Nepenthe Network

nepenthe; (n) a medicine for sorrow. a place, person or thing, which can aid in forgetting pain and suffering.

[shantisheaan]

From the outside, 2016. Oil on canvas, 90 x 85 cm. Shanti Shea An.

[leflambeur]

By Hugo Comte for Vogue Italia

[hornandivoryzine]

my name is dripping from the ceiling trim and I keep trying to lick the taste of it / out of my mouth from the 32nd day of october by angelique langlois @seafaeriie

read the full poem at hornandivory.co.uk/the-32nd-day-of-october

[lifeinpoetry]

I did not want rapture. I wanted the self to know the air, wanted it to hunger for the sickness in humanity.

Venetta Octavia, from “anthropotheism,” sky-doctrine (via lifeinpoetry)

[jupiterreed]

Ribs of satin, mouth of dusk. Like the night he quenches my thirst for stars. He breathes and it’s an incantation of church bells. We eat out of the dismembered heart of frayed-yellow heaven. It is a rendition of firsts, a spirituality. Holy seething holy.

Forgotten Verses, Jupiter Reed (via jupiterreed)

[venettaoctavia]

10 essays/poems about godhood, based off this list. the lovely elisabeth hewer has also done this, and you can find her chapbook here. extract of sky-doctrine here. once again, this chapbook is free, but you can pay what you want!

get it here.

[jupiterreed]

altar-a-tions

1. it’s like an acid trip, the stowaway moon on frog legs, hopping bravely, shattering the coffin that trapped all your choir boy dreams. a tremor rattles the porch, like shadows wrenched from burning hands. someone whispers your name and it is a sermon. 2. we left the church just like a factory, churning up the bones and spitting out the meat. loose lips lurk a dragonflies’ lair, stir the crickets awake. and beneath your body, i unearth another body, one of pencil shavings and clay, one of ceramic and watermelon rinds. one worthy of a priest’s worship. 3. we’re stealing secrets of communion wine. the morning roils to a halt. i shatter the structural integrity of your pervasive heart, i glimpse the rock salt, the stars, the corpse you call the only thread in your body capable of hope. {…} my wings should be equally robust, i guess.  4. first comes the serenity, then the storm. first, the howl of the shrieking gallows. first the descending ghosts. we keep our animals buried in ribcages, in empty hallways, in vines sprawling from the voracious walls. this freedom is a fault line. the hunger a pastime; and your gaze, a sour grape, eyes i choke on. 5. there’s a dream somewhere that unfolds as we speak, and in it, we smear sunlight onto our cheeks, and in it, the sky peppers our skin with lightning, and in it, you never leave, and in it, everything beautiful lives.

[emergincy]

It Kills Me That You're Still In Bed at 2 PM

the money drips away into the gutter the way blood does each string of muscle that gets stripped off your back gets turned into jerky, hard and empty of water

you take pride in all the wrong things a bed is just a bed and depression is just depression outside the window they’re just waiting for me to let down my hair and let myself come out

you’ve got to stop cleaning up the blood and starting cleaning up your body how about you let the water pour over you and into your eyes how about you walk around without glasses how about you go out while it’s raining and when the sky cracks like a mirror you’ll feel the heat of the air around you and everything will grow sharp and you’ll be ready to admit that you’ve made mistakes

but living isn’t one of them

[platypuspress-deactivated202401]

Day #6 of 2412 — Monsoon Dream by Topaz Winters is now available to download: http://platypuspress.co.uk/2412/

[toobusylookingup-deactivated201]

there is so much light in this 

[septemberdeer]

Pisces, remember what roots you here. Cancer, you are gentler to your worst enemies than you have ever been to yourself. Gemini, don’t forget to feel the joy you have worked so hard for. Capricorn, this feeling you don’t know how to name is called hope. Taurus, your body is not a home but a highway. Leo, you have no obligation to apologise for your loudness. Aries, we miss you even when you’re right here. Sagittarius, loneliness is not a synonym for power. Scorpio, it is okay to still be working up to happiness. Libra, there is nothing dirty or shameful about wanting. Virgo, this is your permission to keep the promises you make yourself. Aquarius, it is a time of loud bright healing.

little horoscopes for june // topaz winters (more: horoscopes, poems, essays, & letters for star-soft souls)

[septemberdeer]

I START CRYING DURING THE BEST PART OF THE FILM Topaz Winters

& you carry me out of the cinema & drive me home because you’re in love with me & that’s what people in love are supposed to do even if you’ve been wanting to see this film for three weeks & you were really looking forward to getting dinner after. on the way home it’s raining & you’re humming under your breath & your hand is on my knee at every red light. let’s play a game where if we close our eyes loud enough your hands will dance again & the raindrops will travel up instead of down the car window & my father will stop being so angry with me all the time. or let’s play another where none of that will happen but my sadness will finally suffocate me so you can drive back & catch the end of the film. i’m no good at apology or sleeping in cars but i swear i was just trying to find a way to protect my collarbones. i always thought that’s what love was supposed to do but maybe it’s only here to drown itself in all the wrong places & ruin the film for everyone. i wonder if you’re mad at me still. i wonder if the highway is in love with the wheels of this car or if kissing all the time just makes them tired of each other. i wonder a lot of things. soon after that i fall asleep & when i wake up the rain still hasn’t stopped but you’ve carried me into the apartment & googled the way the film ends & i’m still sad & looking for answers but this time i think i know which way to turn to understand. you give me a fortune cookie from the chinese takeout you ordered & it says the best things in life are free & that’s how i know you were never really mad at me in the first place. your hair smells like rain. you ask me if i’ve taken my meds today. nothing really hurts except for my chest. i wish we’d seen the way the film ended, but i guess we’ll have to settle for everything else instead.

[venettaoctavia]

Venetta Octavia, & salt

[lifeinpoetry]

everybody knows the birdsong I sang by witch-light I gave I gave I am worshipped

Venetta Octavia, from “anthropotheism,” sky-doctrine (via lifeinpoetry)

[septemberdeer]

But they don’t call it a war if it happens in your head. Instead they call it a sickness, which is much less tragic and beautiful.

Topaz Winters (via antililies)

[hornandivoryzine]

After a wonderful first issue, we thought we’d just remind you that submissions are still open. We’ve a pretty good idea of what the next issue is going to feel like & we can’t wait to share it with you!

We’re also now accepting art, fiction & non-fiction as well as poetry, which we’re really excited about. You can check out our full submission guidelines here: www.hornandivory.co.uk/submissions

Feel free to email us any questions & queries at [email protected]

[jupiterreed]

I don’t know what to tell you. Except for that it hurts, that it tastes a bit like bile forcibly choked down the throat. I don’t know if I’m healing or if this is just another lesson in brutality (and my mother used to say my birth was a cascading failure). Makes you uncomfortable. To see a girl and kiss a demon, a red herring, mortar in the bloom. I feel like disheartened dirt shoved under the carpet. The name you don’t take until the moon’s shot up the world like blood. Something you need to hide. I feel bottomlessness. Envy, hunger, a frothing temper that builds like brother’s wounds on a navy ship. I’m not quite acquainted with the source of my own misery, but I know it builds pyramids in me. Demolishes like great white sharks. Spins a symphony of nuclear bombs. I guess I’m beyond help, beyond the bend. You’re on the straight and narrow, ant I’m welling up like sore thunder beneath white awnings of blubbering sky. The morning you told me I look like hell and I told you that maybe we knew nothing about hell at all. Darling, hell is an empty street. Hell’s a familiar face that doesn’t recognize you. Hell is coughing up stardust into your bathroom sink on a lonely Tuesday night. Hell is in the eyes that greet me in the mirror, married to the mutiny and cancelling each other out. Bled like meat in shrivels, old sunken lakes. Hell’s the sound your room makes when you’re sleeping. Hell is the regret I scraped up at the end of a $5 beer bottle. I catch hell in between your fingers, when they slide into mine, and we raise the dead.

The Sound of Hell You Make Ever So Stunningly At Night || jupiter reed  (via jupiterreed)

[ink-smudgedfingers]

this is a month of standing drippywet and stunnednumb. // mama tells me to keep trying but i unravel in the silence of my bedroom, pinch myself in class // and watch daydreams dissolve when reality is thrust forward. // let papa repeat his stories, spewing gills and fishguts. // i think pain at dinner, a ghost hovering and expanding in the spaces between our words // & fear forming clumps in mama’s womb. // it’s like filling in the blanks knowing the words will fall off the page. // reminds me of blood leaking and glassy eyes, stuffed animals lying in damp grass. // it’s like rebirth as terrifying as dying the first time // or a cat chewing bruised fingers, letting its tether snap, dissolving into puddles of fur. // sometime tonight, a book flutters open and i will read between the lines // knowing a scream is hanging in the air waiting for resolution.

resolution by rachana hegde (via ink-smudgedfingers)