I am done with this life, I have had enough. I long to take a step back from its twisting, crawling vines of social expectations, of its confusing labyrinth of standards the hundreds of different people in my life with their hundreds of different roles hold for me. It is impossible to satisfy half of them. It is impossible to satisfy one of them, even the roles I contain in others lives. I feel like a still body of mycelium to the pulsing life of plants, they dance in a way I can't feel. I am ill-fitted, an invasive species for no other reason than being out of place. I need a different place, from all this sound, all these lights, all this constant talking over a dead network. I am not fit for the digital world, where there is no hiding, not of your own body nor from seeing everyone else's. All the faces, all the time. I can't recognize my own, wasn't meant to see it in the moving, pond-like, muddled reflection compared to everyone's still, fixed picture, faux-perfect mirror. Everyone is seeing thousands of faces every day. Nobody is seeing anyone's face. I am sick of the dance. It is a contaminant no fungi, no mycelium, no plant is safe from.
When I die, I hope every speck of dust i’ve watched dance in the sunlight is still dancing somewhere, floating prettily. I hope every blade of grass child-me twisted around my small fingers is still curling up towards the heat of the sun. I hope every stray cat i’ve pet can nap with the imprint of a loving hand holding their face, and every wild animal i’ve said ‘I love you’ to can breathe easier with their only requirement to being loved having been just existing. I hope every kid I ran into at playgrounds or stores can relax a little and let themselves play a game without any worldly worries for a few. When I die, I hope the universe gives one small exhale and feels a little warmer, a little bit less alone, and can sit in the love i’ve felt for all of its pieces until it’s ready to stand again. I hope death holds me gently for a moment and lets me bask in its sunlight for a final, infinite time, and I hope it doesn’t blame itself for its nature. It’s not deaths fault. It’s not your fault. These things, they will happen, and the love will carry on regardless.
With Adobe's most recent attempted stunt at shutting down Adobe Animate, I would like to take this opportunity to share this list of alternatives, not just for Animate, but also most of their other programs.
The biggest edge Adobe has had since, practically, the begginig was the fact that all of their programs are designed to be compatable with each other. However, this monopoly has allowed them to pull some disgusting stunts in recent years, all an attempt to milk even more profit from artists and their callous decisions can put our livelyhoods on the line.
We have to be willing to consider and switch to other alternatives, if it's in our best interests.
So I am putting this here for everyone. Look it over, save it in some way. You never know when you might need it.
A list of alternatives for Adobe software. Contribute to KenneyNL/Adobe-Alternatives development by creating an account on GitHub.
I want to write and give all the feelings in my heart and in my head a place to breathe. I want to cook and bake with ingredients that are healthy without being looked in on and without going into debt to afford them. I want to be able to text people back and communicate and write letters without being constantly burnt out. I want to be able to try out multi-player games and situations in real life without being so anxious about being perfect at them immediately. I need to live. I need to live. I need to live. I need to live.
even if we are just two specks of sand on the great beach of life, I hope every wave pushes us closer together until the heat death of our universe molds us into the most beautiful piece of sea glass.
let the great beyond unearth our body, hold us to the light, and know what love in its purest form would look like.
Suburbia. Bike lanes. Treehouses. Afterschool swim team. Wooden banister. Welcome mats. Oatmeal in sunlight. White countertops. Slanted roof. Posters. Plants. Fairy lights. Homework. School bell.
Can you taste it? The simplicity? The sweetness of the apple.
Bar stools. Kicking rocks. Playgrounds at night. Scuffed Converse. Newspapers. Gas-station clerks. The burn of vodka. The warmth of passing hands. The whispering.
The ghost of suburbia. A domesticity re-created only on 35mm film. A wonder of the world only sought after by those who have never tasted it. Are they naïve? Are they starved? Can those born in rot reach for divinity if they are already praying for a life before death?
it’s a trick i learned as a kid that i try to remember to practice whenever i’m in an open area. you lay down on the ground in a clear enough space to where, looking straight up, there’s no buildings or trees in your vision at all. then, you remember how despite having ‘northern’ & ‘southern’ hemispheres, earth has no directionally correct ‘up’. we all picture ourselves on the top of the world in person, the magnitude of earth letting our path to the horizon keep flat, except at terrifyingly high altitudes.
when you picture yourself at the bottom?
you fall into this all-encompassing, childlike terror. grasp the grass beneath you, palms itching to dig into the bark of a tree, every instinct screaming to latch on to what you’ve always known. it’s a short-lived fear, only because it’s so horrifying a feeling so quickly, you’re just as quick to turn your head, to know you’re still eye level with the aphids. i try to make myself feel this fear at least every couple of months. i think some part of me wants to let my head detach and just fall straight into that blue abyss.
i’d like to think i come away from it with a fresher perspective, more appreciative of life, more desperate to cling to it. truth is, the terror of it is the terror i felt for most of my childhood, and bringing it back manually relieves some of the weight of being permanently stuck with that childlike terror off my shoulders. it eases the burden of having invisible ‘system malfunction’ errors all over my mind & body. i could look at someone with less shame for my misdirection and go ‘what, you think i’m meant to be working at 100% capacity right now? you saw me, i almost just fell into the sky. give me a minute.’
maybe the minute of release i’m looking for is the minute it would take for me to choke on my last bits of air, free-falling up into the void. maybe i’m just looking for a minute long hug. regardless, while i wait indefinitely for either, my head is filled with thoughts of the stars and the sea.
i can breathe easier only after enduring the pain of drowning.
oh hey, yeah my name's leo, i live on your side of the town. can i tell you about a boy who does, too?
he lives right across from those abandoned apartments, y'know the ones that were just a big house someone turned into little ones? yeah, technically not 'abandoned', but only squatters stay in them. anyways, he doesn't much like that house but he lives there with his parents and little brother. he's like, nineteen? not super tall either or anything, maybe around 5'9, but he's a looker, for sure. you're not very likely to notice him in a crowd, but that's more intentional. he doesn't like attention much.
i think he'd rather live on a farmhouse or something funnily enough, but he's gotta help out his parents with the bills 'n stuff, so he's not got a lot of savings to move out with. he puts a lot of the weight for taking care of his family on himself, and he's a damn good person for it, but like i said he doesn't like attention much so don't bring up that stuff if you happen to catch him.
he's got this weird, quiet way of going about life, he moves mainly at night and doesn't care for small talk. despite that though, he's the kind of person where whenever he is around, you're aware of it, y'know? you can feel where he is around the place by which corner has a steadier air to it, you feel like something from the shadows is just kinda keeping check on everyone. he's friendly though, loud with his friends, probably 'cause he's one of the funnier ones usually.
there's this weird little thing he does with his face too, i've caught it a couple times but i've never brought it up so i'm not even sure he knows he does it. if while you're talking, you manage to say something funny that he finds amusing, he'll kinda smile with his mouth, but smile with his eyes even more, to the point where he closes his eyes for a few seconds. it looks almost like the sun catches him in the eyes for a couple pretty moments, even if the rooms' completely dark. it adds this kinda golden glowing outline to him, one you feel more than you see. matches his hair real well, too.
he's got steady hands, too. not to him, his right hand actually has a little tremor to it, and he runs it anxiously through his hair quite often. but to everyone else. he works out so he's got calluses and he's heavy-handed, piggybacks are pretty easy for him. and he likes gardening so he's used to handling things with care, not like they're fragile or anything, but you can tell he holds everything with the air of it having some sort of importance to him. you're not really worried about physically falling around him, or tripping or anything. you just kinda know he'll be there, y'know?
he doesn't talk much, but he doesn't really need to. you can kinda figure how he's feeling or what he might be thinking of just by watching him. he's a pretty animated person, he throws his hands around a lot while rambling, or he'll be nervously fidgeting with them if he's stressed about something, turning rings around on his fingers and stuff.
you won't be able to pick him out of a crowd easily, but once you see him, you'll know it. if you just pass by him, maybe with an 'excuse me', you'll feel his ' 'course' more than you'll hear it. you'll be walking away with a growing feeling of forgetting something behind you, the familiarity he's got will stick in the back of your subconscious mind like something you wanna keep close.
if you're lucky enough to catch his eyes, everything will seem the tiniest bit muddled for a second, and you'll have a gentle urge to figure out some sort of puzzle you're not even aware you've ran into. your ribs will relax a bit, let you breathe a little bit more consciously next time, and whichever side of you he passes by will feel a little bit warmer, like some soft hum of electricity letting you know it's there for a moment, and that it’s aware of you, too.
maybe you won't know it's him, but you'd know when the sun would start shining on you even with your eyes closed, wouldn't you?
y’know that street that looks like a main street but isn’t actually called main street, with all the little wall to wall shops on it? i’ve been walking down there to the gas station almost every night. that little highway overpass those kids were throwing rocks off a couple years ago? those little shits used to ride my bus. of course, they were also the type that thought they were funny and tried to be super loud to compensate for the fact that they weren’t. the person who slid into the ditch & knocked over the telephone pole? and in turn pissed off half the town for a couple days? happened right across from my house, traffic and all, because why wouldn’t it.
we know each other, actually. i was that person who in the check out line spun around too fast while waving goodbye to the cashier and stumbled into(and almost over) the barrier around the next lanes cashier. i don’t wanna talk about that one. and the one who came into the aforementioned gas station in the morning with makeup smeared in ways that made it obvious i hadn’t slept & the makeup was from the previous day. and the one you saw stumbling over literally nothing mid-aisle of the grocery store and not even stutter(it happens all the time). we’ve passed paths a couple times. do you remember? do you want to?
did you notice when we made eye contact passing each other a couple aisles later? did you recognize me when i turned after paying for my shitty gas station iced coffee with a stupid little wrapped sandwich? did you catch me recognizing you? do you want to?
i’m in your city, not for much longer though, but i think tomorrow i’m gonna check out that old video game media store next to the phone place, verizon or t-mobile or whatever the fuck it is. you should try catching up with me, it’d be nice to reconnect(:
My hands shake with all the decisions being webbed around them with every passing day. Each moment of rest becomes a moment of silence for hundreds of opportunities. Life is fast, merging, blurred by never ending motion. I am prisoner to the weight of expectations; mentors, friends, ancestors withholding their breaths.
But for now I will sip my cherry cola and kiss my cat a mere million times a day, and abuse substances. For the horrors, of course.
I will watch the death of my life with sulfer staining my fingertips and burnt sticks by my feet. The fumes will smell like pollen in the air. My smile will be sharper than any of the flames crawling up walls, and the weight falling off my shoulders will be sweeter than any nectar.
I will run from this life faster than the fire could devour it. The burns I'll carry will forever tip towards the direction of soot. The petals from fire-flowers will erupt from the ashes, and with every question received about 'back home', so will they choke me.
Like the botanical fire followers, I will always be waiting to see smoke.
i could swim through the moments i've spent with you, liguid and languid, unspoken words drip like syrup from my lips. in summer, i felt the coolness of your eyes, in winter i felt the warmth of your gaze. through fire and ice, my hands continued to be pulled towards your hands orbit.
i could fill up my lungs with your breaths in my dreams. every graze from you, on touched and untouched planes, every drum of your pulse points. i can feel the pressure of your weight against mine, like how i used to, how i continue to in my memories, music box ballerinas corroded from overuse. i play these images and sounds of you over and over, my unconscious mind supplying them on days my conscious one doesn't.
every atom of iron you contain has imprinted itself on my bloodstream. my veins warm with your presence. my arteries' dialation mirrors my eyes. i do not speak of you, and yet you remain spoken for with every heartbeat.
how am i meant to carry the weight of two shadows when mine clings to yours? how have you left an echo of yourself with me permanently? do you hear my whispers, too? don't you know all of them call for you?
there is a secret i don't tell anyone else, mainly because i know it wouldn't be received very well by the people around me. i've been harmed so much, haunted, have been the face of all-possible-unfortunaties that could happen to a person, a kid. i am known as something unfortunate and something scarred. people see that of me, how my face reflects what's been done.
but they can't see the other side of that reflection, under my face, beneath my eyes. they see the constant dark moons that have permanently painted my eyelids in blue and purple. they don't see the urgency in the even more constant flittering of my eyes, looking in every corner, checking for two exit points in any room i walk into.
they see my clasped hands, how they hold themselves, my sleeves, how i hold things dear to me with touches as gentle as dandelion seeds. they don't see the way my arms tense up with every loud sound, how i hold cutlery and bottles like weapons. they don't see how when i hold things i always have my other hand free.
they see the abused, scared, silent child still in the corner of my minds walls. they don't see how i hunger for the threats that used to make me silent. i am not quiet out of fear anymore. i don't keep my hands curled into fists by accident. every look towards a drunken stranger, a shadow walking behind me at night, anyone who becomes abrasive with children or animals in my vacinity. i am always waiting to bite. the anger in my veins is not dormant, but crouched down. my muscles and tendons always curled in, always ready to push back without needing to wind up.
i am not scared of confrontation. i yearn for it. i welcome it with every late night walk, every time i place something under my care, put myself in the path of risk. i am something to be worried about, for the opposite reason people usually worry for me. FOR ME. their instincts are correct for always keeping track of me in their peripherals, their minds for why they think they do are not. there is a slow wildfire pacing under my skin at all times, and it is very, very hungry. i pity the first branch that will manage to catch it.
i've been burned by fire so much, i've been forged by it.
