Hera James

Minors DNI

[adirarosabellgrace]

i love how both the black brothers are stars,

but one loved the moon, and one loved the sun

[hera-james]

because sirius wanted to be calm

and regulus wanted to be warm

[moonyswarmsweaters]

Sirius: *says something egotistical*

Regulus: Sirius Orion Black, always having to be on top.

Remus: *starts laughing from the other corner of the room*

[pt01ema3a]

james’ socks never match and it irks sirius to no end bc deep down he’ll always be a little bit proper

[hera-james]

but secretly james’ never match because he swaps one with reg every morning so they have a piece of each other with them all day

[sspadfoot]

Stop being pussies and put the Marauders era boys in skirts.

[shadowjinx2906]

This made me imagine them all cross dressing to back Lily’s fight against the dress code.

[noblehouseofgay]

Marlene getting yelled at for wearing pants and suddenly the marauders appear in skirts

[moonyswarmsweaters]

yesssssss

[hera-james]

this is a fic! Sirius Black and the Great Dress Code Rebellion of 1977 on AO3!!

[courfee]

look at them. they're in love.

[incorrect-maraudersaandco-quotes]

Sirius: You're a werewolf?

Sirius: I should have know from your strange wolf language

Remus: It's Welsh

[hera-james]

It Started With Gold

Question: How much of the blame can you shoulder when you weren’t there?

It started half a lifetime ago when I was eleven and sitting in the 5th grade big kid seats at the back of the bus. The new boy had just moved in down the street from me so I was hot stuff with the new scoop. Fresh from the presses: he was a dick.

It started when my mom told me to stay away from the trouble making boy down the road. She didn’t want me to get mixed up with bad company. I looked past any personal grudges and made a new best friend.

It started in middle school when he would carry my saxophone from the bus stop down past his house to mine. He’d wait outside while I changed into shorts then we’d adventure our neighborhood streets, walking just a little further down the creek every day to spend just a little longer together before running through backyards to get home before our parents found out. I think I fell just a little bit in love flying side by side on the swing set.

It started that first night he tapped on my window and I snuck out. There’s something different about seeing someone under stars that makes all your old stories feel like confessions. I have songs tucked away that will always be ours. I want to hear his golden laugh on a loop inside my head. Comfort is swapping “goodbye” for “see you tomorrow.”

It started unravelling after coming home from football games, bright-eyed and pink-cheeked, to find angry parents. Threads came loose after confiscated phones and groundings. Holes formed around announcements of changing high schools. Patterns were lost to picking unnecessary fights. The fabric of our lives ripped in two when I found myself too angry to speak – too angry to do anything else but place blame. I left his half alone with burning candles; I should have known he’d catch fire. 

It ended in his fake friends’ Halloween prank gone wrong and a body bag. We never said goodbye.

Question: How much of the blame can you shoulder when you weren’t there?

Answer: All of it.

-Hera James (excerpt from a story I’m really trying to write)

based off the prompt: Write a story in which you were at fault.

January 2020

[hera-james]

“Obviously art cannot be taught. No one can give another human being the soul of an artist, The sensibility of a writer, Or the passion to put words on paper that is the gift And curse Of those who fashion poetry and prose.” –Elizabeth George

Alice, never even-tempered enough to take a snotty tone lying down, stamped her foot. “Bullcrap! That is bullcrap and you know it.”

“Then who taught you,” Elizabeth asked.

“You know who: she did,” and Elizabeth did know. She knew exactly who Alice was talking about, the girl whose name Alice could never say anymore.

“She made the moon’s glow a little sweeter. She showed me how to laugh at myself. She taught me that love was in the details.

“Art cannot be taught from a book or a blackboard, but it can be taught by laying on the floor putting together a puzzle or taking her dog out in the snow even when you have no shoes on. It’s taught when you realize you smile just when you hear to her laugh. Art is in listening to her music from the other room. Picking it up is as easy as picking up the milk she forgot at the store.

“To know love is to know art.

“She drove me down back roads late at night. She is the one I skipped classes and family dinners for. She made it seem like my world only had enough room for one person.

“Art can’t be taught on purpose or with a lesson plan, but it can be taught in ditching your friends to stay in again, or midnight arguments over the phone. It’s taught when you realize she doesn’t listen to you like you listen to her. Art is in watching her collect pieces of you that you didn’t want to sacrifice. Picking it up is as easy as picking up the sweater you left at her place.

“To know devastation is to know art.” Alice was breathing hard, hand outstretched to make her point as if she’d forgotten it there until she pulled it back to smooth her long, messy hair.

“And when I cut her from my life, I kept the lesson as my own.”

- Hera James (an excerpt from a story I’ll never write, and a response to a quote that’s full of shit)

January 2020

[hera-james]

When I think about... summer I think about the creek in my childhood neighborhood. I think about the gold dappling through the tree leaves and sparkling against the water. I’m transported back to days when breathing had never felt easier. It wasn’t a decision yet, an option. No, that would come later.

When I think about… fall I think about yellow school buses under burgundy leaves. I think about corn lined roads and the smell of apple cider. When walking outside was the brightest part of my day even when the sky was still dark. Pushing my feet into cold mud had never felt so clean.

When I think about… winter I think about snow. I think about warm fires and hot cocoa, Christmas trees that are obsessively but chaotically decorated. Good books and good company fill days that stretch into bright windows lighting up dark nights.

When I think about… spring I think about green. I think about new life and new dreams and the day that she left me. I think about how I never really noticed her until I noticed her absence.

-Hera James

January 28, 2020

[hera-james]

I don’t know where I’m going,

Barely where I’ve been.

Branches whip my skin.

It’s hard to run, tip-toeing.

With rivers overflowing,

Original sin,

And voices within,

Fears and forest re-growing.

The wind sends branches moaning.

Faults become tailspins.

Take it on the chin.

Around me it’s all smoking.

-Hera James

March 10, 2020

[hera-james]

I'm sorry I wouldn't let you have the back seat of the bus when you asked. I had a routine and a life and a path. It's hard to veer, to make space, but I'm getting better. I'm sorry i didn't know to share.

I'm sorry I asked you for too much when we lived in golden summers and that I never waited for you to ask back. I was leaving parts of the conversation left unsaid. I'm sorry I never realized you might have needed me like I needed you.

I'm sorry my hands weren't soft when you held them. We lived through cold winters and summer sun in our eyes but I wasn't expecting to fall in love. I'm sorry I ran when I realized.

I'm sorry I stopped sneaking out of my bedroom window. We always said it was us against the world and I never meant to join the opposing team. I'm sorry I didn't know how to live life balanced on the edge of a knife.

I'm sorry for yelling. I'm sorry for ruining everything we built. I'd take another chance if you gave it. I'd take anything if it was from you. I'm sorry I learned from my mistakes too late.

i'm sorry but apologies are empty when delivered over graves

-Hera James

March 11, 2020

[hera-james]

found this the other day.. is anyone still here?

[allmymetaphors]

Be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

“Desiderata” by Max Ehrmann (via thestylishgypsy)

[hera-james]

I've loved you on a thousand pages

facelesswriting

[hera-james]

Fire

I Grieve for Fire and how it Loves but cannot touch for if it Does, it devours or is no more when all it wanted was to be Warm

[hera-james]

I’m sorry I’ve been a bit AWOL lately, I’ve been in a writing slump. To help me get out of it, go to my ‘submit’ page and send me stuff about you and your life, and I’ll use it as a prompt for a new poem!

[inkskinned]

honestly sometimes it bothers me that the people who bullied me are doing just fine 

but then i remember: so am i

[inkskinned]

i wasn’t going to elaborate on this but then i thought: what good is a poet who doesn’t tell her story in the fullest extent. how am i to help others if i don’t talk about it.

i learned a lot of things when i was bullied. how to hide. how to skip classes. how to be alone a lot. to bring a book with me. to bring a pen and paper. how to take a hit, how to roll with the punches, how to smile through insults so you don’t seem like a weakling. how to lie. how to be a bully, too.

i am 22 now. high school is far behind me. i no longer have boys who want to stick clothespins in my hair. in this year, our five year reunion will be happening. 

and part of me hates them, hates them all for what they did to me. 

but part of me wants to show them what i’ve spent the last five years doing. about how i use the pen in my pocket to draw people on the subway, how i’ve made friends that way; how i’ve been skinny dipping, how i’ve howled at full moons and drank wine in a bathtub with the boy i love and a lush bath bomb, nights full of eclipses, plane trips, a dream job, getting to know a hawk, seen fireworks and set them off, stopped self-harming even if it was hard, went camping, made my sandwiches in triangles, laughed until i cried, cried about things other people laughed at, got hurt, got a tattoo, lost control of my hands and my anxiety, got on the train anyway, saw movies, ate beautiful things, went to a butterfly garden, took up ballroom dancing, learned parkour, fell down a lot because of parkour, made slew of friends that i can depend on if i ever need anything, publications, parties, kissing girls, coming out, dyed hair, and 

did i mention i took what i lived through and made a blog. that i took what i lived through and wrote about it, because i had no where else to go but to turn my skin into ink. did i mention that when i told my story, i saw it reflected in the eyes of the people around me. did i tell you that i took everything you hurt me with and i turned it into compassion. into helping other people in every way i can. did i tell you that i have swallowed all that hate you gave me and i am kind in spite of it, choose to be, choose to be so kind that others can depend on me. i am 22 and i still don’t trust empty hallways. not everything is perfect. i still need a lot of growing.

but goddamn i’m so happy i didn’t die when i wanted to so badly. i’m so glad i have been alive in the last five years. i’m so glad that i lived through what they did to me.

because i can use my story to help keep others alive with me. and if you’re out there, listening: i’m not stronger than you. i’m not special. i didn’t suddenly change who i was in college. i didn’t have some magic spark that made me survive it better than you can.

i am just like you. i am just like you. i cry a lot. sometimes i cry because of stupid things like an abandoned umbrella in a parking lot. i have a lot going on. but i want to hear your story. and you deserve a better one. you deserve to give yourself a future. you deserve the next years of your life. you deserve to live, and stay living, and when you do, come back and tell me all about it, i’ll be waiting. and one day, when it is your life, and they are nothing but a memory, you’ll be looking at the invitation of your high school reunion and hatred will bubble up in your throat. 

but remember that you made it. that no matter how tight they strangled you, you refused to choke.