Ouroborista

Ouro, late twenties, they/them https://ouroboros.cafe/ the fallen sky is clearing

[faygos]

a crop of a picture of roxy and rose that i'm not 100% satisfied with... but the cropped version is cuter somehow

[homoquartz]

i’ve warmed up significantly towards the concept of small talk ever since i learned that its sole purpose is to make friendly noises.

as long as you smile and nod, people are satisfied. it’s just to show that you are nice and there with good intentions. we’re small in a big world and have to rely on other people to be decent to us. so we do our little human dance to each other to say, “i’m not here to hurt you. here’s something we have in common, like the weather or sports or itchy sweaters, so we both know we’re on the same team. we both agree on a basic fact, like that it is rainy or that being itchy is uncomfortable, and this proves we can get along. i’m being light-hearted and non-threatening right now.”

small talk isn’t to get to know a person. it’s just a greeting to affirm you’re buddies in the universe.

i am motivated by wanting the other person to know i am friendly, so i have gotten pretty decent at small talk when i used to hate it.

[piratedgender]

[themisally]

[amnesiaguy]

so ummm welcome to my jar:) lemme show you around! theres some holes poked in the top so i can breathe, theres some leaves to munch on, and ive even got a twig! #mytwig

[girl-poss]

[verdant-lobotany]

okay, but what if i actually am holier than you?

[verdant-lobotany]

hello, this is SUPER late but i just wanted to say how much i appreciated the companion writing piece you did for my art piece in the 2024-2025 SAHCon zine ;u; i've had a super busy year and i literally just reviewed the zine 10 minutes ago even though it was released back in october 2025 =w=" the dialogue you wrote for the trolls is SO CUTE and it made the piece come to life, and the other pieces of writing you did really enhanced the zine!!! i just wanted to say thank you <3

Heya! No worries I've also been having a string of busy years which is rapidly turning into a busy decade and have yet to figure out what to do about that trend, but it was truly such an honour to get to write for you and the others. They were lovely pieces and I'd have loved to have had more time to do them even more justice. Honestly I was pretty worried about whether what I wrote matched your vision since we didn't really get to communicate, so this is quite reassuring retrospectively. Since there was only one other writer i got to basically take my picks as to which artworks to add little vignettes to (that's also probably the only reason why they let me get away with writing mez's in iambic pentameter) and I immediately had a very clear vision for yours. It ruled. the whole zine ruled. I'd love to work on more like it. So yeah, thank you for the piece. It was a delight to write for!

[verdant-lobotany]

You fools. We do not treat places and objects with reverence because they are sacred. They become sacred by way of being treated with reverence. The choice to exist in service of something is yours to make and you can make it right now about literally anything

[verdant-lobotany]

What Sticks – EpigraMarch Day 31

Please stick with me, will you? come hell or high water come worse than the worst that we've feared Let's stay with the trouble and stick out our necks and be gentle and fearsome and weird

What sticks is the stones and the roads that they're paving what sticks are foundations yet laid But if all else should fail and if nothing remains then what sticks are the friends that we've made

[verdant-lobotany]

Elsewhere – EpigraMarch Day 30

On so many landscapes rise so many sunsets In so many cities: A jumble of words The smells and the noises, the sounds of the subway the people, the crows and the migrating birds

A map in my head uncompleted and aching for elsewhere wherever the here or the now No matter how sacred no matter how pleasant There's light in the distance where margins allow

What else might be hiding behind this here tower? Where else is a spot on which pigeons may perch? Where else is an endlessness waiting to happen? Where else is a garden or sculpture or church?

Then up-close, in person, at ends of each journey the distance has left one more space no less fair Familiar one more little fraction of cosmos and left now to find a new elsewhere elsewhere

[verdant-lobotany]

Find Replace – EpigraMarch Day 29

"Less broken than yesterday" written in fibrin with highest praise and deepest woe on the bug report of a soul mid-theseus

Find Replace Replace again Put shape in head Find flaws find leaks Find shards to fill the driver's seat and kill them when they fall behind Repeat. Report. Rebrand.

A broom replaced in whole still sweeps So what's the damage? Whats the cost? With so much gained and so much lost we slump against that self same wall and bang our heads to the tune of let's get this over with

So find Replace Touch stove Touch base

[verdant-lobotany]

Word of God – EpigraMarch Day 28

Forgive me Lord, for I have sinned have taken names and steps in vain have acted careless, rushed, profane made choices I cannot rescind

We are by fractions born again and hope each time not first nor last the worst be of our follies past and we are wiser now than then

but "then" becomes a distant land and I once more in search of signs distrust each one and draw my lines divining where I ought to stand

and humbled by a dreadful fact: There's no such sign one can't ignore each call is but an open door and one must choose to hear and act

So how to hear and how to choose and how to part the sea of noise and not get lost in lesser joys and how to weather what ensues?

[verdant-lobotany]

Scream – EpigraMarch Day 27

Too frequently I'll knock the wood but never harder only more to summon someone to the door to not be louder than I should

and rarely raise my voice above the level of projected speech to call for someone I must reach and when I do it just sounds off

So I don't think I've ever screamed at anyone for any cause been sharp and hurtful, bared my claws but shouting I'd have never dreamed

Appealing is the abstract thought of screaming at the nightly sky Yet any time I really try the voice is wrong and faint and caught

[verdant-lobotany]

Almanac – EpigraMarch Day 26

Write me an almanac! Write me a story of things going always as planned Inscribe in the orbits of planets a rule and a fate in the grooves of my hand

Write me a world of immaculate clockwork Tell me the days where it rains Tell me where saplings are best to be planted and tell me the cause of my pains

Give me a reason –I don't wish to choose– why this breakfast is better than that And what does it mean for my imminent fate to have spotted in twilight a cat?

Write me an almanac! Give me a guidebook! Dissect every month and each day I've feared for so long and have almost believed that there's dice which just fall as they may

[uraniumcoffee]

I've been noticing lately how at least half of one's capacity to take certain actions is environmental, and almost everything that can influence you (your location, who you're around, the state of your mind and body) counts as an environment

instead of rolling over into determinism, change your environments, learn how to move in them and into them and between them, otherwise you're just nerfing yourself with whatever debuffs come with the current environment, so of course you're stuck in a time loop

[verdant-lobotany]

Yeah, a piece of advice I have to give frequently (and a lot of the time to myself) is that about half of those precious moments of slack/spoons/whatever you want to call it –those moments where you feel enabled to just knuckle down and do something– should not be spent on any object-level task but on sitting down and thinking about how to get more of them in the future. Which things are consistently draining you? What stuff contributed to you currently having some agency? How can you reliably get more of that from your environment? Or if you're unsure: how can you test whether a specific factor matters? This, at least to me, feels terrible. It feels like procrastination, it feels like moments in which I am not doing what I should be, but I have never once been mad at past-me for doing it. If anything I've been mad at them for doing too little of it. Obviously where there are strict deadlines or such: Do the object level thing (Don't invest money you should spend on groceries) and obviously there are benefits to doing some object level things that aren't life-or-death also just to experience yourself as capable of doing things, but unless you are maximally fucked or already hyper-functional to the point of grossly diminishing returns: Use half to change your environment in such a way that your future self won't have to fight quite so hard. You probably aren't completely screwed, there's probably a small bubble around you that you have some control over and it is probably more inhospitable to humans than it could be.

[verdant-lobotany]

High Above – EpigraMarch Day 25

We have built this here tower through genius design and with skill as seen never before Oh but still we shall look –being almost divine– more like ants from the uppermost floor

[verdant-lobotany]

Timeline – EpigraMarch Day 24

At t minus thirteen point seven nine billion: A cosmic insurgence of time At t minus four point six billion our light first condensed from the heavenly grime

Then point one billion later the earth coalesced to a sphere within gravity's strife At t minus four or so billion ago: A process that some might call life

At t minus three point five billion it learned how to capture the might of the sun At t minus one point six billion some cells find a shape as the parts of their sum

Point five we get flora, point three early mammals Point oh six they rise from the dust that left only the birds of those monsters that ruled for the blink of an eyelid the crust

Then point oh one the primates, oh oh two the humans Three ohs and they're mostly like us At oh oh oh oh oh five the first written word just in time, for there's much to discuss

So then what will you do, little bundle of limbs? It is late, I don't mean to offend Roughly t minus nothing a person is born and in less than a moment they'll end

[verdant-lobotany]

What's all this then? – EpigraMarch Day 23

You say it's all over that no one is trying Well what is all this then, you prick? Making those give up hope who were not quite yet lost is the devil's most dastardly trick

Oh the art's past it's peak See the well has run dry Pray tell, what is all this then, you fool? Are you really so dull as to only want more of the stuff that you liked while in school?

And it's all going nowhere and nothing is changing But what is all this then, my friend? There are songs in the wires and eyeballs in orbit and progress we'll have to defend

You ask why is there something when there could be nothing? Why is there moss on the stone? Wherefore get up and live in these desolate times? Oh but why are there flutes made of bone?

[verdant-lobotany]

Form Follows – EpigraMarch Day 22

Form follows function and function demand so all follow freely the market's command

Demand tracks exposure exposure tracks clout Do please get in line to buy in or sell out

Make what they want Make them want what you sell And form follows function to function in hell

A from follows silent each norm and cliché fulfils a desire why else would they pay?