a new kind of clown

"Well, I'm gonna be a new kind of clown. I'm gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks." -Dill, To Kill a Mockingbird

[newkindofclown]

My queerness

My queerness is safety it is guaranteed community It is the lesbian head nod It is that all-knowing smile from an old butch on the train It is strength It is vulnerability It is difference It is shared past, shared future It is, most importantly, shared struggle It is my journey and it is my home Or perhaps it is discomfort turned comfort zone It is identity threatening to be lost I fear it is tying me down I fear invisibility I hold the fear of blending in I suddenly understand what drove my femme friend to uncomfortably pull on her ex's bulky musky manly military boots before marching into queer territory I suppose now that I have been playing that game for years I am afraid of disappearing behind new muscles and facial hair I am home in the lesbian bar and in the eyes of that woman with the multi-colored mane and pierced septum who walked past me on campus today, but not without complimenting my smile My non-threatening smile, My non-threatening swagger, My non-threatening masculinity I do not want to be a threat I do not want to embody the colonizer I do not want to embody the man who raped my ancestors I do not want to embody the man who raped Susan or Shannon or Michael I do not want to embody the man who raped me I want to embody all I have experienced, what little I have experienced, what lifetimes I have experienced I want to embody all I have become, what little I have become, what worlds I will become I want to embody who I am, whoever I am, whatever the fuck I am

[hadeiadel-blog]

[newkindofclown]

First day at school, Gaza, Palestine.

this is the most important thing right now.

[buzzfeedbooks]

19 Banned Books If They Were Made Appropriate

[flamelikesunset]

[basava]

“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness—and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling—their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

―Arundhati Roy, World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, 2003

[shinji--moon-deactivated2017123]

[newkindofclown]

He had still been

He had lost his seemingly essential companion. She had gone away for the winter, leaving him bare. The prevailing image of him, an image of coverage, of embrace, An image of his frailer parts holding onto while being held so tenderly by her. But as the foliage fell away, whisked by winter winds to faraway lands, The tree learned he was still a tree in the absence of her touch. He'd lose branches in chilling winds and fracture limbs under the weight of cold, cold snow. He'd feel alone, abandoned in the harshest of storms, He'd struggle to extract water, now frozen, from the increasingly shallow soil around his roots. He'd hold on tightly to frozen bits of ground, feeling as though he may topple, simply give up entirely, when the winds blew harder. All the while, though, he'd find relief in that she would not return until a friendlier season; She would come back to him in a season in which he could receive the life she converted from light, In which he would not fear the chill in his branches freezing the space between them, In which he would welcome the songs of birds and their nests upon his limbs, made of twigs from his own body, as signs of new life within him, In which he would tell her stories of the cold, showing her his thickened bark and reluctantly accepting her unavoidable recognition of the obvious injuries, In which he would tell her of the beauty of the snow, but not of the shivers and horrors it sent through him, In which he would proudly proclaim that even in her absence, he had survived. He had still been a tree.

[newkindofclown]

Kind of Blue

Kind of Blue floats through the open window (being all that can escape the heaviness of humidity) I lift myself upon the notes (being all that can escape the heaviness of humanity) Floating still amid the humidity My nostrils pull in the air lying just above the depression Feeling more connected to the jazz-loving neighbor, Feeling more connected to Miles, Than I could possibly be to myself All Blue floats away So What follows at a respectful distance It rains

[newkindofclown]

Forget the room of one’s own - write in the kitchen, lock yourself up in the bathroom. Write on the bus or on the welfare line, on the job or during meals, between sleeping and waking. I write while sitting on the john. No long stretches at the typewriter unless you’re wealthy or have a patron - you may not even own a typewriter. While you wash the floor or clothes listen to the words chanting in your body. When you’re depressed, angry, hurt, when compassion and love possess you. When you cannot help but write.

Gloria Anzaldúa

[rupikaur-deactivated20170926]

the way they leave tells you everything

rupi kaur (via rupikaur)

[newkindofclown]

Sing in me, O Muse

This is not an original. This is a translation, A transcription, A close reading, if you will. You see, when her gaze lands on the sidewalk, Or on the blinking walk signal, Or perhaps on a passing family, I pull my pen from behind my ear and my notebook from my bag. I set the metronome to match the distinct swing-swing-swing-swing of her hips. The metronome aligns, each beep like that of a metal detector, Alerting me to something within. "It is strange how a scrap of poetry works in the mind and makes the legs move in time to it along the road," wrote Woolf. I laugh. This is no scrap. I am no beach-comber; I am excavating Elysian Fields, searching for a poem written by the gods themselves. Her name, beloved on my lips, Her poem, inscribed in her hips. My mind at work, mesmerized, entranced, Pushing its way through gold-flecked ground, Tasting her rhythm, Savoring her meter, Filling my mouth with her stanzas, Each line dissolving on my tongue like ecstasy. She is Homer, blind to my gaze, Mysterious to her reader, She takes her place on Mt. Olympus. Sing in me, O Muse, the songs of that goddess skilled in all ways of disguising the richest of poems in her stride.

[likeafieldmouse-deactivated2015]

Jean-Michel Basquiat - Formless (1983)

[likeafieldmouse-deactivated2015]

Gustave Caillebotte - The Floor Scrapers (1875-6)

Original on top, later version below

"Despite the effort Caillebotte put into the painting, it was rejected by France’s most prestigious art exhibition, The Salon, in 1875. The depiction of working-class people in their trade, not fully clothed, shocked the jurors and was deemed a ‘vulgar subject matter.’ 

The images of the floor scrapers came to be associated with Degas’s paintings of washerwomen, also presented at the same exhibition and similarly scorned as ‘vulgar’”.

[newkindofclown]

Hearing your name in a crowded room is like walking into a strange place and smelling my mother's cooking. I hope to one day have a daughter who tells me that something about the scent of her lover's hair calls to mind the scent of the fireplace she and you and I curled up in front of on the cold winter evenings of her childhood. Because your hair smells like fresh rain and waking up beside you is like waking up to the softest rays of the sun peaking through sheer off-white curtains after the lightest of night showers. Waking up beside you is a soft blue- the serenity, the comfort of your presence guiding me from sleep to wake but not away from dream. You are your curls. You are your skin, warm against mine as I wake. You are the small of your back and the contour of your shoulder. You are your sleepy smile. You are my morning. You are my home.

[likeafieldmouse-deactivated2015]

Having perfected our disguise, we spend our lives searching for someone we don’t fool.

Robert Brault (via likeafieldmouse)

[fleurishes]

[warmsoftsun]

by Kristina Haynes

What I know of survival is this: how to adjust my body around the cool spots in bed, the way my hair is never exactly right when I leave the house for a hopeful second date, the imprint of my bra on my skin after coming home and letting my dress pool at my feet. Sleeping, alone.

[katydidkatydidnt]

“In English,” Professor Austin said, “a double negative forms a positive. However, in some languages, such as Russian, a double negative remains a negative. But there isn’t a single language, not one, in which a double positive can express a negative.” A voice from the back of the room piped up, “Yeah, right.”

Linguistics joke « The Diacritics (via katydidkatydidnt)

 hey my dad tells this joke all the time

(via theparadoxymoron)

[gristt-deactivated20140212]

Give her vases of dying flowers.

Leave them perched on her doorstep with twine and books of poetry for her to press and bind the tulips and daisies to her wrists.

Hand her a carton of cigarettes and urge her to smoke them knowing she will not.

Remind her dying only happens...