x.

sork, 19, this is a writing dump

[myfavoritechair]

dec 10 and 15

december 10

embryonic. velvet. red wine. needles. chiffon. a sense of melancholy. candle wax. lard.

december 15

I read an article about dying, ICUs, chronic illness. The way it strikes and sticks, merciless, so often without warning. How to cope, how to grieve. Caretakers burnt-out, guilty, depressed for months afterwards. I thought about your body in a hospital bed, blistering, your eyes closed, unrecognizable, you hate to sleep. I have never been around a real, deathly sick person, and I know you haven’t either. I imagined you, dying, your hand in my hand against the sheets. Wires and tubes between your hand and mine. It occurred to me that perhaps we should not be around each other; the thought of watching that happen to you felt like curling up just at the edge of despair and waiting for the tide to take me in. It felt like my own end. I cried reading that article. I cried for the first time in months. I wanted to send you the article, talk to you about it, hear you break it apart and put it back together again and tell me that I’m right and how me how I’m wrong, but I didn’t. It felt too much like it was my weight to bear, like showing you would make it come true. And the burden of the knowledge of my responsibility for your wellbeing — I didn’t want to give that to you.

[nosebleedclub]

Will there be flowers?

[myfavoritechair]

Will you give them to me?

[ryebreadgf]

THE GARDEN

[destroyademons]

Dante’s Inferno illustrated by Salvador Dalì.

[mothermishy]

“Mark Adams”, 1985, via press_sf on Instagram.

[myfavoritechair]

abandoned terrace

Amelia drops her canteen with a heavy thud. What little water is left inside sloshes, then stills. She collapses to a seat beside it, the dried-out leather of her boots crackling in protest.

Here, atop the mesa, she can see everything. Black angus cattle graze in the plains below, dark, oily smudges unmoving in the early evening heat. The sun will set soon, the wide-open sky already going pink and orange, but first — a dust storm’s rolling in tonight.

It lends a grand bloom of light to the horizon, the cloud against the ground like a flower unfurling, or perhaps an explosion. Whoever owns those cows is gonna have to move them to a different pasture before it hits, but they still have a few hours. Amelia does, too, to sit here and watch the storm come in. 

She almost misses the city.

[myfavoritechair]

black coffee

The drink is just an excuse to use the cup. Normally, Ayoga prefers their coffee creamy, maybe with sugar or maybe without, but this is how they’ve learned to drink it, this year: 

One and a half scoops out of the giant Kirkland-brand can of grounds their roommate bought, to share, and

Two cups of water, brought to a boil and then left to sit for ten seconds, and

A french press, too big for one person but better than anything else, then

Combine and let sit for four minutes, give or take how much longer the song on shuffle lasts.

Ayoga pours the coffee into their cup. It’s too small to be called a mug; it was probably meant for a child, even though it’s made of glass. There’s a scene of Mother Goose — at least, Ayoga assumes it’s Mother Goose, because the goose is wearing a bonnet, has long eyelashes, and a pair of round little glasses perched on the end of its beak — in front of a pond in winter, a little hut complete with huffing chimney far in the background. Most of the scenery is left transparent, but the hut and the bow-tied frogs and the delicate purple ribbon on Mother Goose’s bonnet are colored in like stained glass. 

If it was made for a child, it’s probably also meant for milk, to make everything look like snow and ice, winter-time. 

If they had any milk — dairy isn’t good for their skin, oat is overpriced, almond is ethically repulsive, soy is always too sweet —they’d drink that instead, just to see if it looks the way they imagine. Or just to have their coffee the way they actually like it best. Ayoga takes a sip, bitter and thin, and leans back to examine Mother Goose’s mud-filled world again.

[pourquoilesvachesontdestaches]

[nosebleedclub]

Discussion 1/22/21

1. A kinder era 2. Overgrowth 3. Cryptozoology 4. Great grandmother 5. Mind control

[myfavoritechair]

In the past, you did not measure my affection by how long it took me to text you back.

I used to tell you every hard-spiralling secret of mine. You know my thought processes — like a brain forest, 2012 Sherlock Holmes’ mind palace except the font is serif instead of Arial Black and I don’t do silly hand motions in fact I barely move my face at all. Overhead the sky is blue and clear and still. I prefer it this way.

Nothing ever scared me more than the ceiling fan in my sister’s childhood bedroom. I don’t know if it was old or broken or just made that way, but every night it would schwing through the air — and I mean schwing. It sounded how I imagined a guillotine would, when a little overused and sticky. Schwing! The blade drops. And from the ceiling fan would drop the shadowy body of an animal or a man, long-limbed and impossible, an executioner to kill me for crimes I (age 6 to 13) had not yet committed but would, someday.

Maybe I thought of myself a little bit too much like Marie Antoinette, but how could I help it? I was dressed in pink frills and ate black-sesame cake, they* called me lenglui and guaihaizi. *all relatives on my mother’s side except my great-grandmother, who swore at me in a language I could not speak, without a single tooth in her mouth, because I could read and wasn’t earning money yet.

It’s terrifying, how I confine myself, how even you — my safe harbor, my “husband” returned from “war”, my comfort creature — are just another maze I’ve lost myself in. 

[cocainejuul]

Faye Wong in Chungking Express.

[myfavoritechair]

Ayesan is invented on a New Year’s Eve, and then left to sleep / a pair of left-handed scissors in a right-handed house / like time and matter and hot water kettles would pass by him, trudging through the clutter for a glimpse of his oily, peaceful face. / more desirable inventions (crotchless french lace panties, non-biodegradable plastics, gossip, etcetera)

unanxious indolence / Calvin was born and the world began to distend. / instead of cherubic or pitiful, lovely or ogresque, they only found him deeply, addictively depressing.

— cut up paragraphs from character backstory development

[sunpdf]

mary oliver, the kitten // laura gilpin, two headed calf // tweet by vincent d’onofrio

[nosebleedclub]

Word Association Activity 2

Everyone do this please! I’ve listed twelve words/concepts below, please reblog this post with either a word or short phrase you associate with each listed word/concept. Alternatively, you can use these as prompts for art or writing. Thanks!

1. ATHENA:

2. WARFARE:

3. BERRIES:

4. SERPENTINE:

5. ASSAIL:

6. SNAP:

7. FLUTE:

8. RAM:

9. WICKER:

10. EVERLASTING:

11. PASTOR:

12. DEMURE:

[myfavoritechair]

ATHENA: You are your father’s daughter. This is inescapable.

WARFARE: Shotgun hitting mute on the controls while someone in the backseat has aux.

BERRIES: Learning the meaning of EDT — not the time.

SERPENTINE: When I was 12 I had a snake. In my head I named her Caligula, and out loud I told everyone else her name was Callie. She escaped after 8 months, and then we moved houses. I miss that kind of childish grandiosity, my mythology phase, but I’d never name anything after a murderous Roman emperor now.

ASSAIL: Pepper spray in hot pink casing. Pour femme.

SNAP: Anna Kendrick, the Cup Song from Pitch Perfect, cafeteria lunchtables

FLUTE: In the front row at orchestra camp, the principal flautist is a latino (or maybe Italian? He’s intimidating and you only caught his name during introductions on the first day) boy with long hair parted to the side. He wears black tee shirts and tight-fitting jeans and lots and lots of bracelets. He’s friends with the second-chair violist with the firetruck-red hair, the one whose laughter fills the entire concert hall. He looks like a cartoon character, maybe Sailor Moon or Adventure Time, the type of tall dark and handsome that’s childproof and kid-friendly. You wonder if he knows this. When the conductor is lecturing you all on your failings as musicians or berating the second violins and percussionists specifically, you watch him push his hair back again and again and again — it falls into his eyes at every chance it gets. You know you’re not alone in this. You wonder if he knows this.

RAM: Pickup truck. Grandfather, leather belts and dually tires.

WICKER: The cottagecore obsession. Hyper-aesthetic study pics. I’m thinking about starting a Youtube channel.

EVERLASTING: Cinderella’s dress.

PASTOR: Season 1 Episode 3 of Chef’s Table on Netflix, the one about Francis Mallmann. Recommend putting it on mute and just looking at the scenery.

DEMURE: Are we bad feminists now?

[myfavoritechair]

The room goes dark as soon as Ayoga and Artyom walk in.

Immediately, Ayoga’s hand goes for the lightswitch, just by the door where they’re standing. They flick it on, then off. Nothing happens — the room is just as dark as it was before.

Artyom turns his phone light on, illuminating the empty classroom. “Power outage?” He asks, and when Ayoga looks at him they find he’s practically a light source himself, pale skin nearly glowing. Ayoga looks away.

“S-sure,” they reply, and, “I mean, it seems like it. Sorry. I guess we’ll just have to film this section another time.”

Artyom steps forward, sitting on top of one of the ancient desks scattered around the room. He keeps his phone light pointed down at the floor, polite. “We can wait and see if the light comes back in a minute or two, I don’t mind.” 

He says it easily — Artyom says everything easily, like some kind of alien unable to understand basic human emotions like awkwardness or embarrassment or anxiety. Ayoga is jealous, maybe a little bit in love. 

“Fine,” they mutter, lugging the rest of their camera set up in on their own, dropping it all in front of a desk facing Artyom’s. He does not try to start a conversation, and neither does Ayoga. They lean against their desk, much less graceful, waiting for the lights to come back on.

[nobrashfestivity]

Georges Lacombe, Blue Seascape, Wave Effect, 1893

[historieofbeafts]

Anyone want to start 2021 with a game? Reblog and put in the tags what animal you think this is:

[The Hague, KB, 76 E 4 fol.67v]

[historieofbeafts]

Congratulations to everyone who guessed hippo! You are correct & should probably add medieval animal identification to your resumés if it isn’t there already. Also congratulations to everyone who said it was “a friend,” because I can’t argue with that.

Here’s what some of the other popular responses actually look like in this manuscript (a 15th c. copy of Jacob van Maerlant’s Der naturen bloeme):

Elephant

Seal & sea cow (elephant seal was by far the most common guess, but manuscripts don’t usually get that granular re: pinniped taxonomy so these will have to do)

Narwal

 Non-specific whale

Sea horse

& crocodile 🙃 

[nevver]

Jakub Różalski