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art IG: cat_daggers // mostly just a page for my favorite writings now

[ryebreadgf]

on adulthood

[sadoeuphemist]

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” said the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back!”

“Be logical,” said the scorpion. “If I stung you I’d certainly drown myself.”

“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Climb aboard, then!” But no sooner than they were halfway across the river, the scorpion stung the frog, and they both began to thrash and drown. “Why on earth did you do that?” the frog said morosely. “Now we’re both going to die.” 

“I can’t help it,” said the scorpion. “It’s my nature.”

___

…But no sooner than they were halfway across the river, the frog felt a subtle motion on its back, and in a panic dived deep beneath the rushing waters, leaving the scorpion to drown.

“It was going to sting me anyway,” muttered the frog, emerging on the other side of the river. “It was inevitable. You all knew it. Everyone knows what those scorpions are like. It was self-defense.”

___

…But no sooner had they cast off from the bank, the frog felt the tip of a stinger pressed lightly against the back of its neck. “What do you think you’re doing?” said the frog.

“Just a precaution,” said the scorpion. “I cannot sting you without drowning. And now, you cannot drown me without being stung. Fair’s fair, isn’t it?”

They swam in silence to the other end of the river, where the scorpion climbed off, leaving the frog fuming.

“After the kindness I showed you!” said the frog. “And you threatened to kill me in return?”

“Kindness?” said the scorpion. “To only invite me on your back after you knew I was defenseless, unable to use my tail without killing myself? My dear frog, I only treated you as I was treated. Your kindness was as poisoned as a scorpion’s sting.”

___

…“Just a precaution,” said the scorpion. “I cannot sting you without drowning. And now, you cannot drown me without being stung. Fair’s fair, isn’t it?”

“You have a point,” the frog acknowledged. “But once we get to dry land, couldn’t you sting me then without repercussion?”

“All I want is to cross the river safely,” said the scorpion. “Once I’m on the other side I would gladly let you be.”

“But I would have to trust you on that,” said the frog. “While you’re pressing a stinger to my neck. By ferrying you to land I’d be be giving up the one deterrent I hold over you.”

“But by the same logic, I can’t possibly withdraw my stinger while we’re still over water,” the scorpion protested.

The frog paused in the middle of the river, treading water. “So, I suppose we’re at an impasse.”

The river rushed around them. The scorpion’s stinger twitched against the frog’s unbroken skin. “I suppose so,” the scorpion said.

___

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Absolutely not!” said the frog, and dived beneath the waters, and so none of them learned anything.

___

A scorpion, being unable to swim, asked a turtle (as in the original Persian version of the fable) to carry it across the river. The turtle readily agreed, and allowed the scorpion aboard its shell. Halfway across, the scorpion gave in to its nature and stung, but failed to penetrate the turtle’s thick shell. The turtle, swimming placidly, failed to notice.

They reached the other side of the river, and parted ways as friends.

___

…Halfway across, the scorpion gave in to its nature and stung, but failed to penetrate the turtle’s thick shell.

The turtle, hearing the tap of the scorpion’s sting, was offended at the scorpion’s ungratefulness. Thankfully, having been granted the powers to both defend itself and to punish evil, the turtle sank beneath the waters and drowned the scorpion out of principle.

___

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” sneered the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back.”

The scorpion pleaded earnestly. “Do you think so little of me? Please, I must cross the river. What would I gain from stinging you? I would only end up drowning myself!”

“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Even a scorpion knows to look out for its own skin. Climb aboard, then!”

But as they forged through the rushing waters, the scorpion grew worried. This frog thinks me a ruthless killer, it thought. Would it not be justified in throwing me off now and ridding the world of me? Why else would it agree to this? Every jostle made the scorpion more and more anxious, until the frog surged forward with a particularly large splash, and in panic the scorpion lashed out with its stinger.

“I knew it,” snarled the frog, as they both thrashed and drowned. “A scorpion cannot change its nature.”

___

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. The frog agreed, but no sooner than they were halfway across the scorpion stung the frog, and they both began to thrash and drown.

“I’ve only myself to blame,” sighed the frog, as they both sank beneath the waters. “You, you’re a scorpion, I couldn’t have expected anything better. But I knew better, and yet I went against my judgement! And now I’ve doomed us both!”

“You couldn’t help it,” said the scorpion mildly. “It’s your nature.” 

___

…“Why on earth did you do that?” the frog said morosely. “Now we’re both going to die.”

“Alas, I was of two natures,” said the scorpion. “One said to gratefully ride your back across the river, and the other said to sting you where you stood. And so both fought, and neither won.” It smiled wistfully. “Ah, it would be nice to be just one thing, wouldn’t it? Unadulterated in nature. Without the capacity for conflict or regret.”

___

“By the way,” said the frog, as they swam, “I’ve been meaning to ask: What’s on the other side of the river?”

“It’s the journey,” said the scorpion. “Not the destination.”

___

…“What’s on the other side of anything?” said the scorpion. “A new beginning.”

___

…”Another scorpion to mate with,” said the scorpion. “And more prey to kill, and more living bodies to poison, and a forthcoming lineage of cruelties that you will be culpable in.”

___

…”Nothing we will live to see, I fear,” said the scorpion. “Already the currents are growing stronger, and the river seems like it shall swallow us both. We surge forward, and the shoreline recedes. But does that mean our striving was in vain?”

___

“I love you,” said the scorpion.

The frog glanced upward. “Do you?”

“Absolutely. Can you imagine the fear of drowning? Of course not. You’re a frog. Might as well be scared of breathing air. And yet here I am, clinging to your back, as the waters rage around us. Isn’t that love? Isn’t that trust? Isn’t that necessity? I could not kill you without killing myself. Are we not inseparable in this?”

The frog swam on, the both of them silent.

___

“I’m so tired,” murmured the frog eventually. “How much further to the other side? I don’t know how long we’ve been swimming. I’ve been treading water. And it’s getting so very dark.”

“Shh,” the scorpion said. “Don’t be afraid.”

The frog’s legs kicked out weakly. “How long has it been? We’re lost. We’re lost! We’re doomed to be cast about the waters forever. There is no land. There’s nothing on the other side, don’t you see!”

“Shh, shh,” said the scorpion. “My venom is a hallucinogenic. Beneath its surface, the river is endlessly deep, its currents carrying many things.” 

“You - You’ve killed us both,” said the frog, and began to laugh deliriously. “Is this - is this what it’s like to drown?” 

“We’ve killed each other,” said the scorpion soothingly. “My venom in my glands now pulsing through your veins, the waters of your birthing pool suffusing my lungs. We are engulfing each other now, drowning in each other. I am breathless. Do you feel it? Do you feel my sting pierced through your heart?”

“What a foolish thing to do,” murmured the frog. “No logic. No logic to it at all.”

“We couldn’t help it,” whispered the scorpion. “It’s our natures. Why else does anything in the world happen? Because we were made for this from birth, darling, every moment inexplicable and inevitable. What a crazy thing it is to fall in love, and yet - It’s all our fault! We are both blameless. We’re together now, darling. It couldn’t have happened any other way.”

___

“It’s funny,” said the frog. “I can’t say that I trust you, really. Or that I even think very much of you and that nasty little stinger of yours to begin with. But I’m doing this for you regardless. It’s strange, isn’t it? It’s strange. Why would I do this? I want to help you, want to go out of my way to help you. I let you climb right onto my back! Now, whyever would I go and do a foolish thing like that?”

___

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” said the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back!”

“Be logical,” said the scorpion. “If I stung you I’d certainly drown myself.”  

“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Come aboard, then!” But no sooner had the scorpion mounted the frog’s back than it began to sting, repeatedly, while still safely on the river’s bank.

The frog groaned, thrashing weakly as the venom coursed through its veins, beginning to liquefy its flesh. “Ah,” it muttered. “For some reason I never considered this possibility.”

“Because you were never scared of me,” the scorpion whispered in its ear. “You were never scared of dying. In a past life you wore a shell and sat in judgement. And then you were reborn: soft-skinned, swift, unburdened, as new and vulnerable as a child, moving anew through a world of children. How could anyone ever be cruel, you thought, seeing the precariousness of it all?” The scorpion bowed its head and drank. “How could anyone kill you without killing themselves?”

[germaphrodite]

Oh minutehand, teach me how to hold my love like thirst holds water. Let every river envy our mouths. Let every kiss hit the body like a season. Where apples thunder the earth with red hooves & the field shreds itself with cricket cries.

[germaphrodite]

Rain is dusk: a blade of honey between our shadows, draining. I won’t be afraid if I’m already here. Already more than a skin can hold. That a body beside a body can make a field grass full of ticking, and sometimes I am still lying in the field, and some days you ask me to say autumn, despite the green in your eyes. Beauty despite daylight. Say surrender. Say alabaster. Switchblade. Say you’d kill for it, an unbreakable dawn mounting in your throat. A sparrow thrashing beneath you, stunned with falling. Honeysuckle. Goldenrod. Say autumn.

[clementinevonradics]

“in front of my mother and my sisters, i pretend love is cheap and vulgar. i act like it’s a sin– i pretend that love is for women on a dark path. but at night i dream of a love so heavy it makes my spine throb– i dream up a lover who makes love like he is separating salt from water.”

— Salma Deera, “salt”  (via virgoassbitch)

[fatespalm]

thinking about the time-demon who never told me their name who told me something like, “it’s time to go back now,” but i kept wandering the not-house until i met carnation, the dream-demon who was going to swallow my cat if i didn’t wake up, and i haven’t since wandered through houses i used to live with endless corridors and hidden rooms and wings and hidden rooms and wings hidden within them

[swampmaiden-deactivated20150305]

you see a tiny sign planted in the ground. bending down to read, you just make out, in impossibly tiny script "a mundane clump of dirt; much beloved by god, like any other"

[aeide-thea]

@elucubrare

[jacopo-belbo]

[elucubrare]

#the last line of the poem isn’t “there will be no other end of the world” #the last line of the poem is “warsaw‚ 1944”

[notquiteaghost]

[image text is the poem ‘a song on the end of the world’ by czeslaw milosz, translator uncredited]

[bostonpoetryslam]

via the Academy of American Poets

[aliceingrains]

signs of an approaching tornado:

your mouth inexplicably fills with rainwater

the creaks that sneak out of your stairs when you walk down them are suddenly short bursts of a siren only you can hear

the sunlight comes in from odd angles lighting up everything you didn’t want to see

your ceiling gets as dark and thick as thunder clouds

you open your cabinets to find only hail golf ball sized spilling onto your floor

everyone decides to go to church instead of down to their basement

it seems like your neighbor has been mowing his lawn for hours maybe days

the corn is whispering more than usual

you can’t understand anything the weatherman is saying but when you look through your neighbors’ windows you notice they’re glued to their screens reciting every word of the forecast as if they already knew

the air turns yellow green and when you look into a mirror you find that the color has stained your own skin

it gets so humid you start to choke

there are terrifying noises in the middle of the night and you tell yourself it’s just the old abandoned barns succumbing to the high winds

as you drive out on the highway trying to escape you keep passing the same billboard

HELL IS REAL

you can’t figure out how you keep passing the same billboard if you’re driving in a straight line

there’s something in the air, a new kind of precipitation, old white paint chips signal that decay is approaching faster than you thought

you forget what rain smells like and the air gets stale like your dad’s breath after a couple of beers

don’t worry the farmer’s market is still open

there’s less roadkill than usual, death is busy with more pressing engagements during a natural disaster

the canadian geese stand in the middle of a field as if they’ll never move again

when the tornado finally comes, you forget all your prayers and only wind spills out of your mouth

[angstravaganza-blog]

“At 13, my most sustaining relations were not in the human world. I collected stones- red, green, gray, rust, white speckled with black, black streaked with silver- and kept them in my pockets, their hard surfaces warming slowly to my body heat. Spent long days at the river learning what I could from the salmon, frogs, and salamanders. Roamed the beaches at high tide and low, starfish, mussels, barnacles clinging to the rocks. Wandered in the hills thick with moss, fern, liverwort, bramble, tree. Only here did I have a sense of body. Those stones warm in my pockets, I knew them to be the steadiest, only untouched parts of myself. I wanted to be a hermit, to live alone with my stones and trees, neither a boy nor a girl. And now 20 years later, how do I reach beneath the skin to write, not about the stones, but the body that warmed them, the heat itself?”

— Eli Clare, Exile and Pride

[lifeinpoetry]

Studies suggest How may I help you officer? is the single most disarming thing to say and not What’s the problem? Studies suggest it’s best the help reply My pleasure and not No problem. Studies suggest it’s best not to mention problem in front of power even to say there is none. Gloria Steinem says women lose power as they age and yet the loudest voice in my head is my mother. Studies show the mother we have in mind isn’t the mother that exists. Mine says: What the fuck are you crying for? Studies show the baby monkey will pick the fake monkey with fake fur over the furless wire monkey with milk, without contest. Studies show to negate something is to think it anyway. I’m not sad. I’m not sad. Studies recommend regular expressions of gratitude and internal check-ins. Enough, the wire mother says. History is a kind of study. History says we forgave the executioner. Before we mopped the blood we asked: Lord Judge, have I executed well? Studies suggest yes. What the fuck are you crying for, officer? the wire mother teaches me to say, while studies suggest Solmaz, have you thanked your executioner today?

— Solmaz Sharif, “Social Skills Training,” published in Buzzfeed

[weltenwellen]

E.E. Cummings, Complete Poems, 1904-1962

[wellconstructedsentences]

“I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees. All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around me, the insects, and the birds who do their work in the darkness. All night I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom. By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better.”

— Sleeping in the Forest by Mary Oliver

[weltenwellen]

Tracy K. Smith, from “Don’t You Wonder, Sometimes?”, Life on Mars

[kafk-a]

I think about this poem all the time.

[geopsych]

‘I breathe in the soft, saturated exhalations of cedar trees and salmonberry bushes, fireweed and wood fern, marsh hawks and meadow voles, marten and harbor seal and blacktail deer. I breathe in the same particles of air that made songs in the throats of hermit thrushes and gave voices to humpback whales, the same particles of air that lifted the wings of bald eagles and buzzed in the flight of hummingbirds, the same particles of air that rushed over the sea in storms, whirled in high mountain snows, whistled across the poles, and whispered through lush equatorial gardens…air that has passed continually through life on earth. I breathe it in, pass it on, share it in equal measure with billions of other living things, endlessly, infinitely.’

Richard Nelson, ‘The Island Within’.

Saw this somewhere and thought it belongs here. People act like we’re not connected, but we’re all breathing and rebreathing and living within the same air.