i never watch the stars

kaitlyn; she/her not everybody gets to live a life that isn't dangerous

[future-crab]

Cutting to Persephone on the line “a lot of spirits gotta break to make the underworld go round”…….. devious.

[olympain]

Mr. Hades is a mighty king Must be making some mighty big deals Seems like he owns everything Kind of makes you wonder how it feels

[ambersephone]

ten years apart 😭

[ambersephone]

we saw you from across the bar and hated your vibe

[bettyrightnow]

he’s an unreliable narrator TO YOU. i believe him

[prinz-myshkin]

Bothersome beast, comforting friend

[paancakeenthusiast]

Romoine nation how we feelinnn! This is my entry for the lovely @toorumlk ‘s dtiys! Thought I’d post it here too hehe

[daenerys-targaryen]

we dumped tea into the harbor for less

[petaltexturedskies]

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

Mary Oliver, wild geese

[somuchdownhere]

“This Is Why People Burning Down Fast Food Joints and Whatnot” by Jacqueline Allen Trimble

Q. How do others sin against you? A. By cursing me—telling lies about me—or striking me. Q. What must you do to those who thus sin against you? A. I must forgive them.*

See, I learned my catechism well. Learned to offer my cloak and coat, my cheek again and again as the skin was splayed from my body. I can quote Martin Luther King Jr. with ease, praise the Americana of his martyrdom, the sweet, unselfish beauty of that bullet’s velocity. Shall I sing “We Shall Overcome” while I swing? I have wanted so long to believe in justice, to think of each blow as recompense for my wickedness. How can I continue? How can I continue? How can I continue to take and eat this image of myself, choke on the eloquence of my dissent, speak love fluently to someone with his knee on my neck, his bullet in my child?

*A Catechism, to Be Taught Orally to Those Who Cannot Read; Designed Especially for the Instruction of the Slaves in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States.

Source: Poetry (July/August 2021)

[somuchdownhere]

[somuchdownhere]

“The End of August” by David Budbill

“I am overtired / Of the great harvest I myself desired.” —Robert Frost

It’s the end of August and I’m tired.

The garden is tired. The grass is tired.

Everything is tired. We’ve all had

too much summer.

Bring on the cold. Bring on the frost.

Bring on all that death and destruction.

Let’s have some quiet and some peace.

Let us rest. Give us emptiness.

[somuchdownhere]

“Cleopatra” by The Lumineers

I was Cleopatra, I was young and an actress When you knelt by my mattress, and asked for my hand But I was sad you asked it, as I laid in a black dress With my father in a casket, I had no plans

And I left the footprints, the mud stained on the carpet And it hardened like my heart did when you left town But I must admit it, that I would marry you in an instant Damn your wife, I'd be your mistress just to have you around But I was late for this, late for that, late for the love of my life And when I die alone, when I die alone, when I die I'll be on time

While the church discouraged, any lust that burned within me Yes my flesh, it was my currency, but I held true So I drive a taxi, and the traffic distracts me From the strangers in my backseat, they remind me of you

But I was late for this, late for that, late for the love of my life And when I die alone, when I die alone, when I die I'll be on time

And the only gifts from my Lord were a birth and a divorce But I've read this script and the costume fits, so I'll play my part

I was Cleopatra, I was taller than the rafters But that's all in the past now, gone with the wind Now a nurse in white shoes leads me back to my guestroom It's a bed and a bathroom And a place for the end

I won't be late for this, late for that, late for the love of my life And when I die alone, when I die alone, when I die I'll be on time

[somuchdownhere]

“It’s Been Five Months Since I’ve Touched Another Body” by Naffisatou Koulibaly

It’s been five months since I’ve touched another body And I’m afraid these four walls will be the last place I exist.

Who will be the first to notice? Will it be the dog catching the scent? I can see her now: grey and lopsided, clobbering over to the sliding glass door, staring out into the black winter and croaking. That’s how close things have gotten—the dog is the only one who knows the cavity desire claws in my chest, the lump of sound that sits in the base of my throat.

I’m beginning to forget the sound of my own voice. Most days I don’t speak out loud unless it is to thank the barista for my drink. Or, sometimes, my mother catches me in the kitchen and I nod and “mhm” my way through whatever she is saying.

I am beginning to slip right off the edge of the world’s steepest cliffs. I used to want to be cremated, but, now, I think I’d like to be buries at the bottom of the ocean—where I could scream and know it’ll never make it to the surface, where the darkness is a creature of its own and wants nothing more than something warm to hold.

I don’t know what I’m waiting for anymore. I don’t know who I’m expecting to come to the door.

Nobody comes. No, nobody comes.

[somuchdownhere]

“Scary Movies” by Kim Addonizio

Today the cloud shapes are terrifying,   and I keep expecting some enormous   black-and-white B-movie Cyclops   to appear at the edge of the horizon, to come striding over the ocean   and drag me from my kitchen   to the deep cave that flickered   into my young brain one Saturday at the Baronet Theater where I sat helpless   between my older brothers, pumped up   on candy and horror—that cave, the litter of human bones gnawed on and flung toward the entrance,   I can smell their stench as clearly as the bacon fat from breakfast. This   is how it feels to lose it— not sanity, I mean, but whatever it is   that helps you get up in the morning and actually leave the house on those days when it seems like death in his brown uniform is cruising his panel truck of packages through your neighborhood.   I think of a friend’s voice on her answering machine— Hi, I’m not here— the morning of her funeral,   the calls filling up the tape and the mail still arriving, and I feel as afraid as I was after all those vampire movies   when I’d come home and lie awake all night, rigid in my bed, unable to get up even to pee because the undead   were waiting underneath it; if I so much as stuck a bare foot out there in the unprotected air   they’d grab me by the ankle and pull me   under. And my parents said there was nothing there, when I was older   I would know better, and now   they’re dead, and I’m older,   and I know better.

[somuchdownhere]

“America is a Gun” by Brian Bilston

England is a cup of tea. France, a wheel of ripened brie. Greece, a short, squat olive tree. America is a gun.

Brazil is football on the sand. Argentina, Maradona's hand. Germany, an oompah band. America is a gun.

Holland is a wooden shoe. Hungary, a goulash stew. Australia, a kangaroo. America is a gun.

Japan is a thermal spring. Scotland is a highland fling. Oh, better to be anything than America as a gun.

[bottlecap-press]

From Kimmy Walters’ book, Killer, available at https://bottlecap.press/products/killer-by-kimmy-walters