Pen and Quill

Poems, short stories, and excerpts from my novels

[penandquill]

This Kind of Love is Underrated Fr

You ask if we love them,

But I say "love" is not the word to describe it.

To you, love means infatuation.

Love means the fluttering

in a young girl's stomach,

Or a young boy looking her up and down.

To you, love for us-- at first--

Is texting into the gloomy hours of the night,

Unaware of the frost forming on the window,

For the warmth within the conversation.

But to us, love is not:

The storm of the butterflies,

The rush through our body

When we see them.

It is the slowing of our hearts,

The relaxing of our bodies,

The calming of our spirits,

And the connection of our souls.

[langleavpoetry]

[penandquill]

Haiku: The Brave Wombat

In Australia,

A wombat leaps into the

Flames to save her friends

[penandquill]

Haiku: Baby Kangaroo

Baby kangaroo

Takes his first steps out of his

Dead mother's charred pouch

[penandquill]

Haiku: Drunk

They sit on their thrones,

Drunk on power, while heat

Intoxicates Earth

[penandquill]

Haiku: Escape

Internet blogging,

Scrolling through my phone, but still,

There is no escape

[relatablepoetryandquotes]

“I’ve wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow I am still in love with life” - Voltaire, Candide

[penandquill]

Haiku: Tears

Tears serve no help in

assauging the lonliness

They fall anyway

[langleavpoetry]

[relatablepoetryandquotes]

“Suppose that, at a given moment, a certain number of people are engaged in the manufacture of pins. They make as many pins as the world needs, working (say) eight hours a day. Someone makes an invention by which the same number of men can make twice as many pins: pins are already so cheap that hardly any more will be bought at a lower price. In a sensible world, everybody concerned in the manufacturing of pins would take to working four hours instead of eight, and everything else would go on as before. But in the actual world this would be thought demoralizing. The men still work eight hours, there are too many pins, some employers go bankrupt, and half the men previously concerned in making pins are thrown out of work. There is, in the end, just as much leisure as on the other plan, but half the men are totally idle while half are still overworked. In this way, it is insured that the unavoidable leisure shall cause misery all round instead of being a universal source of happiness. Can anything more insane be imagined?” - Bertrand Russell, In Praise of Idleness

[penandquill]

I HAVE to read this book

[bruwho]

seen at @linemeyers

[penandquill]

THIS.

[langleavpoetry]

[penandquill]

period

[letsmakeitwritee]

“Someone once asked me what depression feels like. I said ‘like a slower way of being dead’ and I know it doesn’t make any sense but that’s just the way it is. laying in bed, unable to move even though there is nothing physically wrong with you doesn’t make much sense either. A family member once asked me why at my age I didn’t have a job. I said ‘i’m sick’ and they said 'being sad isn’t the same as being sick’ and, yeah, they’re right. being sad ISN’T the same as being sick. i can’t call in sad to work, or to school, or to anywhere else for that matter without being accused of throwing a self-pity party to which the only attendees are me and my sadness which is constantly being invalidated by those who don’t understand it, including me, because I don’t understand my sadness either. it’s difficult to admit this but the ugly truth is i have been sad for so long that I no longer remember what it’s like not be. kind of like when you have a cold and can’t breathe through your nose but instead of not being able to breathe through your nose, you can’t breathe AT ALL and all you can do is wait to suffocate while the people around you ask you what’s wrong but you can’t tell them because it wouldn’t make any sense. It never makes any sense.”

—

[penandquill]

[letsmakeitwritee]

“SCHOOL. This is the prison for the innocent. This is fresh-faced 5-year-olds being abandoned by their parents. This is 12 years of your life you can never get back. This is the kid having a panic attack in the toilets. This is being the kid having a panic attack in the toilets. This is the teachers ignoring the bullies. This is the teachers BEING the bullies. This is popping pills because grades are more important than mental health. This is waking up every weekday morning wishing you never did. This is back pain from overstuffed backpacks and headaches from stress and tired eyes from lack of rest and the sigh of relief when the bell rings until it all starts again the next day. This is being taught how to multiply x and y but not being taught how to do our taxes. This is being told about Henry VIII’s wives but not being told about the environmental destruction threatening our lives. This is being educated about safe sex but not about consent. This is the sexist dress codes. This is being force-fed information no longer relevant to the world we live in and this is being treated like a child but expected to act like adults when it’s convenient. This is older people saying ‘kids our age’ are lazy and rebellious and unambitious when what we really are is DESPERATE. Desperate to survive, desperate to escape. This is us; the generation who has had to learn how to survive by the skin of our teeth and yes this is a poem but it is not poetic, it is fucking devastating.”

—

[penandquill]

YOOOOOOOOOO

[letsmakeitwritee]

“You ask me what made me this way and I say life. You laugh as if I told a joke. You say no one is born broken. I disagree. Did you know the ancient Greeks believed that humans were born with four arms and legs but then Zeus, the God of lightning split us in half? Maybe that’s why we’re all so lonely. We are part of an incomplete puzzle and don’t even know it. Do you think we’ll survive the next ten years? See, being like this forever is my biggest fear. I thought it would get easier with age. You say that nothing is easy. I agree. Life is like a long road through treacherous terrain and I’m not sure the journey is worth the pain but I want to believe it gets better. I want to believe that all the agony adds up to… something. Open your palm one day and see new wrinkles in the skin. Roll down the windows of a moving car and feel the wind in your hair. My six-year-old self had so much hope inside her. Hope for a better breakfast, a better sun, a better radio song. Where did all that hope go? Is it even worth it anymore? You say worth is in the eye of the beholder and have you ever tasted chocolate-coated pretzels? There then, that’s something to look forward to. Something to stick around for. We all need something, don’t we? But that’s ok. You’re smiling. I ask you what made you this way. And you say no one is born broken, we are just growing.”

—

[penandquill]

This was so deep, then I realized it was tagged under "3 am thoughts" lmao

[letsmakeitwritee]

“I do not feel like healing because in the back garden there is a graveyard for all of the things I wasn’t allowed to feel. Betrayal and Pain toss in their graves and Anger screams like a banshee from the top of a tree, ‘I HAVE A RIGHT TO FEEL THIS WAY.’ Resentment festers like a maggoty wound beneath the surface. I cannot let go of this, because it has yet to let go of me. I should have been allowed to purge myself of poison. Instead, I was made to swallow it. And now the soil is rotten. But it’s not my fault. Not mine. ‘Talking helps sometimes,’ they say but my voice is nothing but thorns and no roses. So many dead emotions that weren’t allowed to live. They wail from beneath the ground. They are fighting to crawl out. They refuse to be subdued again. No, I do not feel like healing. I feel like hurting. Take a knife and cut off the hands that are holding me back. Dig up the skeletons and embrace them. I am human and I am allowed to feel these cut-up, violent things. I promise to get worse before I get better.”

—

[penandquill]

Holy shit

[letsmakeitwritee]

“The magazine cover shows you the epitome of beauty whilst also throwing it in your face as if to say Ha! not in a million years will you ever be so lucky. But that doesn’t stop you from trying. And so starts the beginning of the end. Calories. You used to hate maths. Now nothing is more important than numbers. You weigh yourself every day. You cry every day too. You chew on food then spit it out into tissues which you hide around the house. You smile when people say ‘you’ve lost weight’. You go online and take advice from people who are just as sick as you but tell yourself that others have it worse - help isn’t something you deserve. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. Skin like paper, bones like a bird’s; hollow. But somehow the lighter you get the less your feet can leave the ground and you wonder how this emptiness can be so heavy. Water. You drink so much of it that your organs float like loofahs but you still drown in an ocean of self-hatred. Your family sees this. Deny it. You’re fine. No, really - you’re FINE. It could always be (it will get) worse. It’s not like you’re in hospital. It’s not like you’ re dead (yet). Your favourite fleece no longer fits you but that’s good - except now you can never get warm. Winter has made a home in you and now you are numb. But not numb enough. The pain is still ever present. You can’t escape it. It’s actually kind of tragic. Love and acceptance was all you wanted. Or perhaps you just wanted something to control in this out-of-control-world. Either way, you can’t blame anyone else but yourself for this. You had a temple and you burned it. Who will be left with the ashes? How selfish. One day you look in the mirror and instead of seeing an enemy or ghost of your former self, you see a friend, a family member. And what you’ll want to say to them is ‘hey, it’s ok. you don’t need to do this to be worthy. you don’t need to do this to be loved.’”

—

[penandquill]

Love their writing. So focused and gothic!