i know weāre both just messing around pretending to be whole but look at me. if the train was coming would you move. if the ground was falling from under your feet would you even notice or would it just be another tuesday for you. if somebody stabbed you could it hurt worse than you already do. what iām saying is that i love you but i think we both drive over the speed limit when itās raining. what iām saying is that i want to hold your hand and i understand about how you sometimes have to sit down in the shower. what iām saying is that iām here for you and if the train comes please move.
i wrote this 7 years ago, somehow. every day someone else finds it and whispers to me - oh, i understand this. something always turns in the wash of my stomach: i am so, so glad you feel seen. i wish you had no idea what this post was about.
i wrote this while working in a program for new writers. on wednesdays, two of the teachers would be contractually obligated to read our writing aloud to the group of 300+ teens. i had never read my work in public before. i had something like 6k poems and was panicking about it. none of them are good enough. sometimes the train is howling. it is hard, actually, sometimes, even as an adult.
and then i thought - what is one thing i wish i could tell all of them. each of these 300 kids. what did i need to hear, at 16?
i wanted to tell them about the day you wake up, and the sun feels warm finally. i wanted to tell them about carving a life out of soapstone, your hands turning bloody. i wanted to tell them that sometimes yes - it actually does feel easy. i wanted to tell them about weddings and cookie dough and long road trips. about albums of new music and old friends laughing and the sound of snow falling.
you will learn the pattern of the train. you will learn to close your eyes when you hear the engine rumbling. you will learn to let yourself have the grey days in their lily-soft numbness. sometimes it will feel like life is wet paint, and god has smeared your canvas across a sewer grate. sometimes it will be so boring it isnāt even pronounceable - the tenacious, soundless blankness. survival isnāt just ugly nights and wild mornings. it is also the steady, unimportant moments. it is just driving with your seatbelt on. it is calling a friend on the way home. it is burying your face into the fur of your dog.
when i had finished reading this poem aloud, the auditorium was silent for a solid minute. someone stood up to take a picture of where it had been projected onto a screen, and then three more people followed the action, and then - like a bad internet story, people remembered they were supposed to be clapping. kids came up to me after it - thank you for writing that. i think i hear a train coming.
i would write this differently now, i think, but it has been 7 years. i still live by the tracks. i also havenāt picked up a blade in over 10 years. the scars are still there, but these days i only pick up scissors to cut my hair. i know why you canāt tell your mom about it. i know how the numbness slips over everything, a restless horrible cotton. i know how when you dropped the dish, you werenāt crying about the broken glass. i know about feeling like all the roads have closed their exits, that you arenāt supposed to still-be-here - and yet.
i am still here, and still yours, and i havenāt forgotten. what iām saying is if any hope is calling to you - i know itās hard, but you have to listen. iām saying keep driving, but slow down the car. sit down in the shower, iām not judging you. we can stay in the dark with the good hot water and do nothing but stare. notice the stab wound. make it through another tuesday.
i know what it is like to miss yourself. do what you need to. come home to me. i am writing to you, my past self, from the future. iāll be waiting for you.
there are people to love and dishes to do in the meantime. insp. by @soracities
kitchen sink by joy nichols / kitchen sink by james needham / sink by lisa daria kennedy / kitchen sink by alaiganuza / july kitchen sink by karin rabuka / dishes in the sink by david showalter
Genuinely just a good man. Wife adopts teenage witch that needs a place to stay in the city? Sure. Even though you got a kid on the way? Thatās fine. Cat too? Love cats.Ā
My favorite moment with him is when he goes to get some prepped baking sheets and he does this fancy twirl with them in front of Jiji. Like, thereās no other people in the room, he does this to impress a cat.
I donāt think he ever says more than a whole word the entire movie, and I still love him more than most Disney princes based on this one moment alone.
And the part where he wanted to surprise Kiki by making that beautiful elaborate sign OUT OF BREAD to advertise her business and he was all anxious for her to get home and see it
But then when he sees her coming he gets all bashful and runs away š
the most underrated thing about the ghibli movies is how deeply they are love stories to working people, to the small folk, to moments of love and kindness. its not just about magic, many movies are about magic and fairytales. Its not only about the people in the stories, but about stories in the people. And they are just loveable.
Can I request dbf!hotch x reader that has a big praise kink? And hotch being the profiler he is, figures it out and does it on purpose?
hope youāre well <3
today is multiverse monday! send me any au you can think of :)
(while there is an age gap in this blurb, the reader is over 18 years of age. the classes that are mentioned are college courses, not high school. but if you're not comfortable with age gaps, don't read.)
"I took that course when I was in uni," Aaron angles the prongs of his fork up to point at you, "The professor was awful. Wesson-? I think?"
"Oh! I've got him, too." You laugh through a mouthful of potatoes, covering your mouth hastily, "He's... difficult."
"He's still teaching?" Aaron's eyes nearly bug out of his head, and he turns to Jack beside him, dragging his attention away from your little brother, "Jack, buddy, Y/N has the same teacher I had when I was her age."
"The same guy?" Jack scrunches his nose with a mouthful of carrot, "He's still alive?"
You laugh good-naturedly, "Barely. He doesn't really teach, he just trails off at his desk and fall asleep in the chair."
"Oh, he did that when I had him, too." Aaron laughs, "That's why I almost failed the class, he wasn't teaching us anything."
"You're not failing, are you?" Your dad turns to you, suddenly suspicious.
"No, dad." You groan, "I'm not failing."
"Okay, but do you have, like, a 67%, or an 89%? How far away from failing are you?"
"97," You mumble, muffling the score with a bite of chicken, "I'm fine, dad."
"97," Aaron repeats, awestruck, "That's amazing."
Your cheeks burn and you try quelling the flames with a hasty sip of water. Your voice comes out meek afterwards, 'Thank you, Aaron.'
Something changes in his smile, a twitch of the left side.
"You've gotta be the smartest one in there," He presses, "I mean, I graduated early and I failed that class."
"I'm not the smartest," Your defense is weak, voice nearly a whimper, "There's- it's not about, like, smart, just- I do my own research, that's all."
"Still!" Aaron urges, hiding his smirk against the rim of his water cup as your eyes go glassy, "If you're ever interested in a job for the government, I'll sing your praises along."
ellievsbear
snowghoul
amandla
vaporwave
andulkaphoto
