#30 for 30 poetry

[queercarolina]

Writing a Book is Like Cooking a Quesadilla

It’s hard to make anything delicious without getting burned (out).

Not very long ago, I was terrible at making quesadillas, just as I was terrible once at writing books. It is arguable whether my quesadillas or books are up to snuff these days, but at least I find both delightful to consume. They have risen to the level of my taste.

Here’s what I learned about making quesadillas.

But then I started to experiment with that temperature, fluctuating between medium and medium-high heat, and eventually I developed a process to make what I felt was a perfect quesadilla.

You cannot rush your creativity. You cannot simply turn the heat to the highest degree and hope your quesadilla will cook faster. You’ll end up getting burnt or quickly burned out.

Of course, there are challenges, like writing sprints and NaNoWriMo and 30/30 during National Poetry Month, that provoke you to produce loads of work in a short period of time. But the pace at which you take those challenges is rarely sustainable, especially for working writers, writers with kids, or writers still in school.

This is me giving you permission to turn down the heat.

Slow down!

Practice patience, and your book will be the perfect, gooey, crispy deliciousness of which you’ve always dreamed.

[sadmages]

Durge thoughts

[maybeyoullfindthissomeday]

Inamorata

If wanton desire condemns me, or you, or us, then let us be damned to our hearts' delight; let us experience what feels so right. Permit our hungers which were once entombed to tear the seams of latency and rupture through, to re-teach our fingers how to discover every square inch of indulgent skin. Allow our bodies to satisfy silent screams for carnal relief and swiftly impose the most sensual of sensory overloads. Concede to our need to emanate this lust in the most salacious form of touch. And though you believe it not to be a sin, I'll certainly be your repeat offender, because, my love, you've easily won... my complete surrender.

[cha-mij]

Apparently I'm a dragonfly.

Darting wings of manganese

Fly solo ‘mongst the swarm

Other colours pair, or blend

And twirl, and dance, conform.

 

To outmoded convention

Of What “always has been”

Ignoring the wings that

Circle freely, unseen.

 

Others purples have entered

The kaleidoscope dance

In harmonic singularity

Meeting only by chance

While the bonded wings dance

Their coupling operation

Their solitary companions

Fear no infatuation

 

Instead they dance together

A gamble of kinship

Purple dragonflies happy

No desire for courtship.

[writingsforwinter]

For Women Who Fear Turning 30

If the Internet works as the Internet does,        

you would believe this was the year

you were destined to become ugly.

That the plates would shift,

the wind would change,

the endlessness of the world

would become a little shorter.

But, it’s primordial, almost—

the ways we reshape

what we’ve been shaping the same way

all the time. 

Not everything is about what we carry forward:

your life can be about your life

and not the hypothetical one

you keep being asked

about bringing from your own.

Sometimes, the light looks different—

coordinates, stars. A fullness, a lantern

at the end of a party, the edge of a glass

in the kitchen. The garden will grow

where the garden will grow.

If you wake tomorrow tangled 

in a stranger’s sheets, everything is fine.

If you haven’t bought a home, everything is fine.

If all of this seems to be moving

both forward and backward at the same time,

everything is fine.

What you have will still be there in the morning:

your name, a book, the clock, that storm.

Your car is parked just where you left it,

the moon still blue.

Everything is quiet. Nothing has changed.

[kiisuuumii]

@kiisuuumii (doomsday)

[kinardsevan]

30 days of fluff challenge: day fifteen

(yeah I took yesterday off. July has 31 days lol)

"buying each other a book"

Evan bounces on his heels in front of Tommy as he holds the bag in his hands. They’d gone on a bookstore date (at two different stores because there was no way Evan would’ve refrained from cheating if they hadn’t) and now that they were back home, he didn’t know what he was more excited for: what Tommy was going to give him, or what he had picked out for Tommy.

For him, it had been a process. He knew Tommy liked machinery, but buying a book about car engines or helicopters felt too easy. It also felt too easy to go into the romance section and find something that would feed his interests in romantic comedies. So instead, Evan had found himself in the poetry section, flipping through books until he found one that he felt met the same ideals that he could relate to. After all, it was supposed to be a gift, right? Something that told Tommy that he was thinking about him? 

“You really can’t hold on to gifts for even a second, can you,” Tommy teases as he settles his bag on the table. 

Evan shakes his head, completely unabashed with the smile on his face. “Not with you,” he mutters back. 

Tommy tilts his head at him, a fond smile crossing his face before he leans across the space and kisses Evan softly. Evan sighs into it, lifts his free hand to Tommy’s shoulder, holding him close for a moment before they part back into their spaces. 

“Okay, well me first,” Tommy says when he’s managed to reign his thoughts back in. He nudges his bag forward on the table. “I, uh, I wasn’t sure what to get, but I found this and thought you might be interested.” 

Evan settles his own bag on the table and reaches for Tommy’s, pulling the stuffed tissue paper out. He pulls the book out afterwards, flipping it over and gazing at the summary. 

“I know you like reading about self-help and relationships,” Tommy says nervously. 

Evan shakes his head, looking back up at him a moment later with a smile still on his face. “No, this looks good. I want to read it.” 

Tommy nods then, albeit a bit nervously. 

Evan sets the book down after a moment of flipping through it, and reaches for the bag he brought. He presents it to Tommy like an offering. 

“I went a little off-script,” he admits, watching nervously as his boyfriend takes the bag and peers inside of it. After a tick, he reaches into the bag and pulls the book out, looking at the cover. It’s black and white with a line drawing on it, clearly not giving much more in the way of what the book is about. 

“I got a bookmark,” Evan says, gesturing the one sticking out of the book. “Marked what made me think of you.” 

Tommy glances up at him briefly, and then back down, opening the book up to where the bookmark is placed. As his eyes skim the first line, his free hand reaches for Evan’s, holding his fingers as he starts to read it out loud. 

“I never wanted to be your first choice being your first choice implies that there is a second choice I wanted to be your only choice

for once I wanted someone to be so sure of me  that everything else disappears” 

Tommy’s eyes keep skimming the words on the page, completely enamored by the level of thought put into the gift. 

“I saw that and I ju-, I…I don’t know. I related to it,” Evan tells him softly, nervously. “It made me think about all of our pillow talk. All the conversations in the dark and late night confessions, and I just…I-I felt like that was someone else finding a way to say it, in black and white, in a way that I could give to you.” 

Tommy nods wordlessly, finally closing the book a moment later as he looks up at Evan again. He doesn’t speak, and the nerves it leaves Evan with are exploding inside of him as he stands there, waiting. But then Tommy brings his free hand to Evan’s face, fingers curled around the back of his neck as he steps into the space between them once more and kisses him, open-mouthed and fully. Evan’s hand finds Tommy’s wrist, holding on tightly as he leans into him, presses his body flush against Tommy’s. 

When they finally break apart, Evan is breathless. He stares at Tommy with that same deer-in-headlights half-smlie, completely taken by the moment. 

Tommy shakes the book lightly in his hand, glancing down at it and then back up at Evan.

“This is everything,” he rasps, giving small nods. He drops another chaste kiss on Evan’s lips quickly before enveloping him in a warm, tight hug. “Thank you.” 

(Tommy's purchase for Evan was To Be Loved by Frank Anderson. I've never read it, but it feels like they would both enjoy it, based on the summary. Evan's purchase for Tommy is Whitney Hanson's Climate book of poetry.)

[lovethytendytenderly]

Thnks Fr Th Mmrs by Fall Out Boy // an edit a day til penguins hockey, a countdown (day 1)

x x

[pencap]

GREEN

i am green green green down to my breath and blood and bones.

green with envy for all the beautiful things in the world that i cannot hold in my hands or press against my lips or swallow down whole.

green with sick all festering hurts i don't know how to heal and spreading poison i don't know the antidote for and hand-me-down aches i don't know the names of.

green with greed, the yawning void deep in my belly that wants and wants and wants and wants and wants from the day i was born screaming with want.

green with permission: yes please, come here, do as you please. i never did learn how to say no and mean it.

green like plants, like spring growth and summer leaves like basil and mint on kitchen counter tops like haworthia and pothos and monstera.

i am green green green down to my breath and blood and bones—

but maybe someday i will learn to hold the whole rainbow in my body.

- by sylvie (j.p.)

[slamrink]

- I've been blossoming alone over you

Mitski, “Pink in the Night” / jhart / Yahoo Sports / Billie Eilish, “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” / X / Delaware Online / Sports Illustrated College  / Hanif Abdurraqib, “In This Scene” / ESPN / New York Post / jalenbrunson1 / New York Post / jhart / Yahoo Sports / New York Post / New York Magazine / Getty / Getty / “Like a Kennedy” by @yaerine / Taylor Swift, “Gold Rush” /  Mary Oliver, “Thirst” / Athlon Sports

inspired by this heartwrenching (yet lovely) web weave by @novaknicks 

tried to source all the images but the ones that aren’t linked are probably ones I saw on @abruiseblue @comebckszn @cazluvsu @simplechange blogs so thank y’all !! and credit to thee sports rpf bible @its-always-silly-season for the poems and general lore im not even a nyk fan but I do have a soft spot in my heart for dubs legend donte divincenzo which by extension includes his bfs now lol. wishing him well in minny or wherever he ends up ! 💌

[binglepringle]

Huh

Huh.

(For context, this was about Paris Paloma’s song, Labour, which is about the unfair treatment of women in society; both comments were found on a post with Dick Grayson and Jason Todd with the song “The Fruits” also by Paloma, which is about how unfairly society perceives/treats women regarding SA.)

*please leave the posters alone btw this is not meant to be an attack or anything*

[vossn]

"Of course, it is strange to inhabit the earth no longer, to give up customs one barely had time to learn, not to see roses and other promising things in terms of a human future; no longer to be what one was in infinitely anxious hands; to leave even one's own first name behind, forgetting it as easily as a child abandons a broken toy. Strange to no longer desire one's desires. Strange to see meanings that clung together once, floating away in every direction. And being dead is hard work and full of retrieval before one can gradually feel a trace of eternity."

Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies, The First Elegy

[dat-anime-potato]

felt rlly emo 2day (always do.), doodled a bit and wrote/read some poetry, listened to music and felt some intense feelings about things.... my headphones broke :( and i ran out of candy... honestly not the worst things to ever happen but its about the small things, isn't it? im probably also having caffeine withdrawal 'cause i ran out of monster too... augh. I'll be fine but going shopping means being around people (again) and i don't think i can handle that right now... i guess I'll just have to deal with it, whatever i decide to do. (or c✂️t abt it l8tr... lol)

[sfsolstice]

exurb1a, from "Inventory" in Poems for the Lost Because I'm Lost Too

[lemongogo]

why do i love the conflict more than anything else . the misery . the incompatibility that spreads like oil slick . wanting so desperately for resolution that never comes . hmmm

[butchniqabi]

over mountains

over rocks and rivers and ravines

through it all i shall carry

you

you who shares my

father's blood

and the water of my mother's womb

who could gaze into the

eyes of death and

still move forward

you who

with blood upon your hands

were still a righteous man

who had killed

but never murdered

who had slain beasts

but never kin

you

my brother

(are you still my brother?)

who smiled instead of

weeping when you graced the earth

whose blood i cannot

wash from beneath my nails

whose serenity when

facing my wrath

haunts me

whose body upon my

back weighs heavy

rotting and foul

for you are the first careless

death

your bones will not

become tools

your dark hair shall not

be woven into cloth

it will not adorn our home

nor decorate

our bodies

i must commit you to the earth

as i would a seed

for a crow has shown me

what must be done to the wasted dead

as it tears through the

earth to create a space

for its own slain kin

and i can only hope, brother

(are you my brother?)

that something shall come

from what i have sown

that something

anything

graces this overturned earth

where you now lay

-Qabil Reflects Upon the Death of Habil by Amatullah Bourdon