munch nightmares; burp flowers

(she/her) hello, it is i, a stranger in the mood for love and/or death? 🔍#swan writes ZZZ fanfics? My AO3! reblogs at www.tumblr.com/blog/im-swan-reblogs

[im-swan]

🦢

Everything tagged #original poem here is my work! I don't mind them being shared, but would hope they're lovingly attributed to me.

If you'd like to submit your poetry for my thoughtful review, or your fanfics for me to read and cheer for outside of my unscheduled 🦢swanposts, you can chuck an ask or a DM at me. Be aware: unlike in my swanposts, I can't promise to get to every single piece. Rest assured: the only things I've ever roasted are vegetables.

Also! Apparently! If you interact with me, there is a ✨non-zero chance✨ I'll write poetry about you or the stuff you do ✍️ (affectionate)

Themed collections:

Listen: a triptych

( 1 2 3 )

four acts - one breath: 起承轉合

🔥 ; 🦋 ; 🪺 ; 🧶 ; 🌉

Dropped on the Porch: a collection of responses

fuse - prompt: Ignite, 31 Jul 2025 elevation - prompt: Ambition, 24 Jul 2025 to my mother, too late - prompt: Serendipity, 17 Jul 2025 tender - prompt: Unravelling, 10 Jul 2025 how to open a picture frame - prompt: Void, 3 Jul 2025

A swan, one hopes—a stranger.

[im-swan]

wound

[im-swan]

destiny

A simple plot—

clipped lawn, potted flowers, carved in granite:

قدر

Tattooed on her arm, it helped identify her when she was pulled from the smoking rubble.

[im-swan]

annihilation

It was on a whim. I missed you— and hated how our bed murmurs your name

I had hours to burn when I arrived at the airport, so I watched a movie.

I should’ve known, with that rusted theremin moan in the soundtrack, but when they peeled that man’s skin back and his guts slithered—

Your plane arrived twenty six minutes after the movie ended.

You kissed me, and I thought of biting you— tearing your face off when you said ‘I love you’ so your voice echoed those words through my teeth

The icing on the café cakes were beautiful— fungus-flowers blooming from a corpse smeared on a wall

You laughed and held me, your fingers ice cold from the plane.

Your lips trailed across my collarbone— thorns sprouted through my neck

You joked how proud you were that I managed to watch a horror movie to the end.

I nuzzled your hair, whispered about a bear that ate voices, glass trees burning into glitter.

You said the movie sounded sci-fi, not horror. You kissed vines into my flesh

The woman who came home in your skin made love to me. i dreamt she carved pain from my ribcage smeared it on our sheets and flowers grew from the bloodstains

[im-swan]

idk how but i was researching ball bearing joints and i ended up in the ship wrecks throughout history fandom

and did yoouuuu knooooowwwww there are shipments of ancient roman lead ingots in the bottom of the sea that scientists are like having fights over because they're the least radioactive lead we know that's as accessible as they are and they're needed to shield a neat little super-sensitive experiment in some italian mountain range that could help us learn about one of the biggest mysteries of literally everything ever called the baryon asymmetry that has to do with the unexplained imbalance of matter and antimatter in the known universe that lead to the moment i'm even typing all of this out?

oh also fish are cute. 🐠

[im-swan]

I've been getting a lot of D&D content because I've been on a Baldur's Gate 3 thing (again) recently, and I am very happy about how open and proud people are about dressing up in ostentatious costumes and being goofy and that's it that's my little joy of the day

[im-swan]

i'm tired

[im-swan]

an autopsy

: alone (noun, adjective, adverb; two beats, no plosives; simple; intangible)

— Define:

by itself, unique, isolated, unsupported, untouchable, unheld;

— Say:

flown, home, snow, broke, devote, atone, choke, the missing stone of a battered wedding ring.

— It:

looks repainted from the outside, taupe leaking through cracks in the blue, a neon sign in the window that says ‘elcome’.

sounds like a door chime, clapper blunted by dust and patina.

smells of resin, festering burlap, an almost refreshing waft of paint thinner.

tastes sharp, fermented pepper and rust, a dash of stale coffee, a pinch of dried sweat.

feels sticky, a smear on the counter, fingers coming away congealed with grease.

— Synonyms:

There is nobody at the till, though there are two people at the back picking through shelves of golf clubs.

The ‘elcome’ sign pops, buzzes, goes dark.

I tug my cardigan close.

— Use in a sentence:

A balding man stops by the store, clucks his tongue at the sign, shuffles in; takes position behind the counter without looking me in the eye.

He wipes the smear, and the paint thinner smell singes the air.

I unwrap a cloth bundle on the counter.

He grabs a magnifier, concludes that since the ring is missing its gem, he’ll only pay for the silver.

I don’t accept, but take his money. It's enough for a one-way ticket to forget.

[echo-temporis]

I thought it would break me. Thought I'd splinter into a thousand shards and scatter in the wind. But I’m still here. Bruised, yes. Scarred, absolutely. But breathing. Moving. The pain didn't kill me. It tried. But I held on. Clenched my teeth. This isn't victory, not yet. But it’s survival. And sometimes, that’s enough. (undated)

[im-swan]

Shall I Confess To Thee A Summer’s Day?

Beneath the coffee table slept a lie concealed within a royal blue facade: ’On pain of grim recycling, do swear I— within me, Orange Choc Chip lives, by God.’

‘But Tip-Top,’ you didst query, laced with doubt, (while still acknowledging the tub’s True Name), ‘you should be in the fridge, not walkabout! Another treat for summer’s burning claim!’

Its strange location prompted swift retrieval, its sloshing (‘Gross?’) was cause for some disdain. But absent condensation spoke of evil: Not ice cream in this tub, a liar plain!

Ahead of humble Tip-Top’s frail defence— and I submit, before you thought it through, you wrenched the lid right off it: and so hence, the secrets kept therein debarked on you.

‘What the duck!’ (or sounds alike) you bellowed! I hear a call to arms—or kitchen gaffe. Fair knightly maiden charges in! But lo, adrenaline gives way to giddy laugh:

‘What is this?!’ ‘My slime! So that’s where I left it.’ ‘In an ice cream tub? Under the bloody coffee table? Wet?!’ ‘I was conducting science. I think.’ ‘And now it’s all over me.’ ‘Oh, the Roomba’s—’ ‘And the carpet. Aw, duck.’

[im-swan]

me: *looking up from an eviscerated Fashion Quarterly, bottles of glitter glue, and cut-out magazine letters on a sheet of paper*

'It's not what you think—'

'I'll be your getaway driver if you split the ransom.'

me: ... *gay noises*

[nixscriptum]

[im-swan]

why couldn't swan pin down her chapter numbers?

because she was using roamin' numerals.

why'd she keep using them, then?

they usually stick, though admittedly start violence after the third chapter, and just plain cross over after the eighth.

[lovers-daisies]

living in a beach town should be like salt air and the rust on your door, but NO i'm singing EXILE

[im-swan]

ok the melatonin gummy was hitting very hard last night so we got a bit over-share-y;

he was basically just upset about some remarks you made about a fictional character he identifies very strongly with in your fanfic reviews, not one of your poems.

anyway:

https://www.tumblr.com/deleuzians/740822047477956608/imago?source=share

I think this was one of the pieces he was hoping you would take a look at.

The piece 'imago' has heaps of things at play! 👏🏼

The title woven through the poem and the little repetitions bring to mind a summoning, made explicit by the voice calling out or inviting the 'imago' as a witness, but also to be seen.

There's plenty of lovely contrasts: fragile and soft, but distant and cold; an image reflected in a corporeal form, but the image itself trapped in its own separate incarnation, an Other.

On a second read, this bestows some lines with evocative ambiguity—does the voice see this imago or itself as a moth, simultaneously ablaze with but emptied of light? does the voice's devotion to the imago and to the self come about despite it having 'no moon, no sun'… or because of it? the poem sets it up as tension, not opposition, with how it blurs the line between the voice and its imago.

To me, the poem reads as not really offering a distinction between the voice and its idealised form, but as itself a question: can you see how we are not, but are still one and the same? ✨

[im-swan]

This has actually been a WIP for a bit over a month 💀 Ever since I read two-bees-poetry's gorgeous opus, I have been obsessed with writing my own.

I can only dream of crafting something as succinct but indelibly breathtaking.

[im-swan]

Wish you were here to watch the end of the world with me 🌸

gosh I just love post-post-apocalypse stuff lol 🖤