Xuebing Du
Fai_Ryy
pixel skylines
The Stonewall Inn
d e v o n
Game Changer & Make Some Noise
gracie abrams
cherry valley forever
NASA
shark vs the universe
ellievsbear
One Nice Bug Per Day
noise dept.
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
RMH
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todays bird
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@seejennwrite
#soulmate series no. 1 ♥️ _____________ #poem #poetry #prose #words #write #wordsofig #qotd #quote #love #queer #lgbt #igdaily #igwords #igpoetry #typewriter #typedquotes #typewriterpoem #typewriterart #follow #jlee #poetrycommunity #creativewriting #deadpoetssociety #spilledink #artistsofinstagram
// smack //
Soul mate series no. 1 Instagram: @Jenn_lee_
// b side //
The Leaves of Verdure
Her eyes were so that it appeared the leaves of verdure had spread their veins within her iris I’d like to count the stripes and shades therein If only I could pursue the courage We lay skin to skin but there between the drumming of her ribcage, I come undone inept to un-bruise my eyes long enough to see
A Japanese legend says that if you can’t sleep at night it’s because you’re awake in someone else’s dream.
Anonymous (via sickur)
Two For The Show (Excerpt)
Quin was now fifteen. She had spent the last two years mostly free from adult guidance; the first lost to her mother’s new found marital bliss and the second to her mother’s self-destruction. She chose the only tangible form of escape she could, between the pages of a bind. She became lost in stories that were not hers and hoped one day she’d be able to write her own, one with a better ending than the story her mother was writing for herself. She had been an awkward Pre-Teen with gangly limbs and the rounded pot belly of a toddler. Anxious to enter puberty, her wish was granted the summer her stepfather left for Europe. She found blood streaked in her panties an idle Thursday afternoon and stood awkwardly with one foot on the toilet rim as she tried to read the instructions on her newly purchased box of Tampax. Quin sprouted up from the earth the way the bulbs her mother had once filled the dining room with did. She grew to an impressive 5’9, with more leg than she knew what to do with. She would tower over her own mother if her mother were ever to find herself upright. Her hands were pale, delicate things; long, skinny fingers that daintily ran across her bottom lip whilst deep in thought, exaggerated gestures while storytelling. In nervousness, she tore at her fingertips with her teeth, and thus had jagged little razors where pretty, pink nails should lie. Her angular shoulders protruded out in either direction. She hadn’t shed the gangly limbs she fashioned as a child, only now one would describe them as feminine, delicate. She grew her hair long that year mostly because she couldn’t be bothered to cut it. It cascaded down past her shoulders and rested on her hipbones; a specific shade of black, it was the hair of blackberries, as though one had streaked the fruit’s juice down the side of her head leaving trails of red and purple laced amidst the strands. Quin left it uncombed but the abundance of length and shine didn’t call for grooming. She didn’t adorn her face with any makeup either; her pale skin was dusted with a light cluster of freckles and nothing else. She moved through the world as though she were trying to take up as little space as possible. She walked on the tip of her toes, shoulders hunched, head hidden by her hair, and, when she sat, she folded her knees upwards into her chest, arms crossed. Quin’s biological father had left when she was just five. She’d laid her pot belly to the floor and wedged her ear between the crack of the door to listen to her parents’ final fight. She heard words she didn’t understand like ‘sole-custody’ and bad words she was instructed never to repeat like ‘fuck’ and ‘whore’. She’d moved to the window to watch her father’s car pull out of their driveway. She pressed her hand to the glass but he didn’t look up. She never saw him again but tried to call him once when she was eight. Someone hung up the phone on her, however, and she resumed her place in the world as her mother’s accessory. Quin recalled her father’s hands but nothing else. He’d worked in construction and so they were often blistered and dirtied. To Quin, though, they resembled a map of the night sky and she’d connect the constellations while he drifted to his nightly whiskey-induced slumber on the couch. Her mother had fallen into a depression after he’d left and began drinking. Not much, at first. A few glasses of wine a week with dinner. But the effect was a powerful one and a few glasses a week became a few glasses a night. Once in a while became often, and every night came to include every day. Somewhere during her mother’s spiral, Quin discovered her love of books. She’d begun to play adult by nine. She’d taught herself to do the laundry, though the first time, she’d poured in too much washing liquid and bubbles had flooded the wooden floor handing her hours of mopping. She had long since perfected the art of dishwashing, perched atop a kitchen stool so she could reach the sink. She went around their apartment every afternoon after school and collected bottles, struggling to carry the bag full of glass to the curb. Sometimes, she’d brush her mother’s hair while she was asleep on the coffee table and talk to her. She’d tell her about the stories she’d read that week and what she was learning in school. She wasn’t a very social creature, an introvert, and though she didn’t mind spending time alone, she was sensitive to the other children’s taunts. But the teachers often looked out for her, the sweet, bright child whose mother never showed up for parent-teacher conferences. They furrowed their brows in the privacy of the teacher’s lounge in concern, ironically, a mannerism Quin herself would develop. Quin had been indifferent when Carina had decided to marry Grayson. It seemed a good idea to imitate a more typical model of family. Grayson was textbook desirable: wealthy and handsome. Quin’s relationship with him was polite, with an air of professionalism that teetered on cold. She assumed he hadn’t wanted children but had accepted her mother’s kin since he wanted Carina. Once again, she assumed the role of accessory. On December 18th 2002, she listened to the message play out in their living room. Grayson relayed that he was coming home from Europe the following day. Quin deleted the message. She had watched her mother remove all his clothes from their closet to the spare bedroom; an afternoon task that occupied two weeks of her mother’s time. “Are you getting divorced again?” Quin called out after her mother dumped a box of his shoes into the guestroom. “Don’t be stupid,” her mother said. “He just has to pay.” There was a price for the sin of abandonment.
Daily Haiku
In the dark of night I'm brave enough to ask you for the light of day
Internal Reconstruction
I long to modify my muscles to fit into the cracks of sidewalks the cigarette butts will be my comrades the chewing gum, my chums
I yearn to rearrange each bone onto the track of the subway clavicle, fibula, femur one by one as each train does pass
I will reposition every organ in my body and hang them from the city lights kidney, liver, spleen I may even string my veins from pole to pole do you think they’ll glow?
Sever my optic nerve and attach them to your lobes as earrings there, I will always see the world through you and thus will never have to ask to understand
Oblivious to any reconstruction of my internals, You’ll walk all over this city trampling me and not even know it treading over me the way you would a mundane sidewalk crack I’ll turn to the chewing gum for comfort
Excerpt from "Eleuthera"
Few beaches produce pink sand but Eleuthera is among them. Red dye from coral reefs infiltrates the skeletons of sea urchins and when the Atlantic washes it ashore, it mingles with fragmented clams. The coagulation of materials tints the grains a most subtle pink. Gradual is its intensity, the sand is amaranth where the water kisses the shoreline, but farther away becomes pale, sporadic flecks of champagne pink; one could sift through and grasp the individual pale pink grains, while the shoreline’s sand is stained. Jane walked along the shoreline. Her white linen pants rolled to her ankles were wet from the waves but if she noticed, she didn’t care. She walked far down the coast in the early evening sun watching the tide play with her toes. Her destination was a mass of rock towards the end of the strip. She’d climb and perch peering out to the vast blue. It was cyan near the rocks graduating to Catalina, periwinkle streaked, and foam speckled where the waves rushed the rocks. Jane had discovered the mound as a child, when her mother and stepfather bought a second home in Eleuthera. Jane still lived in the same house as she did then, but now she lived there year round and her parents had been replaced with Thomas. She perched on the rock, brushing sand from her kneecaps. She used to dangle her toes from the rocks until Chuck had scared her out of the habit. Chuck taught Marine Biology at the Institute in Nassau and had informed Jane once that twilight brought sharks close to the shoreline. Though Jane had never read of any shark attack on the Island, she found she couldn’t swim in the fading light without her mind playing tricks. Every mass was a threat, every shadow a shark and thus, she never swam past four o’clock. She often played a game when she came there. She’d balance her weight on the rocks and try to find the exact shade of blue to match Thomas’s eyes. She’d only found it once before but its perpetual absence didn’t deter her search. She’d stay for hours some afternoons, breathing in the smell of seaweed and salt; letting it settle in her nostrils, searching for her husband’s eyes.
Raina
She was gifted with light eyes and distrusted the act of worrying. I adored her almost immediately. And most days she deserved it. We’d met the way you might expect two women to meet: shopping at the local farmer’s market. I’d been after the perfect eggplant and she’d been stroking squash. She’d made a clever quip about botany but I’d hardly heard it. I was too distracted with what her mouth might taste like. We’d gotten coffee and found ourselves in her bed three hours later. Two more hours passed before I revealed I had a husband. She’d replied: they always do. Upon my insistence, my husband Scott had agreed to an open marriage. He and I had also agreed that the affairs would be purely physical. I knew by my anticipations for Wednesdays, I’d dented our decree. Alas, guilt didn’t stop my humming while I brushed out my hair, or the application of lavender oil on my freshly shaved legs. Wednesdays were our day- Bree’s and mine. Scott had someone too but per our agreement, I didn’t know who and I didn’t much care. Whatever jealousy we’d been cautious of diluted on the tongues of our respective lovers. I’d walk the twelve blocks to Bree’s apartment and she’d throw down the key from her fire escape. I’d never caught it once. I retrieved the keys this morning from the concrete and unlocked the door. She met me halfway on the stairwell and parted my lips with her tongue in greeting. Her bed, free standing in the middle of her studio flat, was a mere six feet from her front door, but we didn’t make it. We rarely did. The entire fourth wall of her flat was made of glass. I spent hours in her flat just watching the light change. It would sneak into the flat in the early morning in shades of metals: copper, rust, and gold. Sometimes the clouds caused it to fade to salmon and other times it burst to flame. This morning it was the colour of pumpkins and apricots and I wanted to drink the sunbeams.
After we’d made love, she rose to prepare tea. She drank tea all day long and smoked incessantly though I’d rarely seen her eat. Sometimes she cooked dinner for me, strange vegetarian cuisine that I pretended to enjoy while I fantasized about bacon. But she’d only ever taste it before serving it to me. I never asked her about it. We didn’t ask one another much. Which I decided to ask her about this morning. “How come we never ask one another questions?” She lit a match for the stove and placed the kettle on the flame. “I think you just did,” she teased. “Don’t joke. Aren’t you curious about me?” I asked. “Sure, but I suppose I find questions tedious,” she said. She retrieved two mismatched mugs from the cupboard. Nothing in her apartment matched. She had round white plates, oblong beige ones decorated with geometric shapes, and pale pink ones with tiny roses painted around the perimeter. Her silverware was compiled from at least three different sets and all her mugs had words: “Instant Human: Just Add Coffee” or “San Francisco: City by the Bay.” I’d asked her the third time we’d slept together if the Golden Gate Bridge was as beautiful as it looked in pictures. She’d shrugged. I prodded further wondering if she was maybe shy.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been there,” she’d said. “But the mug,” I insisted as though this was an explanation. “It’s just a mug,” she’d said before she kissed me quiet. The kettle went off, whistling loudly. She removed it from the stovetop and poured hot water over her own compilation of herbs. She handed me the steaming mug that smelled of apples. “Sweeten it with a bit of honey,” She instructed. I obliged. As soon as I asked any questions, she’d start in on a silent seduction. Bree always got her way. We always fucked away any possibility for intimacy. This was ideal considering the non-emotional attachment agreement my husband and I held but I found the less she wanted to give, the more I wanted. The more she withheld, the more I greedy I became. “How do you get to know someone then?” I asked squeezing honey into my tea. “What?” She’s pretended she’s already forgotten. She sat down across from me at the table with her own tea, naked, her long dark hair cascading over her breasts. Determined for answers, I focused on her eyes and asked again. “If you find questions tedious, how do you get to know someone?” I felt as though perhaps I appeared awkward, burning my eyes into her head like that, but I knew if I let them wander to her body, we’d abandon the tea to fuck on the table and I couldn’t allow for that sort of interruption. “Questions are not necessary to know someone. Only observation,” she explained in between sips of tea. “Observation?” I repeated. “Yes,” she said while she began to stroke my bare thigh with her foot, slowly. I squirmed under the spell of her touch. “You’re impossible,” I insisted before we pushed the mugs to the side and she lifted my hips onto the table. That afternoon, she lit a fag that we passed back and forth while we watched the sun set into the darkening horizon. I contemplated further instigation momentarily and as though she could read my mind, out of nowhere she said: “Some things in life are just meant to be enjoyed. Analysis is a love affair’s surest death.” I mulled this over for only a moment before shifting my focus to the droplets of salt she’d left behind on my skin, the streamers of light flooding the walls. When it was all over and done with, I wanted something beautiful to remember her by.
Charlotte
She opened the sole window of her flat a quiet Thursday afternoon after making love with a man she hardly knew, though they’d been sleeping together the past six months. It was drizzling against the concrete and the drops laced her knees while she blew smoke from her fag out into the wet city. “It’s been a year, Charlotte. I’d love to take you out,” Davis said. “Out?” She tilted her head backwards like an ingénue in a French film noir, exhaling the smoke between her teeth, poised there in the window, sexual and dramatic. “Yes, out.” He repeated. “Out, where?” She stretched her legs in front of her body. Her legs were long, pale things, delicate and seductive. “I don’t know. A movie, dinner, I could introduce you to my friends. I left my wife, I’m a free man.” “Out?” She repeated. “Yes, Charlotte.” Davis came to the window and kneeled beside her. She blew a ring of exhaled smoke around his head. It streaked past his cheekbones that had aroused her initial interest and evaporated. “I don’t go out.” She flicked the cigarette out the window and disappeared into the bathroom to draw a bath. She did go out, of course. She just wouldn’t go out with him. And she sat now, alone as she liked it, at the Oak Bar running her delicate hands across the wood, tapping her nails in rhythm to the distant beat of the background song. She locked eyes with the bartender who wore a black tie and vest. Turning on the heel of a shined dress shoe, he served complicated drinks that were over priced but delicious; shaved orange peel, cucumber sliced mojitos. He tied cherry knots between his teeth and asked Charlotte “What’s your pleasure?” “My, I usually expect dinner first.” They erupted into laughter and the bartender brought Charlotte a generous double martini extra dry, two olives for the rest of the night. Amused, Charlotte pulled on the end of the satin, black tie. Only two patrons remained at the lonely hour, both drunk, both alone. “You’re too attractive to be a bartender.” Charlotte said. “Looks ain’t got nothing to do with it,” he said. “What’s your name?” “What’s yours?” “Charlotte.” “Care for a smoke, Charlotte.” he outstretched his hand in offering. “I’d love one.” Charlotte smiled and accepted, sashaying her hips while she walked. The bartender lit her fag first and she blew smoke right past his face. “Why haven’t you kissed me yet?” Charlotte asked. Their lips met and he parted Charlotte’s lips gently with his tongue. The fragile nature of the kiss ignited urgency in Charlotte and she pressed herself against the warm contours of his chest. Confused, she pulled her lips away and with one hand remaining on the sculpted chest, she steadied herself with the other. “You’re a woman.” “I am.” “You didn’t tell me.” “You didn’t ask.” “I assumed you were a man.” “Assumptions are dangerous little critters.” Charlotte was dumbfounded. Not because she’d just kissed a woman. She believed in the fluidity of sexuality, always had. But because this woman possessed the masculine energy she believed could only be found in biological men; the lure and attraction, the sexual power. “If you’re angry, I do apologize.” The bartender smiled apologetically. “It’s a very queer area.” She finished as though it were an explanation. “I’m not angry.” Charlotte said dropping her voice to a husky whisper. She pulled the bartender towards her once more by her tie. “Kiss me again.” “But Charlotte, I love you.” Davis pleaded. She stood in the kitchen of his upper eastside apartment, exposed brick above the oven. The house still smelled of the tomatoes he’d sizzled on the stovetop for their dinner, vanilla still lingered from the candles he’d lit for her presence. “I know.” She said. “You know? That’s all you’re going to say?” He shouted. He dropped to his knees and Charlotte was embarrassed for him. “Get up.” She ordered. “No, I won’t. Tell me you love me, I know you do. Just say it, just say we can be together.” She looked around his apartment once more. It was such a lovely and expensive flat. She gathered her coat and purse and turned on her heel. She walked towards the bar where her favourite bartender served; a better lover, more stimulating conversation. I haven’t lost anything, good riddance, Davis, she thought. Still, it was a small shame, she always loved the light that streamed through his windows in the late afternoon.
Little Sterling
Little Sterling. Who is she? A red rocket ragdoll, with a blue wagon and tenacity. Pocket size Mary Jane’s of patent leather, white tights loose around her knees, browned where she’s fallen, scraped her caps against the earth. But she didn’t cry, not my brave little sterling. I watch her play in the dunes grasps her bucket with both hands; afraid someone will steal the plastic pail. Rob her collected seashell treasure. running towards me, pinkened from the sun cooking like a Sunday roast I lick her sweat from my fingertips. I wish to inject the veracity of her shoot up her virtue but instead I wipe her hands with a wet cloth and inhale her peanut butter breath
Skin so pale, it glows against the sand translucent porcelain covered by a blue suit a happy daisy on her belly I see her dancing on my eyelids tiny puckered lips of rosebud red Baby’s breath woven in and out of braids my blushing baby bride in white My little Sterling
You never post anymore?
This is true. Apologies. Basically, I've been writing much longer pieces- full length stories or openings of novels and these sorts of things are not really ideal to post on tumblr due to the length. I also have a few things I hope to get published and thus am not so keen on uploading them here. There were also two cases of my work being stolen and passed off as someone else on this site and that really boiled my blood and scared me off from posting my stuff - thank goodness I have no intention of publishing anything on here. But I'll see if I can't find something to post that I don't much care for.Thanks for reading. x
