Eventide

'The ramblings of a boy with rain in her heart and lightning in their eyes' Any/All I hope you keep the rain in your heart forevermore...

[rainhearted-ramblings]

I'd wondered for ages about how I hated being called Mr. but didn't mind being called a boy, how I'd shrink from the word woman but relished in being called a girl. I never really figured out why person seemed to fit, but rolled oddly around my tongue, like too broad shoulders in your favourite sweater you've long outgrown but was always a lovelorn child.

I'm stuck between here and there, unable to get out of bed, and I know it's cliche but I never unlearned how to whine. I'm stuck between here and there, feeling like I'm too young for life, all my memories newborn, bloody and ripping through the flesh, just to be stitched back up again. I feel bawling laughter echoing through my bones and I feel much too small for this universe, so small I'm unable to understand how I'm comprehending it.

I'm stuck a mewling child, pink flesh and raw skin with no bones or kneecaps fully formed, soft head lolling to the side, eyelids sticky and shut from blood. I'm stuck forever as a child, still lost in machinations of my own making, fantastical worlds spilling through the mundane, each stick a sword or a wand. I'm stuck a teenager, the world new and unseen, just starting to understand half the words spoken at me. I'm stuck younger and older than I am, unable to figure out where I fit into my life.

I'm stuck between here and there, boy and man, girl and woman, everything. And I'm stuck in bed and I've realised.

Oh, it's not the word that's the problem, it's the whole growing up thing, isn't it?

[rainhearted-ramblings]

There are stars on my bedroom ceiling, and I dream of becoming a constellation after I die.

[rainhearted-ramblings]

Burning

Just pop a pill and move along, You don't get to lie in bed until you've sold your heart For a dream that brings you no joy. You haven't heard it all until your teeth are rotting, plucked out in another's heart. It's a dog eat dog world out there, they'll tear you apart Unless you do it first, Fangs in your arms And brains in your buccal cavity, Upturned memories sacrificed For a semblance of sanity.

"Look at how I've got my life in order" You speak through grinded bones when really, waking up takes about the same effort of it all. So pretend you're not sinking Because even musicians on the Titanic kept playing till their souls were torn apart.

Because we're all slow motion trainwreck hearts and emptied out heads Pretending to be alive. Inhaling oxygen means you're slowly burning yourself alive. That's why you're legally burnt out when you're shivering in the cold.

Because really, you don't get to sleep Until you've run yourself into the ground And when your legs are strewn across the sky You'll get to stay in and sleep for a day. And sew them back on the next.

You're not burning, it's all in your head. You're not drowning, you're just lying in bed. And really, You're not dying until you are dead.

[aubriestar]

a watercolour sky calms november noise

©️-Aubrie-2023

[rainhearted-ramblings]

Oceans

Sometimes, speaking feels like we're oceans apart, and the only way to say anything is to put it in a bottle and seal the circle and Chucking it into the waves, hoping it'll reach you on the other side unscathed. Listening's the same. I can't wait at the shore everyday to see the sunlight bounce across glass. When I open my mouth we're oceans apart and I can only throw glass bottles and hope they'll reach your shore. And don't count on me listening because that's all you can do too.

My love, we're oceans apart and I don't even know if I'm still in your heart when a single word takes a month to make it across to wherever you are. I can only speak without hope of you ever listening but I'm still lingering by the sand.

My brain and my mouth are depths apart but we're oceans away from each other and I don't know what's worse. I wish I could wade across the depths, float and tread water until I made it to your sands and I'd never leave, even in death it'll be my bleached bones clinging to the fine grains at your feet. And I'll sink to the depths of the earth if it means I'll come up on the other side with you. And I'll be hollow eyes as I've always been and I'll unhinge my jaw.

I wish I could write to you instead, love. You could be on a different planet and my words would find a way into your arms nevertheless. My brain is behind my fingers and I swear, my love, we'll be closer together even if we're light years apart. I might have to cross galaxies but astronauts are star sailors and a boat of paper and ink held together by your name is still more effective than chucking another glass bottle to your shore.

I've told you that speaking makes things real, but writing makes things permanent, and my love, I don't know what's worse. Do I dare etch my thoughts into stars when constellations lit our paths for centuries? Because, my love, you know as well as I that the only thing worse than being lost is being found.

I'd sail across the stars and write my heart apart anytime for you my dear. I'd drag the waters of the sky with me and it might take trillions of years but we'd finally collide, you and I. It'd be the most beautiful sight, a sea of milk and the chained princess, cosmic oceans dancing to become one. I'd pick up the helm and bring the milky way to your heart if ever wrote to you. I can pick up the pen, pick up the helm dear. But immortality is far scarier than being ephemeral can be. I set my pen down and fall, the ink dripping at my feet to create yet another ocean to keep you away.

Truth is, love, I don't want to be etched across the stars. And I'd speak another message in a bottle to you but you're too far apart.

I let the ink pool at my feet and soon I'm sinking deep enough to finally greet You as an ebony skeleton, clawing at your feet. My eyes are hollow white and my bones are saturated with ink but the truth of the matter is, my dear, I can't speak to you any better.

I'll throw messages in bottles across the oceans in our hearts and I'll swim right behind, zebra crossing to make sure I'll end up on your shore.

And I'll be bones clinging to the fine grains or sand at your feet. And I'll sink to the depths of the sky if it means I'll come up on the other side by your side. I'll be hollow eyes like I've always been, too bright to be anything but hollow, really. I'll be splayed at your feet and I'll unhinge my jaw.

Listen close, my love. This is another bottled thought and I don't want you to miss it at all. I want you to reach in, starlit fingers and all, reach into my jaw and pluck out my heart, which I traded for a sea conch I found on the way. I want you to pick up the conch and press it to your ear. And you'll hear the sea screaming at me. Drown it out and press me against your heart and finally, finally you'll hear me as I am. You'll hear everything I am, everything I wanted to say. My love, finally I can speak my heart. You can leave me at shore, don't worry, dear. You can leave me grinning I'm the same, buried under the sky like I'd always had thoughts to be. You can take the conch and press it to your heart, listen to the sea sing with me.

You can throw the bottles away, my dear. Because you have my soul by your side.

And even if we're oceans away, my love, we'll never be apart.

[graceless-writing]

“fuck you, my child is fine-”

Ma'am, your child is a writer

[inkskinned]

the body is such a strange and vapid creature. i am eating soup with noodles that i cooked in a microwave. i don't know how microwaves work, only that most of my meals come from her yellow mouth. i put mine on the fridge; i have to stand on tip toes to take the bowl out, balancing it on fingertips.

i have to eat soup because i'm coughing up blood.

when you have been raised wrong, conditions of alarm are offset. which is to say that three weeks ago, i had a panic attack because i thought i saw him the liquor store. i collapsed into a heap, ready to sob into multicolored gin bottles. it was just someone who looked a lot like him, working a shitty 9-5. the poor man. what must it be like, to have someone go pale at your profile.

i spoke too loudly during a zoom meeting, and nobody answered immediately. the shame of that scoured my entire ribcage clean. i hated the experience so much i wrote it down in my notes: a reminder not to be so fucking annoying!

but the conditions of alarm are met at the moment. i am well-and-truly ill, the blood in my hand and on the pavement. at this moment in dr. house episodes i would be swaying, and then i'd collapse delicately and awaken in a crisp hospital bed. instead my dog bites my hand in excitement. now there is blood on his muzzle.

i am diabolically, almost robotically calm about it. i laugh about it, actually. i am feeling positively waifish. i am one nightgown away from holding an oil lamp up and saying milord? are thee turnin' in for the night? new blood is pinkish, almost feminine in her brightness, a tease into the tissue.

i haven't ever cried at a funeral. i didn't know you were actually allowed to. it felt like new blood - a way of making it about me, when my job is to flatter the shadows and stay tucked out of the way. i am always doing something for someone else. i am always earning my keep. i am always loveable, because i will do what it takes to make you able to love me.

here are the personal things i have been worried about in the last three weeks: if the spider i put outside was now able to restart her life. if an hour and a half every day is enough walking for a greyhound. if i drink too much coffee. if all my friends secretly hate me. if i'm a bad friend and i should be sad about it. what happens after this next goalpost? what if i'm deeply and inherently boring?

i cough up blood. my mouth tastes like iron gummies. i am not worried about this. my body is a seahorse. my body is an ocean wave. i can detach from it, be outside of it - just float away.

[thewriteadviceforwriters]

I’m looking for ways to describe a deity without gendering them. Any ideas?

How to Describe a Deity without Utilizing Gender

This is an excellent question, I'm assuming you're writing fantasy. So i'll be taken this question in a "fantasy writer" approach.

Neutral Pronouns: When describing your deity, try using neutral pronouns like "they" or "it." For instance, "The deity watched over their realm with a benevolent gaze." This helps keep things gender-free and adds a sense of mystique!

Ambiguous Features: Get creative with those physical descriptions! Focus on ambiguous features that don't swing towards any particular gender. Think of an ethereal glow, formless energy, or ever-shifting manifestations. Who says divine beings need defined forms, right?

Symbolic Representation: Sometimes, it's less about physical attributes and more about symbolism. Highlight your deity's essence through symbols of nature, cosmic patterns, or abstract concepts. It's like painting a picture with ideas instead of colors!

Inclusive Titles: Want to emphasize their grandiosity without gender specifics? Use inclusive titles like "The Divine One" or "The Eternal Being." This really underscores their cosmic presence without getting tangled in gender pronouns.

Ephemeral Presence: Here's a fun one – describe your deity as a presence or force rather than a tangible being. Use language that evokes a sense of vastness, like "A cosmic energy enveloped the land." It's all about that awe-inspiring vibe!

Non-Human Form: Why limit your deity to human characteristics? Go wild with descriptions of shape-shifting entities, radiant lights, or otherworldly beings that defy our traditional notions of gender. The more unconventional, the better!

There you have it, Mix and match these ideas to craft a deity that's gender-neutral and absolutely enchanting in your fantastical world. Happy writing! ✨📚

[anderswasrightt]

don't use "ftm" it's outdated and offensive. it implies that the trans person was their agab, which we never were. i was always a boy, never a girl who became a boy.

i'm 35 years old. i've been IDing as trans or something similar to trans for nearly 20 years. i was probably calling myself FTM while you were playing tag during recess, anon.

i WAS a girl. i IDed as a girl early in my life. i recognized myself as a girl, called myself a girl, lived as a girl, and was a girl. who then IDed as a man. hence, F t M.

spend more time worrying about yourself instead of strangers on the internet, anon.

sorry not sorry if this comes off as needlessly hostile, but i've been getting a lot of shit from a lot of teenage trans kids about the language i use to describe my own goddamn experience, and i'm growing real fuckin weary of it.

i have elder trans friends who call themselves transsexuals and transvestites and trannies. are you going to seriously go to a 60-year-old trans person who survived the reagan years and tell her she's not allowed to use certain language to describe herself because it might offend the delicate sensibilities of some teenager on the internet?

do yourself a favor and log off, find some real-life trans people who are over the age of 20 or 25, and spend time talking to them instead of getting all holier-than-thou at random strangers on tumblr.

[femmefurina-deactivated20240814]

It may be weird to encounter because it's not the trans narrative that the media sells to us as 'the only valid way to be trans', but the 'I always knew I was x' is not all-encompassing.

Anon there are more people than you think who were girls who grew up into men, or boys who grew up into women, or girls or boys who grew up to be nonbinary. There is a rather obscure theory that girl and boy are distinct genders from man and woman and while the most common trajectory is that boys grow into men and girls grow into women it's not the rule.

Let people define themselves.

[phoenixtawnyflower]

also if you think genderfluid people are real and you're not just humoring us, you by definition have to allow that gender can change over time. I was a girl once. I am not a girl now.

[theleakypen]

Chiming in with solidarity to OP.

I feel very protective of my former identity BECAUSE there's so little room in the Mainstream Trans Narrative ™️ for allowing gender to change.

I was a girl. Now I'm genderqueer. Maybe later I will find different words for myself.

There has to be room for all of us in the trans community or there's no point to any of this.

[mirrepp]

Ive been here long enough to see words like ftm/mtf, afab/amab, transmale/female, trans man/woman all go through the cycle of ppl telling you to “Dont use X word its out dated. Now use this Y word”. Only for a year or two pass and suddenly “Y word is outdated. Now use Z word” like yall this is exhausting. Just because a word is old doesn’t automatically make it a slur or offensive.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

They're pulling high school clique bullshit out and just replacing 'uncool' with 'problematic' and pretending it's activism somehow. We're trying to get work done here not everybody is going to keep up with the ever-rotating lexicon of words.

[hedwig-dordt]

I used to be a member of the commentariat where I learned the phrase

THERE IS NO QUEER REVIEW BOARD

Which has kinda helped me be a bit better at being decent

[cyberr-v0id]

If I fail all my exams then at least I still have my wit and poetic genius.

[thememedaddy]

[the-final-sif]

So! This is a perfect case study in situations where you should be wary of misinformation.

Take a moment and ask yourself, a project like this requires a lot of time, money and dedication of resources, why would scientists dedicate that time to something that could just be done by a tree?

The answer is they wouldn't. So that means this claim requires further investigation!

This project is called LIQUID 3, and it's not meant for cities with wide open spaces, it's meant for cities like Belgrade in Serbia. These cities are densely populated and heavily polluted, to the point where pollution actually chokes out current trees and makes creating green spaces difficult.

Liquid 3 was a PhD scientists answer to these problems. The microalgae tank is intended for spaces where you either:

Don't have enough space to plant full trees, or

Don't have enough time to plant trees and wait for them to grow up.

The tank is extremely efficient when you consider the amount of space needed compared to the amount of CO2 turned into oxygen. The tank can operate throughout the winter. And most importantly, it can be quickly set up in areas that desperately need relief from air pollution NOW not in 10 years when trees are done growing. Children currently suffocating on polluted air can't wait for trees to grow, they need to be taken care of now, and Liquid 3 is one of the ways to take care of them. Depending on the species of microalgea used, a number have shown a pretty amazing capacity to pull heavy metals out of the air which is something trees can get choked up by.

The tanks aren't just tanks either! Liquid 3 have solar panels placed on top, they have lighting and mobile phone charging, and they work as public benches. The designers of it want to encourage green spaces where there's room, but where there isn't room or time, Liquid 3 can step in. Realistically, this isn't a replacement for trees. It's replacing boring metal city benches with new, cooler benches that also clean the air (and have at least some heating during the winter).

Not only that, but the microalgea that grows is native to Serbia and all that microalgea has a ton of great uses! It makes for great fertilizer, compost, wastewater treatment, cleaner biofuels and even for helping create new tanks for further air purification. They only require a quick algae divide once a month, and the produced algae can be carted off to where ever it's needed. This makes them effective solutions for areas that can't sustain complex installations.

So yeah, there's actually quite a lot of places that would like these. Lots of people currently breathing in terrible quality air would much rather have their boring city benches replaced with really fucking cool algae tanks that clean the air and can be used to help create + sustain future green spaces in cities. I dunno about you, but I'd take that over a dumb metal bench any day. Put these at every bus stop and I'd be delighted.

[racooninurtrash]

gonna participate in this year's nanowrimo despite being a notorious procrastinator who never manages more than 300 words a day, wish me luck

[youstillsaiditsname]

i think i loved you, but i guess i'll never really know

joan tierney / death cab for cutie / sylvie baumgartel / the crane wives / @araekni / khalid hosseini / lev st valentine / wendy cope / richard siken (reordered)

[zibaldoni-elzapoppin]

...

.

[geographically-challenged-deact]

Sound on

[7thgenscot]

Keep on dancing

[aubriestar]

falling

under your spell, the plucked psaltery melody melts into eventide's range

night air carries it through my open window a portal

to your presence, a feral web i cannot brush aside, i see you better

through midnight eyes, your song alive in lyrics inked on folded parchment ivory

left at dawn's light tied with blue satin ribbon and the essence of eucalyptus

i am unable to put you down

©️-Aubrie-2023

[aubriestar]

falling

under your spell, the plucked psaltery melody melts into eventide's range

night air carries it through my open window a portal

to your presence, a feral web i cannot brush aside, i see you better

through midnight eyes, your song alive in lyrics inked on folded parchment ivory

left at dawn's light tied with blue satin ribbon and the essence of eucalyptus

i am unable to put you down

©️-Aubrie-2023

[rainhearted-ramblings]

Aechian Verse 2

Do you think we could skip glowing rocks Across a pool of starlight Amidst neon trees with neon leaves and glowstick branches we could break in a jiffy

Spiral bugs and popping rugs This'll be a night to remember Negative scale things, your teeth are black Everything screams so loud, I think i'll have a heart attack

Pick gemstones off the sidewalk and hope they're cheap enough For everyone else to do the same Spin down slopes of hills and roads with your arms stretched out Spin a rope around and fly like a top Right onto the starlit lake Glowing golden with pixie dust.

Flap your arms hard enough And maybe we could swim inside Or maybe I could bite off All your gemstone teeth

Under the screaming moon Purple like cheese The neon leaves fall Is it autumn just yet?

It's always night when you're having fun Glowsticks are ripped from branches And we could drink all the fluid Bundles of bioluminescence before we die

Watch the spiraling bugs take a wide berth around all that is holy So they'll run right to us Skipping gemstones onto broken leaves

In starlight ponds filled with angler fishes Their black light dangling upside down Your eyes are white like your hair and the night sky Yellow like the starlight streaming into your ears

Maybe if we all stay quiet we'd hear a way out But why would you want to leave this neon tapestry? Oh, what a tragedy that we never flew under the ceilings Maybe one day as we roll up the hills

And cannonball into the lakes And we don't dive But we skip to the far end Once Twice Thrice I beat you now

It's lonely on the right side Won't you skip across with me too? We'd sell all the gemstones in your teeth I think we'd be alright here.

I like the world better in the neon wild Glowstick juice running down my mind.