hayden.

all pronouns, 20

[dusksposts]

the fragile life of wild baby bunnies

a destroyed nest

an absent mom

bodies to small to stand on their own

eyes not yet open

stomaches far from full

tiny souls trying to stay warm despite the cold

the cycle of life and death

becomes a cruel reality

too the baby bunnies a week old at most

too young to know all the things they would miss

too young to feel the pain that would come

eyes that never opened now sealed forever shut

little souls who fought so hard to a battle death had already won

rest in peace little ones

I hope the afterlife is gentle to you in the ways the real world never was

[dusksposts]

the rain pelts my skin

and the gravel pricks my feet sharply

the cold embraces me

and in this moment

I am free

free to dance

to sing

to scream

to cry

to smile

to feel

the rain embraces me in all that I am

and for once I do not shy away from being seen

nobody can tell the difference between rain water and tears anyways

in these moments

when everyone hides away in their homes and under umbrellas

seeking shelter

these are the moments I come alive

the rain does not pour down on me gently

my feet will need bandaged by the time I find my way home

but my soul is filled to the brim with hope

I dance to the sound of the thunder

I pretend the lightning is my stage lights

there is no audience to applaud me

but my heart is racing

I'm filled with adrenaline

and for once I trust myself to exist

I allow myself to release

to relax

to be

the rain pelts my skin

and the gravel pricks my feet

and in this moment

I know what it is to be me

[teddywesworl]

i do write for attention, actually, because that's a normal reason to create art

[teddywesworl]

did you hear about that actor performing a play in front of a crowd? clearly only doing it for attention

[teddywesworl]

im trying to say something and im not gonna say it in an empty room

[lena221bee]

tags by @yuanzhous

[anas-fromgaza]

Here you can donate to the families in Gaza. We have collected $3,912 / $20,000.

This video shows ongoing, systematic demolitions in Gaza.

Homes are being destroyed, neighborhoods cleared, and entire areas wiped out even now, while a ceasefire is supposedly in place.

People are watching their houses disappear piece by piece.

Not during fighting.

Not in the middle of airstrikes.

But after everything, when they were told it was safe to breathe again.

The destruction didn’t stop.

It just became quieter.

These images show displacement tents set up right next to a heavily damaged building.

The building was hit before and is leaning, at risk of collapsing at any moment.

Families are living in these tents because they have no other place to go.

There are no safe areas left, no intact homes, no shelters to move to.

Leaving this spot doesn’t mean safety it just means being displaced again.

So people stay.

Not because they feel protected,but because this is the last option they have They sleep knowing the building beside them could fall.

They wake up hoping it doesn’t.

This is not temporary living This is forced survival.

Donate for GAZA

This donation campaign is for ANAS family. Not for strangers, not for a cause I'm distant from but for the people who raised me, the people I love, the people I'm terrified of losing.

They are in Gaza, trying to survive something no human being should ever have to endure. Constant bombardment, displacement, hunger, fear, and the feeling that tomorrow is never guaranteed. Every day is about staying alive one more night.

If you choose to help, you are not donating to an abstract crisis. You are helping real people with names, memories, and lives that matter to me more than anything.

[dusksposts]

How do I let go

Of the arbitrary rules I've given myself

Of the self flaggelation

How do I stop living this life

As a persona

A version of myself that I find to be worthy of love

But a facade so false the minute love arrives at my door I run

Because I fear honest conversations

The thought of being seen

It paralyzes me

I don't know how to be vulnerable

I bite at anyone who comes to close

I run and hide with my tail tucked between my legs like a scared dog

How do I let myself be seen when I don't think I deserve love

When I think I'm to heavy a burden to bare

When I don't even wanna fight for myself anymore

How could I ever view myself as something someone would choose when I wouldn't even choose me

If I were given the choice between saving myself from drowning and anybody else

I would gladly watch myself sink under the water

Inhale the salt water and ignore the burn

Even if nobody asked me to

Even if I could've saved us both

I don't know how to choose me

And so I choose the mask I hide behind

The bitter jokes

The cutting remarks

The arbitrary rules

And the self flaggelation

It's what I hold onto

Because I'm scared of what I'll find if I let go

[dusksposts]

how to hold on?

how to let go?

how to move on

from a memory gone cold

you can stay

in the empty rooms

of a childhood you once had

but you'll find nothing more than

toys covered in dust

a bed you've out grown

a room acutely empty of the motherly touch you search for

you can go back to that house

but it is no longer home

you can preserve a memory

but you cannot bring it back

because what your searching for

left the past with you

it is still with you in each moment

if you would stop spending your time

reopening old wounds

blowing dust off empty boxes

you would be able to look inside your soul

and see what you were looking for all along

was the part of you

unafraid

of emotions

of love

of mistakes

it isn't about going backwards

but learning to move forward

with the best parts of who you've been

and letting them make up who you've still yet to become

you can hold on

and you can let go

there's no one left there

in a memory gone cold

[dusksposts]

child born of violent intent

taught to spill blood before you could spill words from your tongue

what is it like to learn that hatred, pain, and anger are not the only all consuming feelings us humans feel?

what is it like to learn tears spill easier then blood?

that love swells in you

akin to the bruises you leave on others skin

and yet remains for far longer

my little love

sweet child

born into a cruel world

with a body that feels like a million broken pieces sown together

to create not a precious baby

but a tool meant to cause harm onto other innocent lives

for the goal of winning a game

that will forever keep you stuck in the never ending ouroboros of cruelty

where you may never allow anyone to close as you are bound to watch them bleed

what is it like dear child

filled with a heart not of ice but sorrow

to watch the people you wish to love look at you in those final moments of their lives

like the monster you were made to be and not the child you were meant to be?

live with love and forgiveness for it is all you have left

[dusksposts]

There once was girl

Gentle

Small

Kind

Scared

She gave love like it was as easy as breathing

Lived as if it was her first time doing it

She learned early that gentleness can only be protected by learning to cover yourself in spikes

There once was a girl

Quiet

Lonely

Still so small

Still so hopeful

Her shadows became her home

She learned how to turn them into armor before she knew how to do long division

There once was a girl

Fiesty

Quiet

Angry

Sad

She didn't understand anything going on around or inside her

She didn't know how to ask for help

There once was a girl

Who grew

And grew

And grew

The shadows never faded but the light in her eyes dimmed

She was still gentle

She was still small

She was still kind

She was still scared

But she was so many more things now

Most of all resilent

But she never learned how to step out of her shadows

Never learned to put down the armor

There once was a girl

Who lived her life in the dark

Surrounded by shadows that felt like home

Felt like protection

Felt safe

There once was a girl

Scared of the light

Scared of hope

Scared to let go

In her shadow she sits

In her shadow she stays

Maybe someday she'll see the sun

And it won't scare her away

But if you've made it this far you should know

That day is not today

[dusksposts]

Sometimes in my loneliness I find myself looking to the forest and wishing for nothing more than to become one with it.

To speak to the trees and to submerge myself in the lake.

To grow gills and find no more reason to come up for air.

I wish to be a nymph to speak the language of the forest and the animals that reside in it and to heal along side them.

To lay burrowed in a tree and become one with its roots.

I fear I have wished to belong and acknowledged that I can't so much that I've made loneliness my dream.

The only thing I could ever allow past my overgrown walls is mother nature and I fear she may have no interest in me and would disregard my vulnerability to her as useless.

I suppose I fear even nature wouldn't choose me if given the chance.

[dusksposts]

Some call it ego but I've named my shadow hesitation.

Constantly appearing telling me my limits.

Telling me who I'm allowed to be and what cannot be divulged from underneath the mask.

Am I an artist or am I a liar?

Why do they feel like the same thing?

It tells me what my art is allowed to be. How to be someone the people will like.

It makes me hesitant.

I'm hesitant when people ask what my art means.

I'm hesitant when people wanna know where the ideas stem from because my shadow reminds me I'm not allowed to show to much vulnerability.

People don't want true vulnerability after all they want to feel as if they know you not to truly do so.

Sometimes I wonder if my shadow is there to protect me or if it's there to suffocate me.

Why do love and hate feel just the same to me?

How am I to know when it's holding me back and when it's keeping me safe?

I don't know so I hesitate.

And maybe that's for the best.

Maybe I'm not meant to be more than the mask I wear and the persona I show the world.

But sometimes I wonder if I even remember where the mask ends and I begin.

Sometimes I wonder if my persona has swallowed me whole.

I wonder if my hesitation will be my own demise.

[dusksposts]

The younger me.

Tangled in a web of lies.

Struggling from strand to strand reaching for excuses and alibi's.

A version of self I no longer am.

A part of me that always felt the need to pretend.

A part of me that craved to be something to someone but let them self become anything to anybody.

I wish they could see me now.

The version of me free from the web.

A version of me that no longer hides in the shadow of lies even if it hurts.

I wish I could tell my younger self it was an easy path but it wasn't and I can no longer lie the way they can.

A path of mockery and fear and swallowing down hard truth's.

A path of hard conversations and accepting mistakes happen even with good intentions.

A path of accepting self instead of persona.

Ego no longer binds me to my shadow and I'm no longer shackled to the need for societies approval and adoration.

I learned to set myself free and I hope someday we all can do so because much like my younger self society is tangled in its own web and quite frankly I don't know if it'll find freedom before the spider eats it whole.

[dusksposts]

Who Am I? Oh I'm You.

Cracks in the mirror.

A disfigured creature looks back at me and I can't help but wonder when I became someone I can't recognize.

I can't stop myself from remembering the day I met you.

I think that's the day I became anew.

I was no longer me but another version of you.

I thought if I aligned myself with you I'd become someone you'd choose.

And as I stand infront of this broken mirror shards of glass cutting my bare feet I can't bare knowing even becoming unrecognizable to myself was enough to be something you found to be worth keeping.

Shards of glass in my feet.

The pain reminds me I'm real but the mask that takes over my face hiding the fact I'm a husk of the person I once was makes me feel oh so numb.

All I did was mirror your behavior.

And you still left me shattered.

Shattered.

Shattered like the mirror.

My mask is slipping, breaking, falling apart.

Much like I myself am doing.

I wanted to be seen but instead I became a shadow of you no longer in the forefront of the mirror but in the background of everything you do.

I try to scream as the pain becomes unbearable but come to find I've buried my voice for you.

Buried my voice.

I beg and plead silently to be heard to be seen but all anyone sees is you.

I begin to wonder did I lose myself or did I gain you?

But I know within my heart I didn't gain you I gained a mask of you which in turn is a mask of someone else.

We aren't ourselves we're the people we wished to be loved by.

As I scream again the glass shatters and the cycle continues for someone else.

I will continue finding myself and then becoming someone else in the pursuit to be seen, heard, and loved.

And so will you.

Much like the ourousborous we are a never ending cycle of beginnings and endings and there is no escape.

So I put my mask on again and go to see you because I still want you.

I'm caught in a lie.

[dusksposts]

A voice that cannot be heard.

Two fates intertwined; lovers passing by.

Fateful whisper of "when will I see you again?"

Apologise rest on the back of their tongues.

Begging the universe to forgive them for the wrongful thing's that they have done.

Within each of their final moments there's silent prayers that they may meet again.

Somewhere far away lost in the cosmos where right and wrong cannot reach them and all that may be left is their hearts intertwined.

And within their final breath's each of them ask for forgiveness from eachother that was granted long ago and wish for nothing more than a moment more.

Their lives memorialized and fossilized stuck in time words left unspoken hearts that remain broken.

Words stuck in the back of their throats.

Star crossed lovers who die knowing all that remains were the curses they gave to eachother and that perhaps that was all their fate would ever be.

Love is a wretched curse for those who view being understood as a weakness.

For those who view isolation as strength.

[dusksposts]

Oh to be a sheep

With predators teeth

Not a wolf in sheep's clothing

But the reality

Of how soft things

Become volatile

When softness is treated as weakness

And not the power it is

Nobody understands the duality

Of A soft heart

And a sharp tongue

[dusksposts]

It's a process trying to pull down the caution tape

to stop viewing my body as a crime scene

to stop looking for all the little things that led to the blood spilt on my life

sometimes I still see it

my body lined in chalk

nobody but me to mourn the hopes and dream splattered on the walls

it's a process trying to accept that I'm not a forensic pathologist

that I cannot assess my cause of death

because I survived

but the years I spent

picking apart my life

researching every ache and pain

bleeding out

wounded and terrified that my case would go cold

that I'd be another file on someone's desk

waiting for the day they blow the dust off my manila folder

begging to not be another name on a list

the years I spent like this

they'll be forever imprinted in my mind

how my body tried to get away with the perfect crime

I am a survivor but nobody tells you how to move on when the crime you survived

is the crime of existing in a body that attacks itself

I am the survivor

and I am the perpetrator

and I don't know how to forgive myself

this is a victim impact statement

a memorial of the years lost

and a moment of silence for the girl I once was

because her pain is still mine and although now i know why it hurts

I can never forget what it felt like to be aimless and burdened by a body broken by its own refusal to function

and a world that turned a blind eye

[dusksposts]

Reflections of reflections

damning evidence that no change is evident

mirrored deception

the ego is imminent

you and I share a face

share a name

share a life

and still yet here I sit

in quite contemplation of my own mirrored image

quite whispers fill my mind

speaking to life rumors of the vanity my actions would convey to onlookers

but these thoughts are of no consequence within the four walls of my dimly lit bathroom

and so each day here I sit with my silent bewilderment and unease

as I gaze at this paralleled version of me that gazes back at me

just the same as I look upon it

we are one in the same

but all the same

the person in the mirror that I see is not me

but who I was supposed to be

and each day those hollow eyes meet mine

I cannot help but be filled with morbid curiosity

Am I the ego

Or

Am I the soul

[crimethinc]

Eight Things You Can Do to Stop ICE

https://crimethinc.com/StopICE

We've produced a guide detailing many different ways you can act to prevent ICE from tearing families apart and terrorizing your community.

This is also available as a PDF for printing. Please circulate these widely!