#Behind the Scenes Poetry

[thtgirlsmind]

Instagram: @thtgirlsmind

[jarofalicesgrunge]

Alice In Chains for Live Wire Mag, March 1996.

[vikramsharma007]

[xxharleyquinnxx]

Puddin and me ❤️🖤❤️🖤

[ticklingtimetickstotest]

Everything and everyone has a story.

[twiishaa]

what is life for if not for typing up your english homework while listening to vocaloid which is 100% distracting you

[behindthelyrics-jannadecierto]

A love to good to be true

Inside the Lyrics

I originally wrote "Fairytale" back in July 2023, when I was just starting to get back into producing music. I had the idea to create a fun and romantic song that would be easy to add instruments to. At that time, the song wasn't intended for anyone in particular; I was simply writing it during my previous relationship without thinking much of the lyrics.

The song narrates the story of having a guy come into your life and suddenly everything changes. Despite the excitement, there's always a doubt lingering in the back of your mind, saying, "This is too good to be true." While you remain uncertain, the guy proves his genuineness as the song progresses. By the end of the song, the thought, "Could this be MY happy ending?" sticks with me. After all, don’t we all dream of having our own prince charming and fairytale?

Fast forward to June 2024, I was remaking the instrumental for "Fairytale" when I met someone new who seemed too good to be true, just like in the song. It's pretty ironic, considering I wrote this the year prior, not knowing how closely it would align with my own experiences a year later.

[fideidefenswhore]

The double standards for Anne and Mary compared to Jane and Mary always baffles me. So when Anne prioritizes her own child and safety she's a bitch, but when Jane does the exact same thing (when her child doesn't even exist yet) it's not only ok, it's ignored. Because thinking about it breaks the saccharine love show people are weirdly invested in. Anne fighting for Elizabeth's rights is treated like it doesn't matter, or played down completely to pretend she only wanted Mary recognizing her marriage because she's......evil? Idk. And she got a kick out of it? But Mary needing to do it for Jane is....ok? Right? Fair? It makes no sense when Mary fights against recognizing Anne she's so brave and her stans are outraged she ever be expected to "lower herself" but when she gives in later it's no big deal Henry and Jane demanding it? And whatever Mary went through during Anne's time was the sickest cruelty and all what Anne planned, but with Jane, it never happened, or it's suddenly all Henry and Jane.....was too nice to stand up to him? It's like Mary accepting she's illegitimate is horrific when it's for Anne but some boring i-am-not-a-robot check box task she's we've gotta get out the way when it's for Jane. Like if Mary had gone on resisting do they think Jane would've been cool with it?

Well, we don't really know if "Jane demanded it", actually given the contemporary evidence that seems unlikely (although tbf it's murky...in May 1536 Chapuys claims she's actually argued for Mary's total restoration, but in June 1536 there's another report from another source that she 'begged [the King] on her knees five times' to not arrest Mary--not 'restore her'-- which is often conflated with the former to do the same, by July 1536 Chapuys claims all she’s done is beg Henry not to arrest Mary, not restore her). Tl; dr if her opinion on this was drastically different from HVIII's at the outset, she seems to have conformed to his rather quickly, was more the point I was trying to make there.

but some boring i-am-not-a-robot check box task

*Forgot to address this one:

Like if Mary had gone on resisting do they think Jane would've been cool with it?

Yeah, that’s also sort of the thing, although apparently she did want Mary to resist anything but perhaps apology and HVIII to concede and reinstate her as heir. Whether she’d come to regret that, had it succeeded, when Jane had a son or daughter remains another question…

But yeah, anyways, I don’t think Jane would’ve been warm towards her had Mary refused to acknowledge her as Queen (which, if we take Mary’s Title Act seriously, was what she actually believed … although if you subscribe to Loades’ theories, it wasn’t what she believed then, but what she came to believe, and her conformity of the summer of 1536 was genuine ‘conversion’), called her ‘Lady Jane’ and the ‘King’s mistress’ as she had AB. Nothing is impossible but I don’t find that… probable.

Edit:

Just kidding, Chapuys’ report and the Bishop of Faenza’s were muddled in my memory, here we go:

This last wife is said to be much loved by the subjects, both because she is very gentle and good, and because she has five times thrown herself publicly at the King's feet, requesting him to send for his daughter and declare her Princess, a thing which has greatly moved the people.

Although, instructive that praise of Jane from this group (the above Bishop, Reginald Pole, even Chapuys to some extent) ebbs away once news travels that she hasn’t effected Princess Mary’s restoration, after all. The praise thus seems like it was rather conditional.

[the-good-luck-anomaly]

[danalockhart411]

The Year of the Flood - 1993

I am in the flood, and the flood is in me.

In the year of 1993, the mighty Mississippi River flooded its banks and spread out over 30,000 square miles. It was one of the greatest deluges in its history, second only to the great flood of 1927. By October of 1993, the flood waters finally started to recede—and that was the month and year that I was born.

My mother and father were fishing on the Mississippi River near Louisiana, Missouri during the height of the Flood of ‘93. Of course, this means that my mother was pregnant with me at that time. Before I was even born, I was being gently rocked by flood waters while my parents fished off their old John boat. They camped along the flooded banks in a cramped camper for a week during that summer. Perhaps, then, it is no wonder that I am drawn to the high, muddy water and the sound of the rain. The flood is in my blood.

The river is in my father, and in those that came before him.

The river is in my father's blood, too. He was taken to the Mississippi River at a young age and fell in love with the water and wildlife, and in turn he instilled that in me. Many a summer day was spent boating on the Mississippi, until one day Dad decided that he was tired of the 45-minute drive to get there. He started searching for a small house— “a river shack,” he said—to purchase so we could spend multiple days out on the river without having to camp. Instead, he found a 2600 square foot ranch-style home at an unbeatable price with an incredible view; the closest house to the river in that neighborhood. The nearest boat ramp is a two-minute drive away. A conservation beach along the water stretches almost a half a mile, containing 11 acres, just behind the home. The location was perfect. That home became our River House. I was 12 years' old at the time.

We owned that house during the 2008 flood, which nearly rivaled the Flood of '93. The river came up into our yard, about four feet away from our back porch, and twelve feet away from the house itself. You couldn't get much closer to the river than that. We were able to fish right out of our back yard. Where we lived, the 2008 flood lasted for weeks. At one point, we were worried enough to sandbag around the porch to prevent any damage to it (but it didn't get that far). In 2019, another flood rose just slightly higher than the 2008 flood, but it only lasted a few days.

When I started college, I moved into the River House full time and have been living there ever since. Every day my eyes lay upon the flowing water. It is changing all of the time. For a moment it can be smooth like glass, and the next it is dark and turbulent. There are several places where the current regularly runs backwards along eddies and islands. Floods are common. They don't get all the way up to the yard very often, but over the past decade there hasn't been a year where the river stayed inside it's normal banks all summer. High water records seem meant to be broken. The deluges have become normal now.

A story old as time--great destruction, and great inspiration

Most cultures around the world tell a story of a giant flood that threatened the whole world – The Deluge itself that the Bible's Noah's Ark was built to escape. Even the oldest recorded written story that we have discovered, The Epic of Gilgamesh, has such a tale within it. A flood can damage the land, homes, and people when its banks run over. According to the Britannica, the 1927 Mississippi River flood killed approximately 250 people and further displaced 750,000. However, it also inspired songs, like "The Levee Breaks" by Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie (later covered by Led Zeppelin), as well as "Louisiana 1927" by Randy Newman. The rolling waters are both dangerous and inspiring, capable of both tremendous strength and calm beauty.

They also served as the inspiration for In the Deluge. Like the mighty Mississippi, sometimes emotions can overwhelm us, drown us, and overflow out of us. Sometimes our levees break that we built up to contain them. Our emotions can whisk us away like a river, drag us down like sea serpent, and spin us around like a whirlpool. However, there also is calm, peace, and growth to be gotten from the rain. Life flourishes where there is water. We cannot live without it.

When I first conceived the theme of this poetry collection, I called it "Drowning in the Deluge". Alliteration is my jam, and I'm fascinated by the archaic word "deluge". However, as time passed, I realized:  just because you're in the midst of a flood, doesn't mean you have to be drowning. I simply changed the title to "In the Deluge". It's a subtle shift, but an important one. Whether we ended up here by choice or by force, we are here, in the flood. We might even be underwater, but we are not drowning. It is a lot of water, but we are weathering it. Maybe there are days where it feels like drowning, but maybe other days we're trying to dive deeper. Some days we are floating adrift. Sometimes we're at the bottom where it's so dark we can't see, and sometimes we're so close to the surface we can breach it. We are always in it, and maybe it's even in us.

Come hell or high water, we will weather it.

-Dana Lockhart

[katy71561]

“You’re a defiant act of creation. You’re a whole solar system pretending to be a person.”

- Elisabeth Hewer

[alspecter-blog]

The making of ''Portrait of Charles Bukowski'' | Oil on canvas

[royal-random-the-yogurt-queen]

So I woke up out of a dream this morning and had to put this down in my notes app before I forgot anymore. It's the only parts of a slam poetry-esque rant from my dream (a la America Ferrera in Barbie), so if someone can do something with it, I'd greatly appreciate it!

On the second try, you'll forget which color you used next [makeup], so you go with the one that catches your eye

So when you're showing how to do the Athena look, studies show that you'll teach them about her (75%) while showing them yourself (25%)

That last line was the part that stuck out and woke me up, the rest of everything is what I could piece together while half asleep. Pretty sure it's some self love fueled by constant repeat listening of Hozier's new album 🙏

(**Also if you do decide to try and do something with this, please credit! Either as inspo or prompt or whatever)

[jennaortegaswife]

Life update:

I know y’all like my poems a lot more but I figured I’d let you guys see my inspiration for some of my most recent works. Over the past 4 months I fell in love with a girl on a club team I play on. Since I am never going to see her again, this is how I vent. I put my unfiltered thoughts and emotions into every poem I write. I’ve been struggling with a lot of life changing events these past 5 yrs and it really helps to document it in my own way. There are some poems in my journal that are really dark and from when I was in a really bad head space that I’ve been putting off posting. Let me know if y’all want to see those