vayne's sleepy couch

vayne's writing dump, chicken scratch, writeblr | content not intended for minors | always passing through grief, love, and loss | she/her

[pressedandroses]

[image description on-image]

hi, y'all ! my name is vayne, a casual writer from the Philippines, non-binary poetess, and lonely lesbian playing with her food at the age of sixteen. i'm actually 24, however there's a lot of (traumatized) childishness to me sometimes so that's probably going to be a little evident with some silly things i write about.

FIRST THINGS FIRST

language and content warnings: here are some content warnings. these are general and will be untagged unless otherwise specified or if i deem it especially severe enough. if it is marked TAGGED, then i will tag that one in specific. i am not very good at catching these, so please (gently) inform me if i have left something untagged.

this blog is intended for those 18 and above. if you are below 18, i will not stop you from interacting because whatever i think you are allowed to judge your own maturity and capacity to handle explicit material. however, consider this your explicit warning: you are a guest and i am deferring to you the EXPLICIT RESPONSIBILITY OF LEAVING IF YOU ARE A MINOR. if you are uncomfortable with what you read, then i will apologize but i will not agree that i am at fault. learn how to be safe on the internet.

this is a English and Filipino writeblr. my primary language is English, but i will occasionally write in my native language instead.

I use swearing in my writing.

I write about depression and anxiety.

I write about ableism, especially regarding systemic ableism against neurodivergence and mood disorders.

I write about violence and sexual themes.

I write about death and the general nature of dying.

I write about horror and creepy things.

I use Catholic and religious imagery.

TAGGED: I occasionally write about alcohol abuse and smoking. ("#tw alcohol", "#tw smoking")

TAGGED: I make heavy use of unreality. ("#tw unreality") please note: i'm especially bad at catching this one. if you see me using it and having it untagged, please inform me and i will fix it.

TAGGED: I use blood and gore as imagery. ("#tw blood", "#tw gore")

TAGGED: I write about body horror. ("#tw body horror")

TAGGED: I write about body insecurities and dysmorphia. ("#tw body image")

TAGGED: I write about suicidality. ("#tw suicide" [explicit], "#tw suicide allusion" [implied])

TAGGED: I write about coercion. ("#tw coercion")

TAGGED: as a final precaution, i will tag all NSFW and excessively violent content as #not for minors. please keep this in mind when reblogging, for those with followers who are minors, and tag accordingly.

NOW ONTO WRITING

content: this blog, on the whole, is going to be original content as much as possible. for other writing rbs, you can check out my main over at @ninelispenardst. sometimes, i'll just post whatever i have in mind here, so i suppose don't be too surprised if it doesn't make too much sense? this is mostly a dumping ground.

regularity of posts: i'm going to be honest, i'm a pretty busy person. i am juggling a lot of things all at once so i wouldn't be surprised if i go months without touching this blog then coming back with years of content. however, i will try my best to have at least 1 post a day, just to make sure i'm keeping my mind clear and capable, regardless of my mood or inspiration.

genres: i mostly write poetry. i have a lot of fun pushing the limits of poetry and i like talking about grief, love, and loneliness. for prose, i stick to slice-of-life, casual fantasy, and a bit of romance, but it's honestly pretty rare that i commit to writing anything other than poetry, so... probably expect mostly poetry.

themes: my thematic hyperfixations are on the grandiose, the excessive, and the inevitable. when i write, i enjoy focusing on the minute but solely because, to me, they are reverberations of a greater whole. i like to think about sacrifice, impossible yet unwavering commitments to love, and the protection of those loved. i also deeply enjoy the power of the divine (despite being largely areligious) and think a lot about what it means to be thought about by larger-than-life-and-death beings of incomprehensible power. are we charming? callous? a mistake? or not worth thinking about at all? i love all these mixed thoughts.

i hope you enjoy at least some of my writing. :) my writing projects and more about me under the fold, but otherwise, have a nice day!

writing projects

here we are, at the end an anthology on the last years of humanity at the very end of time and history. after humans conquered the universe, entropy has caught up to them and the last sources of energy are the final dissolving black holes. chronicling the final years around these dark behemoths, HWA intends to explore what it is we wanted out of having lived, the tenability of godhood, and what it is we will do when we finally must confront the infinity beyond the very end.

awake after the end of oblivion i wanted to write a poetry book in 2021 after a girl broke my heart, however i've recently come to the realization that actually i don't want to just write about a girl and immortalize that as the first book i finished. so i'm repivoting this to be a collection of poetry on love in general and what it means to really love your friends as whole and complete persons, capable of change, who must come and go, and the grief we are inevitably going to face with their loss. after all, to lose people can feel like the end of the world. so how do we face the fallout?

escapril / poetry challenges this is probably my most well-sustained project. i've done escapril since 2019, first accomplishing it to 100% in 2021 and planning to do the same again this year. along with that, i want to write 180 poems every year and watch myself get better at making them. in general, i just want to get better and i think really sticking to making poetry regularly and with discipline is the best way to do that.

circuit boards and eddies a fic on transness and the conflicts between short-term academic achievement and long-term societal change. set in the early-2010s Bicol region, CB&E intends to explore how relationships hinge on class, the sacrifices necessary for lasting change, the nature of the mass movement in the Philippines, and the natural contradictions arising from survival and service. (this one has character sheets ready and i'm just working on outlining.)

18892 a Philippine-based take on 17776, exploring how Patintero has become a sport spanning the entire world, what kind of losses were endured by the sinking archipelago after the Day, and the imperial dynamics of a post-scarcity, unchanging universe indelibly scarred by it. this one is in stasis but i really really want to write it.

philosophy on writing: i think words are suggestions, their meanings manifestations of imagination, and the thought of lines, mere abstract complexes generated by the confluence of their implications. if i use a word in a way you think is incorrect, feel free to provide me that correction, but do note that if i don't agree, it's nothing personal. i think words mean things but they are also implicitly reliant on the words around them and if their supposition enough is to derive meaning, then the word has largely accomplished its task. i write to express, not to tether thoughts to the earthly limits of definition.

more about me: i'm a trans non-binary girl, living in the philippines and working on a political science degree. i use she/her and prefer the mx. honorific. although i'm a marxist (so that kind of commentary is to be expected), i stick to writing poetry about love, intimacy, and being seen. i have adhd, c-ptsd, and dysthymia, so that colors a lot of how i portray things.

on the whole, i want to be interesting and remembered. i hope my writing will be good enough to accomplish one of the two. may i resound for just one fantastic moment before i go silent forever.

[pressedandroses]

glint, glitter

i think it's funny how i often am the knife upon a dired prey, neck loose and leering upon my glinting sights, how i am the streetlight under a misery-laced first kiss and a quick hit with a messy girl, how i am sterling treetops you ask someone else to climb with you for the sights so sunrise-tinted, you'd think it a portrait— oh, you imagine me in dreams, but here i am a dreamer by trade, but awestruck by the leisure of your smile unsung and my tender heart lit electric by your eyes, doe-wide and weft-heavy of love and desire and thundrous aplomb, impulse, snapfreeze liberty and lust-leavened litanies, a smorgasbord ensemble of surety and subtle sleeping sobrieties— god i have my hands laced in a memory and my heart swells only so when remembering and when i motion and you motion in turn the measly nettle of my unhonored words. how the knife has been turned on me under this streetlight, where trees grew too fast on this side of the neighborhood and i am somehow stuck with this girl covered in glitter and the subtle scent of marinara and fish.

[pressedandroses]

[Image text:

darling, moon crescent, clutched breath under the starlight you wrap over me blankets more vast than i can see even a squint (perhaps closed eyes) will net me little more in the wake of your immutable beauty sheath me, my love, in blankets, like you have beaches under your gaze — v.a.

/End ID]

[pressedandroses]

[Image text:

writing a letter to– i can’t tell my palm leaves a mark on the page the bottle starts to boil over spilling my words over the desk seeping shifty heartaches heady side-eyes, soaking my paper planes in shooting star tears it’s spreading my desk is a mess, my plant and pens my yarn has turned dark blue my medicine melts into the words legs wet with thick ink thick ink thick ink it’s cotton in my mouth thick ink thick ink think ick it’s pooling under the desk wiping it in with my tissues, my blankets, my papers, homework, receipts, apologies wet wet wet and sticky with my thoughts how do i clean myself of this how do i clean the ink out of this puddle pressure spilt spectacle my arms are stained and my clothes even with them all off naked with blue marks of your thumbprints and feather-touch melodies and my breathing stops

“look at the mess you’ve made,” she kneels to me, a hand on my cheek it’s so warm and my eyes are a puddle of its own mess. she smiles, my own presses her palm to my face and it’s warm and it’s dry and all the ink warms and dries. “let’s get you cleaned up,” she says. and i quietly let my breath slip the ink bottle drips and it’s empty and my sheets are clean and my hands are inked and my desk is a mess, but not uncomfortably so and she’s with me to clean the mess, wet rags soapy suds, smelt of fake roses a miserly tap-water stench but still she wipes her forehead and the floor is as good as new and the papers and letters are a bit messy but just like they always were and not a single bit more and she sits with me, holds my hand with me breathes with me, a middling silence a rocking boat of the quiet lake

“i’m here,” she says and i’m here, she says the water is calm and the bottle is empty once more. the ocean breaks in her eyes, but the waves are subdued. i’ve since stopped writing to you. the ink is too runny.

— v.a.

/End ID]

[pressedandroses]

wrapped in tangles the strings pull tight, they glisten, teasing their sheen for a puppet, i worry myself to be and you perform, a crowd of hundreds a future in vibrant monochrome. but who knew the finishing blow would be "and i love you so"?

— v.a.

[pressedandroses]

you’re on the floor with me again. it’s covered in my hair and dirt and tiny scraps from many carton-box meals. the tiling is uneven and unsteady, gaps in the flooring staring up as dark grey and dusty settlements.

and it’s not particularly nice to be here. it’s too hot, with the sun so high in the sky that it’s almost like she’s staring down at us from a moral high ground we could never hope to reach, but it’s too cold, with the air conditioning so cold that my legs freeze up and your ankles feel like they’re on the verge of a cramp.

the room smells of nothing in particular, if i were to guess, but maybe i’m just used to the scent of my self-loathing soaking into the sheets and my desk and my mousepad and my pillows. and maybe you’re used to it too, since i’ve brought the fragrance of my purest self-erasure and right to self-desecration out to every outing i’ve ever been to (including that of my own).

you could probably recognize myself, not as myself, as long as you could taste my flagellation and the resultant bloodstains as a mist in the briny air. like a shark, it would be easy for anyone to taste the drops of blood i’ve made by cutting into my heart and soul even in the ocean of love that people have tried to drown me in.

but, you see, i don’t breathe underwater. my lungs don’t fill with saltwater and deltas and beds of cracked condiment layer cakes when i inhale. the alveoli don’t contract and fill up with the compliments and deliver the oxytocin to every inch of my body, as it needs it.

instead, i choke. i choke and choke on the kind words. i can’t drink them or swallow or hope to fill my gullet with the goodness i so desperately need. it flows right down into my breathing and i struggle to keep in time with the waves. and people take pictures, you see? they hope that swimming will let me know that i can breathe.

but i don’t breathe underwater.

[pressedandroses]

place me in your pocket. let me settle with your keys, your tiny pocket lints, your on-silent phone, and the spare change you have after buying ice cream for your little sister, your mom's medicine, and your dad's box of cigarettes.

— v.a.

[pressedandroses]

god, what roses must bloom so brightly to bear bastions of billowing bees and to baste bashful brushstrokes across the bursting belly of the abrasive but borrowed sea?

you must be watercolour for the pigments you portray present perils past permission lent by sorrowful patters.

you corrode catatonic a mournful merry wisp like a ghost in the night who can promise nothing but careless cavities to hold empty words and moments to-be-forgotten.

yet i am left to live in the mouth of a cave so closed and casket to be locked by the dreary forged day.

clear your cupboards for my half-teaspoon resolve. and let me kneel at the mercy of your mellow dice.

it will crush me and corner the cradle we constructed as crescent-caked callousness clean the canvas off which i came to

crave your care.

— v.a., blooming

[pressedandroses]

[Image text:

this is it, right? a grass pillow for my petal-laced dearest a tire swing held steady by a broken jump rope daisies waving to the sky, a waltz in the sunlight, reaching out to the endless blue motes of dust and barely-pollen inciting a small sneeze but nothing more mossy rocks like rivets into boilerplate earth my dewdrop placements seem real enough the leaves cast shadows from a sun on the wrong side but it’s a watercolour and the paint is too runny for me to fix the shade there. you always told me that watercolours were hard to work with. i think i see what you mean, although i’ve stopped picking up the brush there’s a dance you have to play with it but i never learned with my two left feet (you were always better at holding a beat steady) a slow-weeping hill, there bleeding a love-leeched memory i’ve cried on this hill before, i think. but it didn’t look that beautiful through my tears.

-- v.a.

/End ID]

[pressedandroses]

is this a tide pool love or am i drawn to an ocean-bound home my heart is your birthright please don't waste me, my darling

— v.a.

[pressedandroses]

blanched joggers, bristled leaves, mere mourning under the cherry tree, rivulets doused dreary the forest, mites moving repositories in the wet, flaring trunks of trees, yet cold in conscious weather squelching drops;

your face is hinted, blush in the rain, fingers find a friend to friend to friend; hands clasped tight, cold in a derailed march affronted in drenched cold eyes.

but it's so warm, your hands' lines running rich straits for what little distance leaves me wanting.

tiny tiny breaths, my missive. your kiss is shelter.

— v.a., between the trees

[pressedandroses]

it's an ocean of wanting. your throat dries on this raft. but you can't drink a sea of promises when it's lathered in the salt of your sins.

— v.a.

[pressedandroses]

i miss my friend. every day, a part of me weakens remembering her. the way she would say good morning to me like it was a part of her commute, how she would send me a cute tweet because it reminded her of me like it was the most obvious thing in the world, the moments when she would know something had gone wrong because i sounded slightly off-kilter and she would offer a hand. i am always remembering the sound of her voice, because she always had something to say. even now, i will open a tweet with enough likes and i find her there. even now, someone two steps removed speaks about something and i find her there. even now, i lie awake at night thinking of anything and anyone else and i find her there. she loved to interrupt but with me she was quiet and held me listened. her hands were gentle with my head on her lap as she was in class. i was her precious thing, hidden away from the world in a little sunbeam. whether in pouring rain or the scald of summer, i was hers and she, mine– my darling friend from some time ago, in my head, still blowing bubbles, covered in kalachuchi, playing piano before class, and talking to me about a gumball that fell on the sidewalk. oh, i miss my friend and i could never be angry at her for having to leave. but i wish i could see the world again without finding her there.

— v.a., i miss my friend

[pressedandroses]

[Image text:

your hands are warm. they’re soft in mine dark lines raze through them fingers outstretched tracing them in silence, your eyes are closed, a breath gently steeps down my lips and past my chin, a proof of living, the rough sullied skin, but just enough. the lines on your back shift shadows, morning light a caress, small peeking through a thin curtain. a second was spared.

your hands are still. they’re rigid in mine dark lines grow and tense fingers closed into fists balling nails into cuts, your eyes are closed, a breath sputters, gasps down my chest and past my whole, a proof of hurting, the softness, almost-gone skin, but just enough. the lines on your back judder shadows, morning light a monster, large looming through a thick night. a minute is left.

your hands are gone. they were soft in mine dark lines grew and tensed fingers outstretched balled into fists into cuts, your eyes would be closed, breaths steeped, gasped. down my face and past my body, a proof of missing the once-warm once-yours bed, but just enough. the imprint of you on the bed vanished shadows, morning light a mourning, lost loving through an open window. the hour had come.

— v.a.

/End ID]

[pressedandroses]

they say you grow around the grief, but at the base of my being, you remain the foundation. i grew around you and, in the vacancy of you, the sound of my suffering whistles.

— v.a.

[pressedandroses]

if love is sight, what does it mean now that you never want to see me again?

— v.a.

[pressedandroses]

an original poem in filipino, translated by myself into english as well.

[Image 1 text (FIL):

(inialay sa kabutihang naipaabot sa akin ng aking pinakamamahal na kaibigan sa gitna ng mahabang gabi) linyang liwanag butil sa gubat gabing tumawag sariwang buhat ugat sa yapak hawak sa paanan pagurang imbak ilaw at tahanan talang patawad isdang umikot bukas na palad hawak sa sikot lumanay, katuwang sandata’t panangga hinga ng maluwang tahan na, palangga

-v.a.

/End ID]

[Image 2 text (ENG):

(dedicated to the kindness extended to me by my dearest friends in the middle of an endless night) lines of a light forest-borne seeds calls of the night carrying fresh needs rooted in the stepped sinewy holds to my footing collecting left bereft hearth’s glow and resting stars and yet a sorry a fish spins in place open palm for your worry held on to a tight space calm, my other half, weapons and shields down breathe a moment looser, o beloved, i’m here with you now

-v.a.

/End ID]