look the innocent flower

also goodbyedreamland

[nobodysflower]

pleasee post more of your writing here! or a substack even. I miss reading your words and think that you are one of the best writers out there!! hope youre doing well dear

thank you, this is so kind. i’m rather busy lately. spending my free time reading, walking, or journaling. if there are bits i can share here i will. i am considering a substack for longer posts.

[nobodysflower]

ran into dollar general to (try to) pick up some toilet paper before the snow storm today. ended up in line behind three women who looked to be in their late teens-early twenties. at first i was somewhat enamored. were they roommates? coworkers? cousins? two were wearing the same brown flared yoga pants, and the shortest girl’s had worn ragged at the bottom. she had a belly button ring and long, curly black hair. the other had Betty spaghetti thin limbs and wore a white Victoria’s Secret hoodie covered in yellow stains and cigarette burns. i felt like i knew them, smoked weed with them in my friend’s trailer in 2011. one of them had to be named amber. they did not at all look the same, but that could mean anything.

anyway. the one who seemed the oldest, tall with chunks of bright blonde hair and a softball build, went up to pay. her card was declined. she tried another. insufficient funds. the girls looked at each other.

i walked up, arms full of toilet paper. ready to be the hero. “How much do you need?”

“It’s 97,” the tallest said, in a tone that said I know there is no way in hell you’ve got the money for that. and yeah, i was standing there in my sweatpants, clutching my discount toilet paper. they’d assessed me the same way I’d assessed them.

“I’m so sorry,” i said.

She’d already run out to her car, leaving the other two girls awkwardly tottering by the register.

i did a few things I shouldn’t have. I looked at their cart and saw the cases of Mountain Dew and thought “do you really need all that?” I opened my wallet and saw the $50 I kept before storms in case of emergencies and thought, if I were a good person, i’d give that to them. I thought about how I’d just paid my mom’s water bill because her disability couldn’t cover it and wondered if they had similar responsibilities. I thought about the $130 I’d just spent on groceries and considered the $15 bottle of prosecco and whether that was selfish. basically, I thought too much.

at the end of the day, none of us had the money to do what we wanted to do. i had to run back to work before i saw what happened to them. I didn’t even get to buy that toilet paper. I wondered if she’d scrounged up the money from her car seats somehow; or if they’d had to put some of the stuff in their cart away and just get the necessities: or if they’d called a parent or a sibling or a kind aunt and asked for help. I watch the snow fall from my bedroom window and wonder where they’re watching it from, if it’s warm enough, if they have what they need to make it through the storm. i wonder what will happen to all of us as the price tags and the water rises. will we float together, or will we drown apart?

[goodbyedreamland]

2026 is about living gently, loving deeply, listening fully, creating recklessly

[nobodysflower]

for my whole life everything has felt like too much. too loud. too bright. i’m like an overripe fruit, bruising at the slightest touch. still i peel myself open and beg to be held. because the pain is more bearable if there is a witness. the world is not so harsh and discordant when you’re holding my hand

[nobodysflower]

how much is too much? i don’t know what it is to live in a house unhaunted. a world without horror would be too quiet, too calm.

why can’t you just be normal? she asks. what’s so wrong with being plain?

nothing, everything. i’m not worth it, i’m too good for it. maybe i’m too used to the ghosts. the jump scares keep me awake, but they make me feel alive. who am i without them? what am i truly made of?

[nobodysflower]

It's nice to see a post of yours again! I hope you will keep posting here. If not: do you also post your writings elsewhere?

thanks love. no, I’ve been keeping to my personal journal, notes app, and writing a novella in my spare time. for some reason I’ve felt hesitant to share anything but I’d like to get back into posting more. considering making a substack maybe

[nobodysflower]

here we are in summer’s Sunday afternoon, bathed in the old worn down green and yellow of August.

yards pressed smooth by slip n slides and kiddie pools and afternoon storms. the smolder of campfire ashes. days of rest and restlessness, listless longing. the last flicker of fireworks before fall. haunted by back-to-school displays and summer should-haves.

in August we walk slowly through hallways full of locked doors and airport terminals, heading for return flights and familiar faces. we ache and yearn for the recklessness of July and the strangeness of September.

the world pulls us forward, but there is something here, in the heart of August, that sings to be heard. a bird song you’ve never listened to before, a sunflower that scrapes the sky, a tangerine sunrise.

[nobodysflower]

Spring in Appalachia creeps in through green tendrils, sprawling and stretching her fingers along the brittle forest floor.

Spring slogs winter off the mountains, melting ice and snow in great cascades that rush down their warm rocky backs.

My backyard smells of warm dirt, horse shit, and flowering dogwood. Morels peep their withered heads through last year’s leaves and we breathe quiet thanks for the earth that still keeps giving despite it all.

Spring is loud and bright with life. The titmouses and finches chatter and sing. The cardinals are spots of blood against the neon green baby leaves.

Spring here feels the way the word “abundance” sounds. Round, heavy, full. More rain than roots can swallow. More green, purple, pink, white, yellow than I ever thought could be. Here all along?

Bees sting, pollen scratches, thorns scrape. Flowers swell and overwhelm, sweet perfume permeates. Spring’s pretty, but she likes to choke.

Spring in Appalachia drips like honey down my arms, fills my throat with its sticky sap, drags me into her honeysuckle arms and says she’ll never let me go. I know better.

[nobodysflower]

life is often difficult and the news makes me sad but today I walked around downtown in a small appalachian town and every person I met greeted me with a smile. the barista remembered my name and talked to me about bats when they saw my wallet. they told me to check out a jeweler down the road to see their newest bat themed pieces. the old couple at the art gallery asked what drew me inside and pointed me to ceramics of mushrooms and dragons. the butchers were laughing with one another as I walked in, and one gave me cooking tips with a shine in his eyes when I said I’d never cooked the cut of meat I was picking up before. sometimes the clouds and the sun hang just right in the sky and the whole world seems dipped in sweetness, and my heart feels right and steady in the center of it all

[nobodysflower]

let me be your butterfly. keep my wings pinned forever. the sky seems so small without you

[nobodysflower]

I have so much love to give. I don’t know how. thought this well dried up long ago. but the water gives and gives, and I take and take. I have learned to keep some for myself before I give again. I have learned to give only where and when and how I want, and I’ve found the more I trust my heart, the more it has to offer

[nobodysflower]

[nobodysflower]

[goodbyedreamland]

sometimes growing up means learning that your parents would actually rather you be miserable if it means not having to accept the parts about you that they don’t understand. that their love does in fact have conditions. that they are more concerned with their comfort than your joy. and you have a choice to make: their love and trust in you, or your love and trust in yourself

[nobodysflower]

she told me she can never sleep. the thoughts don’t stop. “i never slow down.”

i woke to feel her heart beating between my shoulder blades. her gentle breathing. and i knew. i stayed so still for her. when she woke, she said she’d never felt so safe. so still.

i thought, is this love, or is this magic?

i thought, is there a difference?

[nobodysflower]

here i go, cracking myself open again before i’ve even glued myself back together from the last crash.

i am wading into a beautiful, dark sea under a beautiful, bright moon, and i’m not sure if i remember how to swim.

i am full of blood my heart can’t pump fast enough.

i am trying to match the rhythm of my breath to hers. i am trying to keep my head above the water. i am curling so close against her, i could almost sink into her rib cage, nest against her heart. i think i already have

i am writing poems about someone new, like leaving nails sticking up in the floor for me to step on later

[nobodysflower]

she is a burning house and i am walking in with my bucket of water. my wishful thinking. if we could just tame the fire, we could sit in this room and talk again. we could lay side by side. i don’t mind the smoke.