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[smiles-of-strangers]

On being glorified

These days I feel more like a faerie than a woman. I am skittish to closeness, sticking close to the foliage and hiding my wings when eyes are cast my way.

I am elusive and evasive, considered a mystery to those who know of me; an enigma, or a question or riddle with answers tucked away somewhere deep. If you were to catch me and shake me, would those answers fall from me like pixie dust? Would you see that it is only the dandruff a woman could produce? That I am no fantastical thing at all? And what of my inherit plainness? Would you see the shallowness of my eyes and frown? Would my lacklustre skin have you turn your nose up? Would you see that my wings are only a trick of the light, and that my size isn’t so unordinary at all? What might you say should you realize I am only a mundane creature?

[smiles-of-strangers]

Chewed up by nothing,

My heart aches and pulls--

Like fastened hands on curtain strings;

Tugging at your robe

I gnaw on lovesick fodder,

Consequence; unknown,

Till eyes withdraw and arms recede,

My heart has turned to stone

[smiles-of-strangers]

I am the child of Pan, raised by nymphs and woodland beasts

I crawled the edge of Tartarus, and drank from muddied waters

Before Nyx bathed me, her daughters singed the fringes of my soul

You, borne of Olympia’s glory, might as well have been his very bolt

Stricken with brilliance, walking with the likeness of that great father

We knew not of each other’s worlds, only of the winds once shared

But I am the child of Pan, and you, Olympia’s glory

It is only natural that your love was fitted for a priestess

[smiles-of-strangers]

I am the fool's card, and you, the sun

How I would turn the sky upside right if only to feel your scorn

[smiles-of-strangers]

God is in my bathroom,

There where I am alone,

Where I tend to my body,

Where I cleanse without worry of prying eyes,

There where I cry,

Where I witness myself,

Where I lie under running water,

Where sunlight spills from the small window;

This is where God resides

[smiles-of-strangers]

Sometimes I can’t look at myself

Other times I can do nothing but look at myself.

But times like this, I am enraptured by the world around me

My breast bursts with unspoken words and unknown colours

My head is clear and free from thoughts

And I can do nothing but cry and laugh and smile at everything.

I am enlivened, and consumed by the unspoken magic of Being

The veil is lifted from my eyes and I feel with every fibre the beauty in all

And I can do nothing but surrender to this perfection,

For even in the sorrow, or the smudges, or the gloom, I feel its place.

At times like this, when I am devastated by the beauty of Being, I understand so well how one can throw themselves into the sea.

[smiles-of-strangers]

Forget this so-called Athena!--

To hell with the cults of Aphrodite!--

Make me a maenad in this modern world!

Rationale is a half-truth!--

Beauty a half-lie!

Return me to the fullness of nature; of life!

In logic, I weep!

In gravity, imprisoned!

Make me a prancing maenad!

Hysterics! Hysterics! Oh how underrated!

What use are teeth in suburbs?

What use is wind to cogs?

What is laughter to logic?

-- And sense to thought?

Make me a maenad against the odds,

Oh, to be a maenad!

[smiles-of-strangers]

Under knitted brows, there is a storm.

What can I force from this mouth that might move mountains, but won’t shatter glass?

Waves crash against the sides; within my mind, I am nearly thrown overboard.

With lightless eyes, I stare through knitted brows; under which there hides a storm.

[smiles-of-strangers]

False womb

I am red like the monthly reminder

that one day will come where I will expire

Premature since it is only my worth;

to many that's lost before I leave this earth

I am red like the stains I left on your sheets

Like each word you typed out and carved into me

I am red like the flesh, all of whom desire

Writ out in lies, for it's bound to expire

[smiles-of-strangers]

The Most Detailed Images of the Moon ever (2023)

Photographer Darya Kawa stacked (133,000) frames and 147GB worth of data to achieve this. I've been working on this project since 4 days ago. This image takes up to 22 hours of editing and stacking since the amount of data was so massive.

Kawa took almost a quarter million frames (231,000) and i spend unimaginable amount of work over the course of 3 weeks to process and stack all the data which was equivalent to 313 GB.

[smiles-of-strangers]

untitled by brandonfwilson on Flickr.

[smiles-of-strangers]

The Infinity Room at The Broad Museum in Los Angeles, California, United States. Created by designer Yayoi Kusama.

(Source)

[smiles-of-strangers]

Kintsugi

Think of a broken bowl. One casts its edges in gold to repair it, and now it has beautiful ribbons where once there was fracture. Without the act of breaking, there cannot be such beauty. 

[smiles-of-strangers]

Butterfly nebula

The star or stars at its center are responsible for the nebula's appearance. In their death throes, they have cast off layers of gas periodically over the past couple thousand years. The "wings" of NGC 6302 are regions of gas heated to more than 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit that are tearing across space at more than 600,000 miles an hour.

NGC 6302 lies between 2,500 and 3,800 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius.

Credit: NASA, ESA, Joel Kastner (RIT)

[smiles-of-strangers]

Gratitude

A gentle thought, like autumn's grace,

Befalleth me in tender night,

As careful knit’ a noble lace;

As lovely a’Festivus light.

Thy act hath bloomed--

A grateful heart,

So dear a moment,

That shineth bright.

O’words-- a reach,

Into mine thanks,

Such depths they fail;

Here to recite

[smiles-of-strangers]

A reflection is a dreadful thing

if you're not who you thought you'd be

Like a song unsung,

A stillborn dream,

An unfilled memory