it was.

So I am in one million baby forums like "am I dying what is happening why is there a knife in my pubic bone" and all these people are like "I have that too! my doctor says it's normal and not to worry because it doesn't hurt the baby. I just deal with it by laying in bed for months in excruciating pain and think about how lucky I am to be having a little miracle growing in my body."

So lol nope. I went to my midwife and they are like, "Oh squeeze a can between your knees look up a physical therapy youtube on SPD" and I did that can-squeeze thing and it CURED THE PROBLEM in ONE DAY. I had been SUFFERING, y'all, it felt miraculous.

And I was so full of rage (flames, flames on the side of my face) that people are being told "Oh, it's NORMAL just deal with it" "It doesn't hurt the baby." Like, look, yes it's NORMAL but it's 100% treatable!!! SPD (again, not Sensory processing disorder) affects 1 in 5 pregnant people.

I was lucky to have amazing midwives (need a gender neutral term for that profession, but they see pregnant men and women)(side note highly recommend midwives if you are gender nonconfirming/a man/etc) and I have DOZENS of examples of shit like this.

(Another example is post partum friends being like "oh I am peeing my pants 900x day after giving birth" and my doctor says it's NORMAL so I just dealt with it for decades. My midwives were like "Oh that's normal and also physical therapy cures that in like 2 sessions")

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

When my sister was looking to get pregnant she was given the best advice. She was told that being pregnant is an experience akin to being in a moderate sized car crash, in terms of risk and lasting injury.

Some people in moderate car crashes are very lucky, and walk away with zero injury. Some are very unlucky, and die. But most people fall into the third category, where they'll be injured at the time, then heal, and then for the rest of their life they have some minor and liveable complication from the injury. Like a knee that lets you know when the rain is coming, or a back that doesn't like seats without lumbar support, or a shoulder that never quite gets its full range of motion back.

The vast majority of people survive and thrive, like. But their body is never the same again. And people should know that when they make the choice of whether to put their body through that or not

[haledamage]

my mom had a complication postpartum that caused pain and swelling in her left leg. at the time she was told it was "milk leg" and that it was normal and she'd be fine, but it never went away or got better. she finally found a doctor recently who was willing to do some tests and found out it's a condition called "May-Thurner syndrome" and had surgery to fix it

she's been suffering with this since she gave birth to me. I'm 38 years old. she had that surgery last week.

there needs to be more dialogue about the things your body goes through during pregnancy. "that's normal" or "everyone goes through that" need to stop being used to shut down conversations about the horrific, permanent damage that can be done to bodies during pregnancy and childbirth. just because it's "normal" doesn't mean it needs to be endured

[headspace-hotel]

Childbirth is widely recognized to be one of the most excruciatingly painful things a human can experience and often causes permanent damage or disability, on top of risk of psychological trauma and extreme depression or psychosis from rapid changes in hormones.

Anti abortion, pro-natalist, "traditional" types just pretend none of this exists and make up a version of reality where people giving birth will magically not be distressed or traumatized by, for example, needing their genitals ripped open and stitched back together, because childbirth is Natural and Supposed To Happen, so the pain, injury, and risk of disability or trauma don't "count" as those things in the same way they would if there was a violent accident.

Having listened to a lot of pro-lifers speak

I think some of these folks think women are automatically not going to be traumatized or feel horrified or really suffer in a fully human way, from pregnancy and childbirth, because that's what women are For.

And to accept that women can feel and perceive pregnancy and childbirth to be just as distressing and traumatizing as any equally excruciating, physically violating, potentially lethal or disabling event, would explode their entire worldview, because that's the Point of women, that's what a woman Is, a thing that is Supposed To do that.

So even if they are women themselves, they convince themselves that God/nature has miraculously made pregnancy and childbirth an Exception to typical human reactions to things.

So when somebody says "That sounds awful and I would do anything to stop that from happening to me." they think that this feeling will be erased by a magic cloud if the person actually got pregnant.

Acting like people aren't capable of feeling the full range of emotions about something because of their biology is really dehumanizing! Just because somebody has the capability to give birth, doesn't mean their minds cannot experience it as a nightmare, a torture, or a trauma.

It is the same horrid dehumanization of insisting that every woman will have a magic switch flip in her head that will throw every previous opinion in the garbage and make her want to have baby baby baby baby.

[vierdz]

I am DIVORCED! I am divorced and EXTRA DIVORCED!!!!!!

I AM SO POWERFUL!!!!!!!

[deirashadeweaver]

Go and be free!

[allnightsong2]

276-16(17)24

Choking back words

that don't mean anything anyway

burp up half digested grammar

regurgitating similes

with a second chance aftertaste

of hazelnuts and paprika

October is fireball schnapps

that have sat in a shot glass

waiting since September and

fields a rippled crusty landscape

of dried dead stalks and summer dust

August promised passion

October says here

have a bored and hurried handjob

it's too late to save the year

you're lucky to get

a damp washcloth and eye roll

you raised the bet

with two pairs deuces and fives

you clearly don't understand the game

and November's gonna kill ya

[beebfreeb]

Messaging people for the first time is so hard. What am I supposed to say? Like, "You seem really odd and your blog intrigues me. Do you want to have philosophical conversations or perhaps talk about fictional characters?" What! Whatever. I will just follow you back and stare at your blog with my big beautiful brown eyes.

[scribe-cas]

Reblog if you're okay with people coming into your DMs with the "you seem really odd and your blog intrigues me, do you want to have philosophical conversations or perhaps talk about fictional characters"

[deirashadeweaver]

Come at me whenever.