taylor price
Peter Solarz
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
Today's Document
★
Origami Around
Stranger Things
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
dirt enthusiast
pixel skylines
YOU ARE THE REASON
Kaledo Art
Acquired Stardust
occasionally subtle
JVL
wallacepolsom
Three Goblin Art
h
KIROKAZE
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
seen from United States
seen from Sri Lanka
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from Mexico
seen from Germany
seen from Malaysia
seen from Italy
seen from Germany
seen from Chile
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Spain
seen from United States
@firemade-a
I am expressing myself very badly, because all this is not yet very clear in my mind. It is as if I had always lived before daybreak and the sun were just about to rise.
Jean Verdenal, from a letter to T.S. Eliot (via violentwavesofemotion)
man i just *clenches fist* i just fu ckign love *yells @ the sky* i just love ma,,k,o i love him so mu
We’ll dream of a longer summer but this is the one we have: I lay my sunburnt hand on your table: this is the time we have.
Contradictions by Adrienne Rich (via wellconstructedsentences)
How did San die? Was he terrified? Did they drag it out? Did he know the blow was coming? When was the last time his family saw him smile before they saw him cold? The contortion of her lip goes unhidden, the fumble of her thumb slopping tea over her breast. A black mark blooming then over the blue covering her heart, not quite removed from sight when a half-hearted flick of her wrist pulls a steaming stream of tea back into her cup, hands thudding palm-up to the wood.
The water makes her think of itchiness, and of Ren’s eyes all bloodshot; she hadn’t heard her wail like that since she was a little girl. Saw Mako cry at his wedding, Yuina at a mover a few months passed, but San as close as three and a half weeks ago. He’s bent double, eyes streaming like his mother’s, but his father’s choking laughter in his throat, wheezing while Korra curses up a tirade around heavy shopping bags, wavering balance, and steep stairs. I live with a dog, how did this fucking — San, move this cat! I swear to every damn — hey, hey, get the cat! Don’t just stand there laughing! It’s not funny! I break my neck while you’re cackling away, I promise, I’ll reincarnate just to ground you! But he carries her bags and whistles the cat out the way. She kisses his forehead before she heads out for her train, and leaves him to her unlocked house, the dinner she’d cooked for him, to the home her daughter and secrets live in, to unadulterated trust.
‘I don’t know what to do.’ Not her son, but adored. Burying her face into the heels of her hands, when she comes back up again, everything in her is heavier, getting heavier. ‘You’ll never know. That’s it. But you loved him, and he knew, and he loved you.’ The only things left. ‘You didn’t — any bender would hold back in an Agni Kai. Nobody goes for killing shots anymore. How could anyone know? What would you have told him otherwise — to cut the other kid down? That’s no kind of advice.’ Of course she isn’t deaf to her best friend, nor what voices have been whispering about him and his son just out of earshot. ‘You didn’t do this to him, Mako.’
Fresher in his memory, but he still has it confused. Maybe they aren’t meant to be separated from one another — because at the end of the day, it’s the same fight, the same noble cause, and him looking on from the same empty place as before. Because “I’m here for my son,” sounds no different now than it did all those years ago, when even he could place his trust in blood and dimples and broad shoulders. The exception: I’m here for my son; is my wife with him? Now remember tear heavy reluctance, him willing away telltale signs in the way he never would for his mother. He’s scrawny for seven. Reel him in by the shoulder and tell him he’s lucky because his father is there for him.
He shakes his head, thumbing red the corner of his eye. There isn’t anything to do — an answer gone uncommitted out of fear. But if there is, he contests to himself, it wouldn’t be enough. Love doesn’t bring back the dead. It doesn’t even bring back the past without alloying it; what’s left to be trusted? His stomach lurching, sour at the back of his throat. Hands had clamped down around his son’s fingers like jaws and Yuina had swept limpened curls from his forehead. They must have thought their efforts helpful at the time, but it never could have been enough. They walked home side by side, wordless; when he had reached out, she had flinched away, so they’ve settled into that wordlessness. Ren had called to say she’s still catching up with schoolwork, that Kang’s been making dinner and he’s actually quite good at cooking — We joke about it, she laughed and choked on something else. We say he should talk to Narook’s about a job. The rest goes unsaid. He hasn’t worked up the nerve to ask, Should I come home? He might not like the answer.
Anyway, some part of him knows she’s right. He didn’t do this, and even then his thinking of San turns into a memory of winter nights, steaming street to red haze and Bolin says he didn’t do this to them. Skepticism was slow to wear down. Maybe it hadn’t until hearing it from her. And really, that’s the thought on his mind when he reaches over his desk for her hand, and, really, that’s the goading of a smile that tries to stay. “I’m glad he had you.”
– what I wanted was to be willing to be afraid.
Mary Oliver, from Dream Work: Poems; “Starfish” (via violentwavesofemotion)
No story or song will translate the full impact of falling, or the inverse power of rising up. Of rising up.
Joy Harjo, from “A Postcolonial Tale,” The Woman Who Fell from the Sky: Poems
Bad enough, having hands that can remake, stitch up wounds and clot blood, unbreak bones. Bad enough having always been able to make her daughter better, because despite repair, damage and hurt would have to come first, and Korra couldn’t stop that. Imagine, to have a hole in you the shape of your son. Cradling your baby from the womb and into his grave less than twenty years on.
‘Sit down, Mako.’ Piling up papers, shuffling work out the way to clear some space, half-ways to reaching for him over the desk as she’s back on her feet, intent on the teapot in the cupboard. One day, Ila’s heart will stop beating and it won’t start again, but Korra will have been dead decades. San hasn’t breathed in about a week, but Mako’s still here. They are all still here. There’s nothing that can shape a son cut down by his elders’ staying hands into peaceful light.
‘You’re not the only person who ever gave him those talks, and you’re not the only person who taught him how to bend.’ Water pitcher, teapot, and age lines like keyed grooves in metal about slow-blinking eyes; not the only person who helped set San up for a hard fall, a fall he didn’t walk away from, after it all. Hands fill china, singe it to wheezing, set the pot on a mat. Still-warm hands on his shoulders, but Korra isn’t so stoic as to be able to continue this standing. Back in Mako’s chair then; rifling for a cup, then; no good words in sight, only small, human inquiries and no answers, so: ‘You haven’t been home at all?’
HE MIGHT AS WELL have been waiting for the order. Surrendering to the role of guest without a word or parting glance, Mako sits himself down. It may be the first still moment since, as that raw yearning has crept back into place between his ribs. A dull ache. He switches the placement of crossed legs, folding fingers over this knee, letting that foot shake. And movement helps, if not distracts. He finds the arms of his chair soon after, restless fingers tapping wood, clutching white-knuckled. “No,” with his hand raising, weakened by nausea or diversion, or some dizzying combination of the two. But to say, “None for me,” is to say it too late; having already watched her forage, it’s offered with meager effect. (Purposefully, at least to some degree—he’s set himself up for a heartier thank-you in accepting his own mug.) For now, Mako sucks in a breath, looking past as if the view had been left unguarded by drawn blinds. “Sure I was home, but . . .” words drift, his better shoulder rolls as all reasoning is consigned to silence. “Better off this way for now.” A smile is nothing if not bitter, now shot in her direction as real refusal; of consolation, not of general kindness. “San wasn’t defending any person but me. Maybe you’d have to have been there.” And he wouldn’t wish that moment of influence on anyone, and his voice has gone hoarse, “but that is what it came down to. Nothing but reputation. He probably died thinking I valued it over his life. ‘Course I’ll never know.”
His heart has been lost and already prepared for dust. Say something pretty about it. I dare you.
Ada Limón, from “The New World of Beauty,” Sharks in the River (via lifeinpoetry)
Mako looks like a father. Greyed hair, spectacles, tall stature and sensible shoes all aside, it’s just a quality he has, and a quality that Korra thinks he’s always had. If not paternal, then maternal; if not maternal, then protective at least, a little stern sometimes, but gentle when it mattered. It’s glaring from this vantage point, in his chair looking up at a pinched nose, hands clasped in lap, like she’s about to be scolded for something. One day I’m not gonna be able to waive your property damages and I’m pretty sure that’s illegal in two countries and Korra, stop laughing, I swear— and it’s not a stretch to imagine San beside her, because he often was. Whether misbehaving too, or being distracted out of trouble and into the Avatar’s work. Maybe not always a good kid, but never what Korra would call bad.
Pay attention, ‘cause I’ve never shown anyone else this trick, so you’re an honoured student right now— ‘Not that busy that I don’t have time, don’t worry about it,’ —He’s trying his best, really. Parenting’s hard. But if you want, I’m in Zaofu three days next week. Ila’ll be there, but if you need a break to cool off and your folks say yes— ‘I’m sorry for taking so long, I, ah…’ A sound that peters off into a swallowed sigh, sentence let expire. She was out of town, too many train rides away. Ren and Ila were both in the house when Korra got back, and any other time, she’d laugh over it with Mako: Ila in tears over San, can you imagine? I didn’t know what to say. But Korra’s thumbing at an eye that keeps itching, and nobody at all knows what to say.
‘I didn’t know whether to come here or see you at home, but I didn’t want to intrude. I don’t want to intrude. So if this is a bad time, or if you just—’ A glance to the door, to the light reflecting in his glasses, to the middle of his chest. ‘Well. Anything you need. You know that already.’
HE KNOWS THAT ALREADY. He’s chipping away at his guard, off and on with the glasses already. “It’s not a bad time,” he says, a grin overcompensating. “I mean if I’m honest, you’re always here at the best of—” He looks past her, into the hall as if it waits a mile away. “That’s not right,” he corrects himself, and as he’s distracted by a march of passersby, it’s hardly meant to reach her. “You get what I mean.” An honorable bender would not fight. A smart firebender would not fight. Shake hands, get him to back down. He’ll back down! He’s never seen the blood drain from his wife’s face, and he never could have imagined it spilling from his son’s head, onto the street. That ending wasn’t meant for him. An honorable bender would show up anyway, and a smart firebender would want to keep his good name! San kept his good name. Yuina spoke one week ago; she said where she’s concerned: you’ve killed your good name—was it worth it? Mako closes the door against his back, taps the lock into place and leaves his thumb. “No. It’s probably best that you came here. I’ve been here.” He knows he shouldn’t be. There are plenty of reasons that tell him so, but if the city knew what Mako had known, what Mako allowed, that desk would belong to someone else; he worked too hard for that damned desk. ( He’s lost his oldest son for that damned desk. ) “That time Ila scraped her knee at the park. She was five, I remember. And you looked at her,” scrambling for water, shushing and scrambling for water, “like if you could just take those tears and make them yours, that would be alright. He might have made it out alive,” he says, something rising in his chest, “if it weren’t for that moral bullshit I spewed before he left. You know it, you’ve seen it, right? He was as good as I was. Not as good. He was better, and I let him . . .” His hand finally moves, a shield over his brow. “That should have been me. It could have, might’ve been. You get it? I can’t go home.”
WHO SHOULD SPEAK FIRST? There’s the question for the door—kept it shut for a week and two days, but he isn’t counting—kept his mouth shut for little more than a week, but it makes sense that Korra’s feet in the threshold would bring out the question again. Mako doesn’t say it, but he does invite her in. He leaves the door open because it’s his office, because what doesn’t involve business won’t be brought up by him. It will be brought up. (Question Two: What then?) He drags his finger over the edge of his desk and, dusty, points her to his chair. Arms are crossed as he chooses to lean, and carries on the conversation from a letter he half-remembers. “The day before,” he says, more reference than confession, “I watched ten recruits graduate. All ten of them ran numbers, if you can even believe that.”
Lips pursed, his laughter is all breath and all guilt. So he keeps his eyes low, under his frames, and keeps the ruse up until it’s smoke suffocating. “That said,” until he has to clear his throat and hide the twitch in that unpursed lip, “you wouldn’t mind shaking a few hands when we’re done here, would you?” until his smile has gone flat or hidden while pinching the bridge of his nose. “I might have promised. I know you’re busy.”
@ternpestuous
i love mako so much sometimes i think about it and im like [garbage voice] I WOULD DIE FOR U
You rain on me - I sky you… I hand you my universe and you live me. It is you whom I love today. I love you with all my loves. I’ll give you the forest with a little house in it with all the good things there are in my construction, you’ll live joyfully - I want you to live joyfully.
Frida Kahlo, from The Diary of Frida Kahlo (via wethinkwedream)
hELLO my f riends!! ! !
I wrote a better hour onto the page
& watched the fire take it back.
Something was always burning.
— Ocean Vuong, from “To My Father / To My Future Son,” Night Sky with Exit Wounds
‘I like the dick’; Korra quoting Mako re: Wu, it’s canon.
Literally tumblr user @firemade re: her son and his hot prince luvr on this day, the second of April, in the year of our lord, 2016. (via ternpestuous)
“Is there anything you specifically admire about Mako?”
David Faustino (Mako’s VA): “Yeah, I do. I admire his desire to stand up for what he believes is right… I respect his courage and bravery in situations of danger when it comes to protecting his loved ones.”
