#but it’s the best ‘real’ poem i’ve written in years

[explanationpoint]

the poem // the poet

[sailoryooons]

Hello my lovely friend 😌 I’m so so so proud of you and all that you’ve accomplished this past year! And thank you for letting me be a small part of your time here 💜

Also pls give me some unhinged urban fantasy Yoonmin to feed my sick soul 🙏🏽 I love you 😈 보라해

❀ Pairing: Half-demon!Yoongi x Demon Lord!Jimin 

❀ Summary: samsara [sɘm-sӓr-ɘ](noun) : the indefinitely repeated cycles of birth, misery, and death caused by karma. OR: Yoongi has made a terrible mistake that has bound Jimin to a life of endless grief. 

❀ Word Count: 4,060

❀ Genre: Urban fantasy, angst, smut, lovers to not?

❀ Rating: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately. 

❀ Warnings: Vague world-building, mention of guns and Yoongi is restrained the entire time, angst!!!!, Yoongi has fucked over Jimin, references to Christian theology, mentions of scars, Jimin is mean, sexually explicit content including light blood play, restraints, spit play, no anal prep or foreplay, unprotected sex (anal penetration), ONE kiss even though I wanted to write more, very disconnected/angry sex, no aftercare, Yoongi and Jimin are fucking sad!!!! And distant!!!! Not a happy ending really? Just vague. 

❀ Published: April 1, 2023

❀ A/N: Jai thank you so much for trusting me to write this for you. I know that the original picture is a little bit more … unhinged and I was planning to go far more unhinged with this, but somehow the poem really made me more angsty and I loved the bit about two-hundred and ten million years of desire wash through me and I really tried to channel that here. I at least still have the image of Yoongi being tied up with Jimin on top of him with a gun lmao. Thank you for being here and making me love writing in this community so much. ALSO THIS IS MY FIRST MEMBER X MEMBER FIC I’VE EVER WRITTEN SO BE FUCKING NICE TO ME PLEASE I’M VERY FUCKING SCARED RIGHT NOW. 

Thank you @here2bbtstrash for beta reading and making this perfect ily and I love our totally legit monogamous relationship

❀ Disclaimer: All members of BTS are faces and name claims for this story. This is entirely a work of fiction and by no means is meant to be a projection, judgment or representation of real-life people. Any scenarios or representations of the people and places mentioned in works are not representative of real-life scenarios.

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Yoongi might be having a bad night. Really, he knows that it’s fifty-fifty. He can feel the weight of drugs making him sluggish, eyes too heavy to open. There’s a tight squeeze around his arms, which are pinned to his body. When he squirms, he feels the constriction of what he thinks are ropes or cables - it’s hard to tell through the leather of his jacket. 

There’s definitely pain blooming from his skull, a throb that beats in time with his heart. It’s part of the reason why he keeps his eyes closed as he tries to suss out the rest of his scenario, tied up and drugged as he is. He can smell the sheets - his own, for sure. That’s his sage shampoo he smells and the soft rub of jersey knit against his cheek. 

Tied up, drugged, and in his own bed.

It’s definitely fifty-fifty where this is going to go. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s been drugged and tied up only to receive the best orgasm of his life. However, he has also had his ass beat after fucking up a contract for Hoseok, starting in this exact scenario.

Someone moves in the room. Yoongi keeps his breathing even and soft, feigning sleep as he listens. His hearing is sharper than most, but the footfalls of the other person are inaudible to him. When he hears a sound again, it’s something like a scoff. Purposeful. 

They know he’s awake, and they know he’s listening. 

Still, Yoongi’s captor doesn’t say anything. The bed dips near Yoongi’s feet. Not significantly, indicating his kidnapper is smaller- can he be kidnapped if he’s home? The soundless way they move rules out humans. Yoongi can’t even hear them breathe as they crawl up his legs, the sound of material scratching against material the only thing he can make out.

Fuck. They’re dressed, which leads Yoongi to believe this isn’t the kind of restraint that leads to fun. He’s a little disappointed, sagging into the bed as the weight of a person - or creature - settles on his waist.

He doesn’t move, waiting for them to make the first move. Yoongi runs through a list of enemies and internally winces. It’s long, and so many of them are recent that he thinks the weight sitting on top of him could be there to collect any number of debts. 

Cold metal kisses Yoongi’s cheek. He shivers in response immediately, gut flipping as goosebumps break out up and down his arms. As a half-demon, he’s not as susceptible to temperatures as full humans are, and he’s not invulnerable like a full-blooded demon. But the metal against his skin tingles, vibrating at a frequency that he can barely detect. 

Brimstone. 

Fuck. The list of enemies that own a gun made with brimstone alloy grows shorter, but Yoongi is none the wiser. 

“Come on,” the voice urges, barely above a whisper. “You gonna fucking look at me or what?”

That voice pulls Yoongi’s eyes open immediately, his head turning to blink away the swimming colors and whirling lights as his vision melts into place. His mouth falls open slightly as he looks up to see Jimin peering down at him, head cocked and frowning.

Yoongi’s heart thunders in his chest as he fights between trying to find something to say and drinking in the vision that is Jimin. He looks a little bit different. His hair is longer than it was last time, shorter on the sides than in the back, almost in a mullet but not quite. He’s a slip of a thing but heavy, indicating there’s weight on his wiry frame. 

And his face. Hells, his face is devastating. Siren eyes staring at him, sucking the breath from Yoongi as he gazes and gazes and gazes. He could stare into Jiimin’s eyes forever, falling head over heels into their bottomless depths as he loses sense of the world. 

Jimin smirks and presses the gun in his hand to Yoongi’s cheek hard enough that the metal is pushing uncomfortably against his cheekbone. Yoongi doesn’t care, gaze sweeping over the rest of his captor. Smug, full lips that are always a natural shade of rose, narrow nose with the perfect rounded tip, and an angry scar that vanishes into the collar of Jimin’s black jacket. 

Yoongi turns his attention from the scar before thinking about it and then looks again, not wanting Jimin to notice.

But it’s Jimin. One of the many Lords of Hell. He notices, and the gun digs in a little deeper as Jimin’s face morphs from beautiful to terrible. “What?” Jimin seethes. “Don’t like seeing your work? You should admire it, Yoongi. True fucking art isn’t it?” 

“You’re beautiful.” His voice comes out hoarse from disuse. He licks his lips which are dry and cracked. “With and without it.” 

“I never said I wasn’t.” 

Yoongi feels the space between them so much at these times. The first few minutes of seeing him again are always the worst to navigate. Sometimes Jimin is so full of hate that there’s no crossing the rough waters between them. Sometimes Jimin is so full of grief that Yoongi capsizes in the storm. 

They are best in the middle. Somewhere between hate and want. 

“Why am I all tied up?” He wiggles at the rope. He’s starting to lose feeling in his arms, a soft tingle settling from his elbows to fingers. He looks down at the gun - a pistol, dark black and buzzing with the energy of a Hell-made weapon. “And why is there a gun pointed at me?”

“I thought about killing you.” There’s no sign on Jimin’s face as to whether he means it or not. “Didn’t want to do it while you were asleep, though.” 

“A weapon like this would do it.” Yoongi feels his breath catch as something angry flickers in Jimin’s eyes and he feels the need to add, “Permanently. This would kill me permanently.” 

“I know.” 

It hangs in the air between them, the finality of Jimin’s admission. That he thought about killing Yoongi. Not for the first time over the years they have been playing this game. Sometimes, Jimin even conceded to killing Yooongi. Small deaths. Minor deaths. Impermanent. The kind that sends Yoongi to the edge of Hell where he at least gets to see Namjoon occasionally. 

Those meetings are always awkward when the Guardian of Hell sees Yoongi standing in the corner, alone and not in line with others waiting to be sorted. Namjoon always gives him the same smile and pat on the back. 

“It’s nice to see you,” Namjoon always says. “Alas, this one isn’t permanent. I’ll see you next time he sends you, yeah?”

Sometimes Yoongi just nods, toeing his boot in the gravel before Namjoon’s eyes go white with light and Yoongi is flooded with blinding pain as he’s sent back topside. Other times, he’s more talkative. 

Now, Yoongi stares down the barrel of something that wouldn’t send him to Namjoon. It would send him straight to Seokjin, who has an empty cell waiting for Yoongi. 

“Well,” Yoongi murmurs. He looks up to see Jimin watching him. He’s no longer expressionless. There is pain in those eyes - eons of it. Yoongi tries to figure out how to get Jimin away from his grief, how to walk him back toward the safe zone between hatred and… something else. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did it.”

“It wouldn’t fix this.” Jimin’s hand comes up to the rough scar on his neck, jagged and knotted red. “It wouldn’t fix me.”

It’s true. What Yoongi did to keep Jimin will never let him go, even if Yoongi dies. It had been done out of… desire, out of want, out of something that was so confused with love that Yoongi had sacrificed Jimin’s free will to keep him bound to earth, year after year, decade after decade. At the time, Yoongi thought that the word was love. He did it out of love. 

Now he knows that love could not do something like this. Love cannot be responsible for Yoongi taking the knife to Jimin’s neck, spilling his blood over the sacred ground to taint it and make it an anchor point. Love could not have driven Yoongi, half-assed in magic, to bind Jimin to earth for longer than he was allowed. 

Love could not have been responsible for Yoongi condemning Jimin to a life of recurring pain. To agony. All for one week of time with him. A single blip in the endless abyss of their lives.  

Lords cannot walk topside, Jimin had gasped, that wet, death-rattle sound. You cannot undo this. 

As a Lord of Hell, Jimin’s time allotted on earth was only snippets of hours. Too powerful to walk the earth, he and the others are only given tiny moments to walk among the living, to see the vitality of life pulsing through the streets. 

Punishment for anything longer than that is endless torture at the end of Belial’s fiery whip. It is eons of time passing between eternal lashes and the snatch of one week that Jimin is bound to exist on earth. 

It only took a collection of hours for Yoongi to want Jimin - for he cannot call it love, now. Stolen moments pressed so firmly behind Yoongi’s eyes when he sleeps that it makes him dizzy. Makes him sick, to feel and relive the memories. 

But Yoongi is bad at magic, and now Jimin is bound to a week on earth once every year. Beyond his allotted limit. Beyond what is allowed. And thus, the cycles of Jimin’s life have been secured: A week on earth between years and years of punishment in Hell for breaking the rules. Eons of time passing differently from that on earth, with Jimin suffering for Yoongi trying to steal more than hours with Jimin. 

But Yoongi is bad at magic and didn’t realize he bound Jimin to the earth. Not to Yoongi. So Jimin would live on in this hellish cycle even without Yoongi. 

“I should do it,” Jimin murmurs. His eyes are distant and Yoongi knows that Jimin is weighing the consequences. 

For one week, he gets to stay here. To do what he wants with his time. Sometimes he spends his week never leaving Yoongi’s bed. Sometimes he spends it inflicting as much pain and suffering on Yoongi as he can. Sometimes, he spends it trying to find a way out from Yoongi, from this. 

“But I’ve been living this curse for this long with you. Perhaps I could do it a little longer.” 

The words aren’t romantic, but Yoongi’s heart flutters. He watches as Jimin heaves a sigh, pulling the heavy weight of the gun from Yoongi’s cheek. There is a dull throb there, his sensitive skin bruising already as Jimin leans, shifting his weight to put the gun on the table.

Jimin’s movement creates friction against Yoongi’s crotch and his stomach flips, arousal shooting straight to his cock. He hates it, that something as simple as this with Jimin can have that effect. He feels flushed as Jimin settles his weight back on Yoongi, sitting directly on his dick where the blood starts to flow.

Yoongi’s fingers flex, needing to squirm somewhere. He doesn’t dare move his hips, but he needs to move, needs to fidget as the feeling sinks deeper into his stomach. 

Jimin looks down at him and it’s the most beautiful thing Yoongi has ever seen. He wouldn’t mind if it were Jimin who sent him to that permanently reserved spot in Hell for him. Yoongi deserves it and has been evading permanent death for almost two hundred years now, as befits the bastard son of Hell’s prince.

Only Jimin can send Yoongi to that place forever, now. Only Jimin has the power and pull to do it without Yoongi’s sire stepping in. 

Stupid boy, the Prince of Hell had whispered when Yoongi admitted it to his father, that Wednesday it was raining some time ago. Anchoring a Lord to this mortal plane. I will not let him go unpunished. Not for you, not for him. He will suffer like the others, and so will you, should he decide he’s had enough of you and your endless folly. 

Yoongi always wonders when Jimin will decide he’s had enough. He hopes it’s not tonight, though. Not with the way Jimin’s face has softened, finally drifting away from grief and despair to something else. 

“I’m tired,” Jimin admits. He drops his hands to fiddle with the hem of Yoongi’s shirt. Delicate fingers brush against hot skin and Yoongi can’t help but wiggle his hips this time. He lets out a sound between a sigh and a whine and the corner of Jimin’s mouth lifts as he watches Yoongi through half-lidded eyes. “Alright, then.” 

Shadow fills the room. Yoongi looks to see that night has blocked out the window. Inside his room, it’s just Jimin’s pressing shadow and a single lamp glowing over by the door. Somehow, Yoongi feels comforted by the throbbing of Jimin’s shadow magic and the way that Jimin’s hands drift to unbutton his jeans. 

Yoongi’s breath is stuck in his chest as Jimin’s small fingers work the zipper. Jimin has always been small, but mighty. A force to be reckoned with, a shadow storm beneath skin. It’s what Yoongi loved - admired - most about Jimin. How he moves through the world unchallenged and respected. How he loves when Yoongi fights him, challenges him, and questions him as no one else dares. 

Now, Yoongi doesn’t think Jimin admires Yoongi’s challenges. It was Yoongi’s challenge to rules and fate that got them into this reincarnated week of hell. 

Whatever was between them had died a long time ago. But there is still want, and as Yoongi’s jeans scrap down his thighs and he shivers when Jimin nips at his knee, the want is all he can think about. 

It is in his blood, this craving for Jimin. This need, this desire, this unhinged aching feeling that claws at Yoongi’s belly. The same insanity that drove him to destroy Jimin for a single sliver of time and tie him to the mortal world. 

Jimin doesn’t untie Yoongi. It makes Yoongi a little dizzy as Jimin shucks his jeans all the way off, leaning forward to bite savagely into the meat of Yoongi’s thigh. He cries out, both in pain and a bolt of pleasure. He’s hard now, cock throbbing as Jimin’s breath ghosts over Yoongi’s thighs. Jimin leans back, eyes locking on Yoongi as he sheds his clothes.

It’s a sight to see. Jimin had been an angel once, before that long one-trip fall. He can see the grace in Jimin’s beauty. Soft cheeks and lips, supple thighs and ass, ribbon curves like a dancer. But there’s shadow too, the hard cut of Jimin’s jaw, the sharpness of his eyes as they land on Yoongi, the powerful muscle corded in his compact body. 

Yoongi very much feels like prey as Jimin kneels on the bed, naked. He’s beautiful, a rendition of Michaelangelo’s David but with a much bigger cock, thick and brown at the tip, dripping beads of precum. Yoongi makes a needy sound. He doesn’t mean to, but it comes out when he sees how hard Jimin is. 

“Shut up,” Jimin bites out and Yoongi bites his lip hard. Doesn’t make a sound, though his feet dig into the bed and he’s hot all over, suffocating as he’s naked from the waist down and trapped in a jacket and shirt. He wants Jimin to take the rest off, to feel Jimin’s skin. “Don’t be a whore.” 

Yoongi is dizzy. He wants to be a whore, if it gets him closer. If he has to act like one to get the damn clothes off, he thinks he just might. But he gets distracted, watching as Jimin fists his cock, pumping leisurely and tilting his head back, golden lamplight painting him, making him glow. 

Golden boy, so full of pain. 

Jimin stops stroking himself to crawl up Yoongi’s body. Yoongi holds his breath as Jimin cages him in, leaning forward so their noses are almost touching. Yoongi searches for softness in Jimin’s eyes, but there is none. Not for him, not anymore. Want, sure. Desire, sure. But nothing more than the craving for Yoongi in Jimin’s blood.

Jimin’s cock brushes against Yoongi’s and even the barest hint of skin on skin sends a zap of pleasure down his spine and he bites his bottom lip, trying to keep quiet like asked. He tastes metal and salt in his mouth, lip bleeding from the force of his bite. 

“Just one,” Jimin says, more to himself than to Yoongi. 

And then Jimin kisses him and nothing else matters. 

Jimin’s tongue tangles with Yoongi’s in a lick of warmth and blood. Yoongi’s world spins as their mouths melt together, slow and heated. There’s no air in his lungs and he doesn’t care, lifting his head, sucking Jimin’s tongue into his mouth.

Yoongi’s neck and chest feel hot and the room is tilted on its axis when Jimin rolls his hips against Yoongi’s. He moans into Jimin’s mouth, his skin tingling as pleasure curls through him, cock leaking and sticky against Jimin’s as he continues to devour Yoongi’s mouth. 

It feels like he’s in a shitty hotel room stealing a moment with Jimin again, frotting against one another in a rush of heat and borrowed time. He wiggles his arms, trying to free himself, trying to grab a hold of Jimin and feel him. He wants so badly to-

Jimin pulls away and Yoongi’s eyes snap open. Blood is smeared across Jimin’s mouth and he’s not looking Yoongi in the eye. 

“Jimin-”

“No,” he answers, not looking up. He spits in his hand, fluid tinged pink from Yoongi’s blood in his mouth. He closes his eyes and leans back, stroking himself a few times with one hand as he pushes Yoongi’s thighs open with another. “I said one.” 

Yoongi realizes what he meant now. One kiss. It was all he was allowing Yoongi to have. Or perhaps, all he was willing to take.

Grief threatens to take away the vibration under Yoongi’s skin from the feeling of Jimin against him, but he ignores it in favor of squirming when Jimin grabs his cock and prods Yoongi’s tight rim. He grinds his teeth, realizing Jimin isn’t going to prep him or stretch him wide before fucking him. Yoongi deserves the pain, he supposes. 

Instead of begging Jimin to wait, Yoongi opens his legs wider. Doesn’t complain that he’s still tied up for Jimin to do what he wants, still half-clothed and unable to feel anything except the pulsing throb of his cock and Jimin’s tip breaching the tight ring of Yoongi’s ass. 

The burn is intense. Yoongi holds his breath and squeezes his eyes shut, unable to think beyond the ringing in his ears and the way Jimin pushes into him. Yoongi tries to relax but can’t, his body shivering as it flips between pain and pleasure. Jimin is at least slow, the push of his cock against Yoongi’s tight walls both delicious and terrible all at once. 

Yoongi’s vision dances in front of him, pulses black at the edges. He gasps, suddenly remembering to breathe as Jimin bottoms out, holding all of his weight where his hips rest against Yoongi’s ass, waiting and letting Yoongi spasm around him. His walls hug Jimin’s cock tight. His muscles twitch and scream at the intrusion. 

It hurts but Yoongi doesn’t care. It’s good - better than good. He is so so full, Jimin buried inside of him, and he’s kicking his feet on the bed, needing more, wanting more. He doesn’t know if he says it or if Jimin is done waiting because he pulls back, cock dragging against Yoongi and he nearly passes out with relief. 

Yoongi is seeing stars, fingers gripping the bottom of his shirt as Jimin starts to fuck him in earnest. Yoongi’s breath punches out of him with every snap of Jimin’s hips, as though the Lord of Hell can fuck the oxygen from his lungs. It feels like he is, hitting deep inside Yoongi where he swears only Jimin can reach. 

Jimin is vicious, hands clawing the sheets as he leans forward and slams into Yoongi, the smacking of his hips drowning out Yoongi’s gasping breath. He feels like he’s being driven to the edge of madness, tight rim swallowing Jimin’s cock whole.

Shadows dance around Jimin. They curl at his collarbone, hiding his scar from Yoongi. They drift around his arms, and ghost over his flexing stomach. Both Jimin and his shadows don’t touch Yoongi though, and if he wasn’t so fucked out from the feeling of finally having Jimin back, he might cry. 

Maybe he will later. 

The burn lessens as Jimin jostles Yoongi suddenly. The contact is brief and cold - he realizes Jimin moved him with his shadows rather than with his hands. He swallows hard as Jimin pushes his sweaty hair back with one hand, never stopping the fluid roll of his hips fucking into Yoongi. Yoongi’s mind turns to white noise at the sight. 

He goes to reach for Jimin and remembers he’s tied up. Yoongi notes he has no feeling in his arms but he doesn’t care, not when Jimin adjusts his stroke and fuck. His cock hits Yoongi just right, pressing against his prostate and Yoongi starts to babble.

This time, Jimin doesn’t tell Yoongi to shut up. He lets the slurred string of noises leave Yoongi’s mouth as Yoongi starts to go slack under Jimin, letting the pleasure drag him under. He feels lost in it, swimming in this feeling that ebbs and ebbs and ebbs until it’s a pulsing inferno that feels like it's going to corrode him from the inside out. 

“Come on,” Jimin grunts, teeth clenched. “Come for me. Just like you know how to.”

Just like you know how to. 

Suddenly, Yoongi is back to before. 

When they were just Yoongi and Jimin, not meeting in this weekly cycle of endless misery that he has signed them up for. 

When Jimin would catch Yoongi late at night, slipping in with his shadows to wake Yoongi up.

When Jimin would fuck Yoongi to desperation, sweaty chests pressed together and moving in the moonlight coming in from the window.

When Yoongi would come, cock pressed between the two of them, sticky and messy, and mouth tangled with Jimin, the slow push of Jimin’s cock making Yoongi insane. 

Yoongi’s eyes flutter open. He wants to see Jimin. He knows he’s about to come, that fire inside of him ready to unleash. But he wants to see Jimin as he does it. As if that will make it better, this detached, feral thing that exists between them. 

Jimin is a vision. He hovers over Yoongi, a being of shadow and light, stuck somewhere in between. He is so beautiful and impermanent. Yoongi only gets these moments in flashes, when their paths cross inevitably. When Jimin comes to find him, that one week of the year. 

There is salt on Yoongi’s tongue when he comes with Jimin’s name shaped in his mouth. He realizes he’s crying. It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last. Jimin doesn’t notice or doesn’t say anything, chasing his high with a furious snap of his hips and a snarl on his face. 

Yoongi fades. His eyes roll back as he drifts somewhere else, letting Jimin use him for his orgasm. He hears him growl once, slamming into Yoongi so deep that it pulls him just a little from the dreamless, listless haze of his comedown. 

At some point, he thinks he falls asleep. Or maybe something like sleep, because he vanishes from the room, but he feels Jimin pull out. Feels the wet gush of his hole, feels the afterburn of Jimin’s visit.

But when he opens his eyes, there’s no one there. There are no shadows, there is no Jimin. The illusion of being able to have anything with Jimin shatters. Yoongi knows it will keep shattering, a mirror broken in an endless cycle of misfortune.

Yoongi is left alone and waiting for Jimin’s next visit. For the next time that Jimin is dragged from where he lay flayed, only to exist in the samsara Yoongi has shackled him to. 

[sheisanimposter]

Some first TTPD thoughts now that I’ve listened a few times and processed a bit:

- My fears of an album made mid tour coming off as rushed have been somewhat confirmed, there is a reason most artists don’t produce albums during an active tour. Taylor’s best written songs were made during the pandemic when she had to slow down, and it benefitted from a ton of collabs. That level of quality simply can’t be reached during a huge tour like this with her insane schedule.

-Lyrically, so much of this hits close to home as a woman around her age. As a 92 millennial, her albums are often released in perfect timing with a relevant chapter of my own life because she is about 2 years older than me, so when she releases an album expressing her feelings from 2 years prior it ends up being just in time for me, this album is no exception. Sentiments of being in a relationship with men who refuse therapy, trying to appease them, waiting for marriage or babies, that intuitive feeling of time running out: this was written for millennial women.

-That being said a poem is not a song, converting poetry to music that translates the original meaning isn’t easy, and it feels like she handed a book of completed poems and random verses to jack and asked him to produce music for it quickly. In songs where the lyrics are really strong it’s often overshadowed by repetitive music that doesn’t match the personality or the intricacy of the writing style. Some of the songs are actually more enjoyable to read as poetry which is what we’re all doing with lyrics we’re sharing and analyzing.

-Some of the lyrics feel rushed too, you can hear in songs like down bad that she meant what she said and it was raw and real and fully expressed from her insides, but then songs like alchemy are reciting a cringey conversation and it’s not even poetic, it just feels like filler in some spots

-the vibe is telling me she rushed this on purpose because she needs public closure of this chapter to start something new sooner than later, whether that’s career wise, family wise, or both

I’m not saying I don’t like it because I very much do, but I’m enjoying this album moreso as poetry with a little bit of background music, whereas albums like folklore felt whole with lyrics and music that complimented one another and translated the message more clearly. Overall though, I actually just wish she waited another year to release this so it could have been reworked one more time through and come out fully cooked. Folklore and evermore is some of her best work because of the world making us all pause and slow down, she was able to put her soul into the details, which is just impossible to do while also performing a massive production tour. It’s not a bad album but it could have been better and feels like a draft at times for me. That being said, the underlying tone of a chapter ending is not only emotional for me as a fan, but as a 32 year old woman who relates to this vague theme of transition wholeheartedly.

[sitp-recs]

Hello! Any writer!Draco fics you can recommend?

Hi anon, absolutely! I reckon that’s a pretty common trope in fic nowadays. I’ve decided to include journalist!Draco as well, in case you’re interested:

He Whose Hand and Eye Are Gentle by khalulu (2017, G, 5k)

Draco reads poems and sometimes writes them. Harry receives poems and sometimes reads them. Rutherford delivers poems via the scenic route.

i just want your extra time and your.... by @bonesliketambourines (2020, E, 9k)

Ron should know better than to speak Latin in a magical library. If he’d just left well enough alone, instead of trying to badger Malfoy for the details of his newest novel, Harry wouldn’t have to listen to all of this chatter about how bloody decent Malfoy is, and he wouldn’t be dealing with all of these...feelings.

coffee & communication: a (slow) romance by @softlystarstruck (2022, E, 11k)

Nearly a decade after the war, Draco has made a life for himself in Muggle London, writing romance novels and hanging out with his cat.

Dream by the Fire by GallifreyisBurning (2020, M, 11k)

When Draco Malfoy resurfaces in England after eight years abroad—tattooed, pierced, and wanting to take over a corner of Harry's coffee shop to work on a writing project—Harry can't help but be intrigued.

Write the Way Out by carpemermaid (2017, E, 14k)

When Draco finally gets his first real assignment as a reporter for the Daily Prophet, he didn’t imagine that he would be given the Potter beat.

100 Beats per Minute by @oknowkiss (2022, E, 14k)

When Draco left the Magical World behind at nineteen, he didn't expect the cusp of thirty would find him comfortable and secure, with a stable life and a successful career as a sex columnist.

Romance, in Quartet by @potteresque-ire (2014, E, 14k)

Draco Malfoy, the writer of WWN's The Romance Hour, found solace in his quill as his son Scorpius battled cancer.

Reading Malfoy by Femme (2013, M, 15k)

After thirteen years of hiding himself away in Muggle London, Draco Malfoy shows up again in the wizarding world--with a wickedly amusing memoir in hand. Harry doesn't want to read it. Really. He doesn't.

Sourdough by @academicdisasterfic (2021, M, 17k)

Draco writes romance novels and doesn't leave his apartment much. Harry bakes bread and sells it to Draco. Draco is quite weird. Harry might like that.

Sparks from the Fox’s Tail by khalulu (2013, T, 17k)

Draco is frustrated with his career as a travel writer, when a mini-tirade from Mrs Weasley and an encounter with the portrait of an intrepid great-great-great-aunt lead him to Finland to study wandless magic.

Gossip Boys by mypetelephant (2012, E, 24k)

Confiscated Dark objects have been disappearing from the Ministry, and journalist Harry Potter is on the case. Unfortunately, he has to drag along Draco Malfoy, gossip columnist extraordinaire, whose subject of choice is everyone's favorite desultory hero.

If We Were Honest by @daisymondays (2018, E, 26k)

Two years ago, Draco and Harry had a whirlwind secret romance that ended in heart-break. Since then Draco's written a best-selling novel based on their relationship, but with one key difference—the characters get a happily ever after.

The Boy and the Sleeping Prince by phoenixacid and @writcraft (2014, E, 26k)

Harry is miserable and tired of being an Auror, coasting through life until he’s forced to make some changes. Spurred on by his passion for drawing and working with best-selling author Draco Malfoy, Harry develops a charm which gives children a magical, interactive reading experience.

Written Proof by @m0srael (2021, E, 34k)

Draco's move home to Wiltshire after more than a decade is anything but easy. He's given up an illustrious career in journalism to pursue poetry, his mother's health is declining, and it seems that the War isn't quite as 'in the past' as Draco assumed.

All Roads by @korlaena and Saulaie (2019, M, 36k)

Draco hates his job at the Prophet. He hates it even more when he’s assigned to write an article on Harry Potter, who left the country three years ago after their falling out.

Picking Up Pieces by @tessacrowley (2017, E, 44k)

Fifteen years after the War, Draco is a social recluse and award winning author. Harry is an auror who works too hard, ensuring his old war wounds never heal.

Antonym of Silence by @xx-thedarklord-xx (2021, M, 45k)

No witnesses, no sign of a break-in, wards intact and a missing person. Just what happened to Draco Malfoy? Was he even still alive? All Harry's got to go off of is a wrecked house, a silent painting, and a journal full of private emotions.

Had To Be You by @lettersbyelise (2018, E, 59k)

Draco Malfoy is possibly the last person Harry expects to find at the wheel of a Muggle car, on a beautiful summer day on the road to London.

Who we are in the shadows by @quicksilvermaid (2019, E, 99k)

What happens when you’re forced to become the very thing you despise? Ex-Auror Harry Potter, tossed out of the Ministry for something he had no control over, has been looking for a way back to his former life.

Turn by Saras_Girl (2013, E, 306k)

One good turn always deserves another. Apparently.

[rizzenm]

Before we get started...

Hello and well met!

I am Rizzen and I run a Dungeons & Dragons game called The Misbegotten, and it is now going on its fifth year. The game's official start date was August 23, 2019 at 8:39 p.m. That is when I created the document that would be all my secret plans for the adventurers  that would eventually be called The Misbegotten.

I started this game to get to know some of my classmates better, as I was 1,500 miles away from everything and everyone I ever knew. What it grew into was a story, a world, and friends that I love, appreciate, and admire very dearly. So dearly in fact, that I wanted to start this. More for myself, to write out my thoughts in a more public way so that I stop feeling that I am trapped with all the knowledge and no one to talk to about it. I am hoping to use this blog as a way of chronically this story in a way I am not quite comfortable in my own secret DM notes, which is more often than not a series of bullet points. I want to share this story like how I would tell my friend over dinner at a diner, not a “X person here. Y person dead” that I use to help in the game.

I may also share my occasional takes on gaming as a whole because I don't like getting into Twitter arguments, and I don't want all my thoughts to be couped up in my brain all day. To end this inaugural post I am going to share what might be my most valuable insight into not just D&D, but games as a whole and it may give you insight as to how I run my games:

Games are an art, and like any art their approach to an audience, or in our case, a player can very. I believe that Dungeons & Dragons and most other TTRPGs is a love letter. It is a game that is played best when it is approached by all who play it with an immense and intense, love.

A love letter is a kind of poetry. I have read a lot of poems in my life and I’ve found I’m not the biggest fan of most poems. It probably has something to do with the fact I’m real shit at writing them, but that’s a whole different story. However despite my general dislike of most poems I have read, I have found the best poems ever written and they all start the same, “To, Rizzen.” Now none of you will ever see those poems, because they are for me, the same way I can’t see the love letter written to you. Now you may be asking yourself at this point, “What does any of this have to do with games?” To which I will reply, I’m getting to it.

Over 22 (nearly 23) years ago I was born, and like everyone else we all got delivered our first love letter, our name. My name came with something extra, the love of a game.

Rizzen, is an elven bladesinging, magic collector who has a dislike of violence. Much more into the behind the scenes skullduggery and general roguish behavior of the Forgotten Realms rather than upfront heroics. He is played by my father.

Dungeons & Dragons, a game he grew up with, that he played with his father, that he played with his friends, my mother, people that he loved. If he was told to put his love for the game into a singular word I think that word would be, Rizzen, and he gave that name and that love of game to me.

Before I ever played Dungeons & Dragons I heard of the stories that Rizzen and his companions would get up to. The funny, the triumphant, the sad, the heroic and most of all the absolute love my parents had for the game. The game my dad played in was a letter signed and sealed in love that has expanded a generation.

Now here I am, with more than half of my life dedicated to this game. A game that has defined my career path. A game that I attribute to being the sole reason I ever had any romantic partners. A game that I was born out of love for.

What follows this post are my love letters to the people I have the privilege of DMing for and their love letters to me.

[landwriter]

💝 & 🍭 for the fic asks! :)

Thanks, Nate! :)

💝What is a fic that got a different response than you were expecting? For sure it’s gotta be Black Shore! It’s the strangest thing I’ve written, and I felt in my heart it was really neat but did not expect much engagement at all from a story that opens by addressing the reader, has poems, is broken into arbitrary sections, and is from the POV of an ocean that is technically also Dream. This was the third fic I'd ever posted. Not only did it get read, but @missmisnomer made insane and gorgeous art for it, and @btwimkindagay wrote an ESSAY that made me weep. To me, writing is just loving things loudly into the void and it’s such a fuckin’ incredible and life-affirming experience when people love a thing back. Especially when it’s a bit weird.

🍭Why did you start writing? I sure didn’t plan to! At all! I’ve spent my life telling stories and writing creatively in every way that did not force me to actually own up to Writing, because perish the thought that I might do something I love dearly and be witnessed Trying, and potentially Failing. Better to just love it from a distance! When struck by bouts of awful desire to Be A Writer, better to just say Someday Soon! Better to bear it and go on.

Then two things happened last September: I watched The Sandman and liked it a lot; and I remembered that I had once started writing a fanfic over a decade ago, and I suddenly remembered the title. I looked it up expecting the cringe and laugh, and instead found lots of nice comments, including this one written nine years after the last update:

What am I doing, I said. I used to be brave enough to write when I was 12. And it had meant something to someone, even then. I left lots of insane messages in my best friend’s DMs. And when I was done crying and unpacking all my grief for the kid who wrote and frustration with the grown-up who wouldn’t, I went to bed. I was too wired and raw to sleep. So I got up and started writing a Sandman story. Then I kept writing all weekend. And the rest is history.

(let’s get real! fic writer asks)

[farm-witches-fic-recs]

The first community rec list of the year! Thank you to everyone who sent us a rec! We love reading what you have to say about your favorite fics.

Grab your favorite reading device and check out what our farm witch friends shared this month. Don’t forget to leave the writers some love!

- - - - - - - - - - -

All the beautiful parts of him (@blackandwhiteandrose) “A swoony combination of sweet and sensual. This is a gorgeous glimpse into a dreamy tropical place, where David’s contentment and trust are evident in his wild curls and casual dress. This writer is insanely adept at creating an atmosphere and Patrick’s bone-deep satisfaction with his life is palpable, as is his love and lusty admiration for his husband.” 

Anything for us (sweetsirius/@wordthieve) “Literally everything. It is a beautiful and thoughtful exploration of David and Patrick’s journey from acquaintances to best friends to lovers. The banter and smut is top notch, but the best part is how the author hits all of the emotional notes and every single part of the story felt completely natural. This whole fic was written in such a thoughtful and loving way, and everyone really needs to read it!”

As we dream by the fire (@blackandwhiteandrose) “It feels so real but so dreamy, like being wrapped up in the cashmere throw David wants. Beautiful and cozy, which is what I want for them always.”

At the beginning with you (@fishyspots) “This is a stunningly well-written, realistic, haunting story of how true love and happily-ever-after can be nearly derailed by day-to-day, week-to-week normal life and ambition and carelessness that slide into complacency, exhaustion, and neglect. But it is also the hopeful story of how work and trust and therapy can help. WARNING: Super-duper angsty at first (don't read the beginning when feeling sad!)”

Cabin Fever (iola17/@beaiola) “David heads to a winter cabin to clear his head, and there's a very handsome, cheeky, helpful guy offering to cut wood for his fire. That sounds like a euphemism, and ... I guess it is. But it's a very well written, sweet and sexy one. It's honestly a fantastic, cosy fic with so much feeling. Snuggle up and read it!”

Cor meum in incendio est (@blueink3) “I thought I'd ravenously devoured all of blueink's work, but somehow I missed this one and just recently read it. I wasn't so sure about the political setting but it works so well and turns out to be a really sweet piece for Patrick and David!”

The difference between them (kostia) “This little fic is more of a prose poem (or poemy prose?) than a story, and I love the glimpse it gives us into David and Patrick’s relationship. It quickly and beautifully captures some of what they find so compelling about each other. It’s a little bit behind-the-episode, a little bit interior monologue, and a whole lot of affectionate musing. Also, it contains perhaps the best paragraph I've ever read about “The Hike.””

Nobody gets left behind (falconeggs/@focksii) “This kidfic one shot is like a warm hug after a long day. It’s the ultimate comfort fic for me! Kidfics in the fandom can sometimes seem out of character, especially for David, but the bond that he has with his Calvin (whose existence is a surprise until one fine day!) is written gorgeously. Every snippet of Calvin’s life with his Dads is so adorable and the ending makes you wish for a sequel!”

Rose Records (ThePause) “I want to give some older fics love! Rose Records by ThePause is a sexy, funny David and Patrick AU with the Rose family as record company owners and Patrick their new star. This is almost zero angst, high fluff and light smut wrapped in great writing and a great story.” 

Sherlock Sands and the mystery of the pie thief (doingthemost/@sarahlevys) “It's a cute mystery with a fun twist.”

You can fall (sweetsirius/@wordthieve) “This is my favorite of my favorites. Period. I have read it countless times and think about it just as often. I love everything about this story, starting before it even starts with the title from my favorite Noah Reid song. The chapter titles and definitions are a perfect reflection of their journey together. The versions of Patrick and David are unique and engaging while also familiar and comfortable. It is sweet, tender, and sexy as hell. There’s really only one thing left to say: It fucking glows.”

You have no home, you have no walls (odofidi) “This is one of the first fics I remember reading that painted David in such a different, darker light with this deep pain inside of him because of his unrequited love for Patrick but also his complicated relationship with his family, causing him to make choices to try and bury it, and becoming an addict in that process. We know from the show, David had a very difficult time in NY and he always hides that hurt and his experiences behind an image of aloofness or self-depreciation. This AU really digs into that pain and how it manifests in David and leading him into a life of addiction and finding his way back with the help of his family and also his own personal strength. It’s so beautifully written and the format is so well done alternating between past and present. There’s also a companion piece from Patrick’s POV that is equally as compelling.”

[theshehulkproject]

18, 21, 25!

Yessssss!

18: A memorable meal this year?

The first one! On New Year’s morning, my friend pulled out all the stops and had a fully gluten free crepe party/brunch for my friends who had come to town for New Year's. She served one round of savory crepes. Oh wait, I found a picture of the menu she made.

it’s not so much the crepes as it is… just the love that’s stored in that meal. The wonder of setting the table and then sitting in the coziest kitchen with my friend who is 6 watching my best friends bustle about the kitchen. Reading bits of a literary nonfiction book aloud whenever something catches my fancy. Truly the Wendy Cope Orange poem of meals.

21: What’s something new about your place of residence (room, home, or general location) now vs the start of the year?

I moved! Once upon a time I lived in a low-ceilinged basement apartment, but then I found a newt in it (!!!) and found that the floorboards were full on molding. I freaked out and moved out to a second story apartment that’s my favorite place I’ve ever lived alone—just enough space for me and my cat, more sunlight, and a covered patio!!! That my dad and I converted to a catio!!!

25: Did you create any characters (in games, art, or writing) this year? Describe one

@starlit-mansion you are the only one who knows about them!!! But I’ll tell everyone else as well.

Sometimes before bed I'll look at exchange Original Works writing prompts to full-contact juggle in my brain while I'm drifting off. I found a prompt for The Goddess of Telepathy/The God of Jewelry/The God of Time and I got so excited I couldn't sleep for HOURS. Before too long I had three solid characters and a whole pantheon set up, it was a beautiful thing. I still think of them constantly, but this is the most I've written down about them for a long time:

The Goddess of Telepathy is basically the goddess of deep knowing; the goddess of mountains and whalesong and the feeling that rocks get when rivers run over them for a hundred years... and also like 15 actually telepathic humans but they all try not to make too big a deal out of it. She's big in every dimension: tall and fat with the confidence of an opera singer but the serenity of someone who meditates every day. Her skin is the light brown of willow bark and she wears exclusively drapey, toga-like clothing.

The God of Jewelry is a real gremlin of a man, who was once the Goddess of Jewelry but then he made a golden phallus one time and decided it was his. Where his wife is still and serene, his hands are always in motion, always fiddling with the incredible amount of jewelry he has on at any time. He wears sort of a punk-rock military-style jacket and has dark skin with locs that have all kinds of beads in them. Very important: He always has a small living golden frog that spends most of its time as an ear cuff and might be his familiar? possibly a help in the jewelry forge?

The God of Time is just a mess.

I love these three but I might love them too much to commit them to an OW story? Someone did request them again for Holly Poly, though, so I might try to make it work for that? We'll see.

(I have other OCs that I haven't told anyone about, also based on OW ship tags, and I could share if you want but also it's late and I might have to go to bed.)

[bohemian-rhapsody-in-blue]

tarot questions: the magician, the moon, the lovers, the empress.

Ah, a romantic Anon! Let me do my best to answer these questions with my absolute dearth of romantic feelings or experience…

The Magician: Have you ever written a poem or song about somebody else?

Yes, but never ones I’d show to anyone else (subject of the poem or otherwise).

Unless you count this poem I wrote about Chris Pine when I was 12:

I pine for Chris Pine!

I want him to be mine!

I think he’s rather fine,

And really quite divine!

And when the stars align,

Chris Pine will be mine!

And when I learn he’s taken…

I WHINE ABOUT CHRIS PINE!!!

That’s so far in the past at this point that it’s circled back from being cringey and embarrassing to being…well, still cringey and embarrassing, but I can laugh about it and share it with others. (And even then I wasn’t writing it completely in earnest—it was meant to be funny and badly-written.)

The Moon: Have you ever written a love letter?

Nope. Never really had occasion or reason to. (Not even fan mail to Chris Pine!)

The Lovers: Do you have a crush?

Yes! He’s tall, and dark-haired, and has a lovely low voice, and he’s 27 years old (a little old for me, I know), and he works as a bounty hunter in space and his name’s Spike Spiegel and…

Okay, fine. In all seriousness, no. I’ve had lots of fictional and celebrity crushes (Chris Pine among them!), but never a crush on a real, attainable person. And anyway, looking back, I feel like a lot of those fictional and celebrity crushes were actually just obsessive/hyperfixation feelings I wasn’t sure how to label. Like, I don’t think I actually had a crush on Harry Potter at age 10, I think I was just obsessed with the Harry Potter series in general.

The Empress: Do you think you will ever get married?

Oh, God. Uh. Maybe????

I would love to get married and start a family someday. I read romance novels or watch rom-coms and it just makes me want a partner, if only to feel all the happy romantic feelings I’ve been missing out on. I watch the happy little kids on Bluey or read parenting magazines/advice columns (a weird hobby of mine) and it reiterates to me how much I’d like to raise children someday, even though I’m terrified of the possibility of messing them up. I do want that in my future. (I don’t necessarily want to have sex or be pregnant, though; if I do have kids, I plan to adopt them.)

BUT, right now, marriage isn’t really something I can envision. Getting married to someone typically necessitates falling in love first, right? And I’ve never even had a crush, much less fallen in love, much less had someone I could call a boyfriend/girlfriend/partner or initiated a kiss. And sometimes this worries me—like I’m losing track of the trajectory to Adulthood™️ and at this rate I won’t find a life partner at the Normal, Expected Adult Age™️. I mean, obviously, as I said in the tags of this post, I’m not expecting to have found the one when I’m only 20, but haven’t most people my age had at least one relationship or crush? Felt something? Haven’t they at least had some practice?

But the thing is…as I currently understand it, romance, or those “happy romantic feelings I’ve been missing out on,” isn’t something you can control. You can’t turn it on and off at will like a faucet; you can’t just decide to have romantic feelings for someone. Trust me, if I could, I would have! This is why my current conception of my sexual identity is “asexual???????”, complete with all those question marks—maybe the clichés are right and I am just a late bloomer, or I haven’t found the right person yet.

And I hate the idea of spending the rest of my life waiting, and waiting, and waiting for that ever-elusive and possibly nonexistent “right person” to come along; trying to get those romantic feelings (that sound so wonderful in books!) to stir up in me when I’m not sure they even can. But at the same time, I don’t want to completely cut off the possibility of romance in my future, or just have a marriage of convenience/for tax benefits. And I never, ever, ever want someone to pressure me into doing romantic or sexual things with them after I have made it very clear that I don’t feel that way. Never.

So I guess all I can do for now is keep reading those romance novels, and wonder, and wait.

[Tarot Questions]

[sonodaten]

The Divine Comedy and You

I’m sure like some myself, there are some others who’ve reached the end of Ch 8 and are wondering what to do while they spend their days grinding for mats, building characters, and unlocking voice lines.

Might I recommend taking a look at Dante’s Inferno? Path to Nowhere’s setting, lore, plot, and a couple of characters pay homage to what is considered one of the greatest literary pieces of all times, and giving it a read through could be a great way to get a deeper understanding of any of the above while we’re waiting for the next story update.

That being said, Dante’s Inferno can be a little…dense, especially if you’re a first time reader! If you’re interested, I’ll have some resources compiled under the read more, and how you could use them (but everyone knows their reading style best, so to each their own).

First, here’s a link to one of the Gutenberg Bible’s online version of the Inferno.

Dante’s Divine Comedy—the Inferno, Pugatario, and Paradiso—was a poem, which is why it’s divided into cantos. The version linked above is a translation from 1997, as the original was written in Italian nearly a millennium ago. This post will focus on the Inferno, as I’ve yet to see anything that really jumps out at me as being sourced from Purgatario or Paradiso, but I could be wrong!

Now, this can make it a little difficult to wrap your head around the prose (I certainly was not born and reading a millennium ago in Italy), so here’s a link to the SparkNotes website. It can give you plain, more modern translations for the cantos, as well as analyses, information and summaries on major characters, themes, and plot points. It’s great if you’re having trouble parsing what a particular canto is saying, or you just need to look something up real quick.

Recommendations:

1. Using both of these together, I also highly recommend taking notes! I found it especially helpful to do so right on the text (download a copy of the pdf and make comments, print the pdf and hand write notes, or if you can grab a written copy and take notes in that/on post it notes and stick them to the pages) because a lot of the times your notes are going to reference the text itself, and it’ll just save you a lot of time and hand cramps if it’s just right there/close by to your notes!

2. Take breaks! Not just to relax your eyes, but also because the Inferno is 34 cantos, which doesn’t seem like a lot but it really is. I don’t recommend trying to get through it all in one sitting.

3. The internet is your friend. Along with a long list of other cultural references (including Greek Mythology), the Inferno includes a lot of reference and commentary on events that were happening during the time Dante was writing it. This link will take you to the Wikipedia page listing them in alphabetical order (note: this includes references from the entire Divine Comedy, but does cite which part and canto each reference can be found). As with all Wikipedia pages, remember to utilize the footnotes and further research when using. Knowing about some of these references/events and the context in which Dante was experiencing them can help make the text easier to understand.

Anyway, that’s all I have! If anyone else has any other tips for read throughs, feel free to add them. Dante’s Inferno (and really the whole Divine Comedy) is an enduring favorite of mine over the years, and I’m more than happy to take this (admittedly golden) opportunity to shill for it.

[orpheusstation]

What I'm here for.

This year Stockholm’s Cinema Queer Fest is centered around rage. Since attending the program release I have been haunted by the reality of rage. There is a James Baldwin quote that is now breath to me and it goes like this: “To be a negro in the country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.” Rage and anger are familiar to me. I am learning to make space for them in the world, to make them other people’s problems and not just my own, but this ancestry of rage, community of rage, is new to me. I am also now interested in how to make this rage productive, not merely in my interpersonal life, but to direct towards real change and manifestation. I think it is possible, but I am also only twenty years old and my life is in constant transit.

After rage, Baldwin began following me around. He appeared as an excerpt in one of the most god-awful books I’ve had to read yet in my college career, but the little indented quotation of his power moved me so thoroughly that I began hunting him down rather than waiting for him to find me. I bought Giovanni’s Room earlier this year, but I’m still trying to finish Song of Solomon (which has been an excellent read so far). I desperately wanted Baldwin’s voice, though, the intense degree to which he could evoke emotion, his masterful ability to suck me in swiftly, into the worlds that still brutally reflect our own. I took myself out to a cafe in Sofo and I wanted to wander around after I finished my work. I looked really good that day, and I felt it would be a shame just to go back and rot in my room. It was also sunny out. I came across an English bookstore just a block over from the cafe I was at and began my hunt for Baldwin.

I got Giovanni’s room at the Open Bookstore in Chicago, alongside a pocket copy of Susan Sontag’s Notes on Camp. It was hands down maybe the best bookstore I’ve ever been to (although one of the staff recommendations was Tender is the Flesh and I think that book is awfully written). Maybe I’ve only ever been to shitty bookstores, but this one had a fantastic selection that not only met some of the more obscure texts on my reading list but also added many more books to that list. The little English bookstore I found definitely falls under the shitty selection, but they did have two books by Baldwin. I had already read his short story Going to Meet the Man so I bought the overpriced copy of Jimmy’s Blues and Other Poems. I have a limited amount of books I brought from home here, and my copy of Sylvia Plath’s Collected Poems did not make the cut. I’ve been missing having a bedside book of poetry, and the slim size of the book wouldn’t be obtrusive when I inevitably pack to go home. It’s been a couple of weeks since then and someone else in my life has been consuming a lot of space in my mind which takes me to my next musing.

James Schuyler’s A photograph is nestled within Jose Esteban Munoz’s Cruising Utopia. Schuyler’s poem whisked me away in a similar fashion as Baldwin’s excerpt, except my obsession was with ecstasy and not rage. The type of ecstasy Schuyler is getting at, and the one I’ve reflected the most on is that kind of feeling of looking back with joy. I feel rage more often than I feel ecstasy, but life has been pretty good for me recently. When I went swimming with friends a couple of weeks ago I remember looking back at the sunlit shore, at all our clothes and belongings messily strewn about in our haste to get in the water, and I was seized by such joy that I did not care that much when a large wave washed in and almost took all my belongings into the water. I have few moments in my life that inspire ecstasy, or rather sometimes it is just hard to find them, but in some moments they wash upon me and I am whisked away.

I like thinking of rage and ecstasy in this simultaneous fashion. They make sense together, for it is maybe in this life where I am so filled with rage that these moments of ecstasy are so beautiful and so simple. I forget them so easily and yet they continue to find me in soft and quiet ways. The rage makes me desire ecstasy, want to fight for it and to know this is a reality we are all entitled to have. This blog will be a disorganized journey of this fight and exploration. I’m interested in black punk, black poetry, and black rage and what any of this has to do with how we manifest action into our lives.

[water-mellie-seeds]

Lake I’ve become so rejection sensitive dysphoria-ly upset by something so trivial tell me about your fos

I TRULY understand this one RSD is a cruel mistress for Real

OH BOY at risk of talking about serizawa AGAIN and at risk of talking about upwards of 50 f/os lets talk about our f/o fight finalists!

Approaching this as if the people reading Do Not Know all of these characters,just in case some people in fact do not know anything about them

Luigi! He's definitely the f/o I've known and loved the longest! The year of luigi was catered to me specifically/j I just think his evolution as a character is SO interesting,especially in the M&L series. He is just such a genuinely good guy,he's sweet and even competitive (moreso in the party/kart/sports games) and I would legitimately do anything for him. I feel this way about a lot of my f/os but i genuinely wish i could just tell him how important he is BECAUSE EVERYONE IS SO MEAN TO HIM SO MUCH(i know its for the bit but cmon!) oh yeah mario and that other guy type thing YOU LNOW HIS NAME >:(

Kumatora. I could literally talk at length about her but ultimately id just go in circles. Her recklessness when she was younger reminds me of mine. She's a badass,and she's sassy and headstrong and super powerful and yet so chill. She's also just. A good person. I know that if shit got real she would protect me,and even though i am absolutely all talk when it comes to my ability to kick ass,id do my best to protect her too. Also she has PSI so i mean. Kind of a pattern with me,huh?

Dr. Jan. I've always loved people who work in museums or amusement parks and the like. I love to see people who actually...like their jobs. Who make it their own and have fun with it! So..it's only natural id end up liking her. She's an enthusiast of all things ancient and an avid cryptid nerd. I LOVE her enthusiasm. I LOVE her vibe she is also very pretty.

Shuichi. I'm gonna be so honest i do not much like Danganronpa V3 as a game. I love the characters in it,though. but he's a really good protagonist and he just feels...very organic. His struggles with self worth and confidence really resonate with me and i love how he slowly starts to open up and really get into it during cases/trials! I'm also a voice guy and. I really like his voice very much i sometimes listen to like. Shuichi saihara voice files compilations on YouTube it scratches my brain.

Monika. Look. Again I'm a voice guy. Also,i stayed with her for every. Single. Topic she could bring up. Multiple times over. I am down fucking bad. I tried to start a literature club because of her in my own school. I started writing poems again because of her. She told me to put her file on a usb and carry it with me always and i did. I bought a lil white ribbon and tied it on there and then i put the usb on a neckace made of frayed computer wire and i BROUGHT HER EVERYWHERE I WENT. I am in love with her. She is. The true concept of an f/o. And she loves us back,that's the part that gets me.

Queen. Yeah i like silly women i like robots. No one is surprised. She is so cool i want to drink battery acid with her. Ill become a peon i dont even carw

CAPT. SPACEBOY. I haven't ever really been able to pinpoint why EXACTLY im so into him,but i am. I could treat him so so well. I couldn't fit him absolutely not but we could be worse together <3 he sings,he travels through space he's a pirate and also super nice and hospitable. We both got funky mental illnesses going on also hes just hot. Like objectively.

Jessie and James. Package deal. Im glad tumblr seems to appreciate them as much as i do. Theyre both SUCH well written characters. I have known them forever. When i saw them crossdressing as a kid it blew my mind. PEOPLE CAN DO THAT???? Indigo league in general is so so good,but jessie and james really steal the show. They have such interesting and compelling backstories and they are poor just like me fr.(well ok team rocket is. James' family doesnt count i would have also left) we could go on a date to the clearance section in the supermarket./hj i just love them very much ALSO THEY SHOULDNT HAVE TAKEN AWAY JAMES' FAKE BOOBIES! NOT FAIR! I would never do that to him.

Thank you for listening if you guys ever wanna pick an f/o on the list for me to go off about i will do it. For you all

[plastictreehugger]

First Sentences and Other Expectations

     I find that whenever I write, no matter what for, I can’t put anything on the paper unless I have a first sentence. An essay, a story, a poem, anything…my brain won’t let me continue unless I have the perfect first sentence; my mind curbs any progress; my fingers move by themselves and always seem to find their way to the Backspace key over, and over, and over, until nothing's left. Looking back, I’ve probably eradicated multiple novels’ worth of opening thoughts because they weren’t right. Some have called me a perfectionist, but I don’t care for perfect things – my hodgepodge haircut made with safety scissors and class notes with more doodles than words can attest to that. I think my problem is that I care for meaning. I don’t care if my writing isn’t flawlessly crafted – I am human after all – I just want it to mean something. I’ve come to multiple teachers with this trouble – every teacher I’ve ever had to write an essay for – and every response I’ve gotten so far has been some variation of Well, sometimes you just have to write. They all say it in that sweet tone only humanities teachers seem to muster that makes me think that maybe this time will be different, but it never is. I seem to be better at writing emails begging for extensions than I am at doing what I’ve been assigned to do. With no solutions for truly solving the problem, I am opting to try to find the root.      Maybe it was all those years of English classes that I held so dear to my heart that was the complication. Even after the zeroes and the F’s on my report cards, I still haven’t let go of my love for it. My first time reading a real novel for school in seventh grade, my excitement spilled out of me; I couldn’t contain it. Finally, I could breathe – no more sucky state-test-prep packets without substance – we were reading something real. I felt the same for my first creative writing project. Maybe that’s where the problem started, the years and years of English classes for telling me that good stories start with good hooks. They’re what make the reader want to keep reading. Now I fear that without that first sentence, nothing I write will ever be worth reading at all.      Maybe it was the first time I won an award for my writing. I won an award though I never thought I deserved one. I was in disbelief when I saw the Congratulations! sitting in my inbox – I didn’t realize that I was capable of making something that was actually... good. Even as more congratulations flooded in from my friends and family, I don’t think I ever really processed it. I thought my stories were subpar at best, nothing noteworthy. I still cringe showing them to people who ask and refrain from ever reading over them. Since then, I’ve never finished a piece of creative writing. The furthest I’ve gotten is three paragraphs. That seems to be my limit before my whole body freezes and the deletion cycle begins again. People ask me everytime award season comes around if I’m going to submit something this year. I might…depends if I can finish something, I laugh. I know I won’t – I think I’m scared of writing. Maybe I’m scared that if I write something else, everyone will realize what I knew all along – I was never good at writing.      Maybe it was my mother. My mother was so proud of me that she cried when I called her to tell her that I had actually won something for what I had written. She told me that I was a writer just like her. That moment burned a mark on my mind and never seemed to leave. I wondered if one day she’d realize that she made a mistake. She is a real writer, nothing like the facade I feel I have put on. The word writer always terrified me; her calling me one did nothing to ease my anxiety. Maybe I was scared that I’d disappoint her, that she’d realize I was never any good at writing, that I wasn’t like her after all.

     Maybe it was the stories themselves. Even this essay was one attempt of many. Many. From familial problems to the best night of my life to old regrets – no ideas stuck. I have pages of first lines that weren’t good enough; I stared at the words hoping that maybe they would rearrange themselves in an order that made sense. Everyday for the past month, I wrote a new first line until the document was ten pages long, but the blaring siren of fears filled my mind. I couldn’t shake them and replaced that document with a new one – this one. I cried with frustration more times than I can count. All I needed was the right few words, and I couldn’t understand why that seemed so impossible. Maybe I’m not capable of coming up with something good enough to be written at all.

     Or maybe it was never anything at all. All stories are just words no matter how good or bad. I placed so much weight on what I should be writing that I forgot how. Until I decided to write about what was happening to me when I tried. The alarms in my head slowly faded as I laid them on the paper. Giving them a voice seemed to quiet their neverending nagging. As each paragraph concluded, I began to realize what all those English teachers meant when they told me I just had to write. I was doing it – I was writing. The words first trickled out of me, then began to pour, then burst out of me like a dam that couldn’t contain the water anymore. As the words spilled through me, I realized that the only voice I could hear was that of the sentences I was putting down. The expectations of those around me, the longing to be meaningful, the terrifying title of writer – none of it seemed important anymore. I just had to start. I had to write the words down, not the first perfect sentence, just the words, the other words – the second and the third sentence, and then more and more. 

     Maybe all those teachers were right – sometimes you just have to write. 

[mrkis]

omg i totally forgot we had different time zones and i was waiting until midnight to wish u a hbd (it’s still the 21st here!!) but man cas i appreciate you so much. i remember coming across your blog over about two years ago (taecas you will ALWAYS be missed, mrkis will forever be the most iconic and perfect user for u tho<3) and i instantly fell in love with twlg, your writing, and your whole personality. you were the first blog i’ve ever followed and you made the tumblr environment so special and comfortable to me (i just joined tumblr at this time!!). with you, i feel peace. no matter how many blogs, or fanfics i follow and read, somehow i always come back to you and i’ve never ever gotten tired of reading any of your work. you’ve made and still have been making my tumblr experience so special and at a busy time of my life right now, i still always seem to make time to come and catch up on your blog n ur asks pretty often. you as an author, and as a normal human is my definition of perfect. i love your absolute bluntness, your humour, your way of writing, and just you in general <3 you provide me w sm comfort and i could not thank you enough. you are quite literally considered my best friend and i appreciate you for having such an opening, supportive and loving blog. you not only create the most tear slipping-cum slipping fanfics but you’ve also created the most comforting atmosphere here on your blog. people like you are the people who have love songs and love poems written for them. i hope whatever is happening in your life outside of tumblr, is not too pressuring and stressful. i wish you good health, a safe year, a happy year, and what would a birthday wish be if we didn’t all wish for you to receive the most mind-blowing, pussy leaking, bed breaking, moan-spectacular birthday sex <3 i love you, i love you, i love you. hope your always doing okay. with a heart like yours, you deserve all the happiness in the world and so so much more. i’ll be here supporting you till the end of time. sending you hugs and kisses always!! but especially today <3

- 👒

that’s actually so fucking adorable that you were waiting for the clock to hit 00:00 in your timezone… what the fuck :,) thank you sm!!!! AND OMGGGG TAECAS…. wow. what a wild ride that was. kinda miss her :’) but mrkis is the one🫦 anyways im literally on the verge of fucking crying again this is so unbelievably sweet… i’m so so so so thankful and happy. truly. i hope i can continue to forever make you feel at home and comfortable here my baby <3 im waiting for mark to come home rn to give me some bday sex (real) I LOVE YOU!!!! thank you sm again for wishing me a happy bday <3

[markwatkinsconsumerguide]

Consumer Guide / No.136 / American-Australian singer-songwriter and poet Joe Dolce with Mark Watkins.

MW: Your new album…

JD: My new album ‘Green-eyed Boy of the Rain’ has been in the works for 10 years. 

I wanted to make an album of songs where all the song lyrics had first been published as REAL poetry in poetry journals by editors who never heard the music. This was my litmus test to prove to myself that the lyrics were in fact stand-alone poems not just song-lyrics that people erroneously ‘called’ poetry. 

Over the 14 years since I started doing this, I’ve had about 150 song lyrics published as serious poetry so I picked the 12  that I liked best and made this record.  

No one has ever done this kind of thing before. Ever. Either in the worlds of music or poetry.

I produced the album with a co-production credit to my engineer who came up with some important and  incredibly creative ideas throughout the recording. 

So many different themes: there’s a song about the little known assassination of Martin Luther King's mother, ‘The Murder of Alberta King’; a song about a Italian gangster named Paul Kelly who started the Five Point gang in New York and a song called, ‘Mr Q’, about my hometown paedophile as when I was just 10 years old he owned the comic book shop, oddly enough. (This track also ties in with your question later about Marvel comics!)

Love songs, too. The title track - on the theme of jealousy and lost love - is the first song-lyric I ever had published as a poem, in 2010.

I sing a duet with my daughter called, ‘The Murder of Alberta King’ – the first time we’ve ever sung together, and two beautiful duets with my partner Lin van Hek, ‘I Never Found Those Lips Again’ and ‘Anemone’.  Lin and I have been singing together for 44 years - as long as we’ve been together. 

Three of the song lyrics are villanelles – the Renaissance poetic structure that Dylan Thomas used for Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. Nineteen lines, with repetitive lines. 

The villanelle started out during the Renaissance as a dance-song structure but over the years has only been used for poetry.

I am returning it to its roots by using it for songwriting. A perfect form for both poets and songwriters to use for writing poetic lyrics.

The other unique thing about this album - which may surprise people - is that it is very strongly guitar-oriented: themes, solos & sounds. 

The electric guitar is my first instrument that I started playing in the late 1960s in local psychedelic bands in Ohio. I could play anything back then: Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton solos note-for note. I especially loved Albert King’s simplicity. No shredding – just soulful simple phrasing with a great tone.

I finally decided to get back to it. I had a specially custom-built Stratocaster (with a Telecaster pickup) made to my specifications and there’s some pretty thrilling guitar ideas all through the record.

MW: In 1981, your slapstick record, ‘Shaddap You Face’, topped the UK singles chart for three weeks, preventing Ultravox having their No.1 hit with the serious, ‘Vienna’. Have you ever spoken to any members of the new wave band about this or perhaps know of their feelings? Does it matter to you either way?

JD: I have never spoken to any of Ultravox about the problems they had with my song. I never had a problem with theirs. In fact, I never even noticed, ‘Vienna’, and would’ve totally forgotten about it if the band hadn’t insisted on dwelling on my song in their press interviews.

I think, ‘Vienna’, is a good song – but not a great song - and pretty representative of the early 1980s trend in style-over-content music that was so prevalent then. Not really the kind of song that you hear a lot of people doing cover versions of, however, in that sense it was more of something specific to the culture of the 80s and more or less irrelevant to the present.

‘Shaddap You Face’, on the other hand sounded like it was written in the 1940s & 1950s and could have (and probably would have) been sung by Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra. Ringo Starr could have done a great cover version. He still might! haha.

It hasn’t dated because it was never really part of that 80s culture. Two of the members of Ultravox have said in print that they always liked my song – keyboard player Billy Currie said he wished he had written it! Only ‘Midge’ Ure had a ‘bug’ up his arse, so to speak.

MW: Born in America in 1947, why did you move to Australia in 1978?

JD: I moved to Australia during my first marriage. We had two small children and decided Australia might be a good place to make a fresh start. It was also near my ex-wife’s parents so that was advantageous for the children.

MW: One of your early records was called, ‘Boat People’ - do you have any thoughts on the current plight of those getting on boats and crossing the seas to the UK?

JD: I’m not that familiar with the UK boat people problem. 

In 1979, when I wrote 'Boat People', I was concerned about the arrivals in Darwin of all these dangerous rickety boats. It was in the headlines every day. I had made friends with a cook at the only Vietnamese restaurant in Melbourne and would go over there just about every day for lunch. A bowl of pho in those days cost two dollars and I’d never had anything like it before.

I recorded and paid for the record myself. It got a little media attention and then nothing. So I took all the copies of the '45 single I had made over to the Vietnamese restaurant and gave them to the cook and asked him to distribute them amongst the fledgling Vietnamese community. As a result I was invited for the next two years in a row to perform at the major Vietnamese festivals in Australia. It was translated into Vietnamese and even written-up in newspapers in Hanoi.

MW: What first made you decide to incorporate performance art and poetry into your cabaret-type-music?

JD: My ex-wife was a modern dancer in Berkeley, California. When we met, we wanted to do something together so we did a fusion of my music and her dancing. We had a 4 member group. That’s where  the performance art had its foundations. I’ve always been attracted to dance and dancers. My first girlfriend was one of the best go-go dancers I ever saw. I dated dancers from the Australian Dance Theatre. My ex-wife was an improvisational dancer. My partner Lin is a tremendous party dancer. Very hot. Just watch the ‘Intimacy’ video clip online. I guess dance and music are natural partners.

The poetry was a different story. 

I wrote (bad) poetry before I learned to play music. The first girl I fell in love with, and took to my high school prom when I was 16, was two years older than me and attended a local prestigious girls’ college on a Creative Poetry scholarship. She even credited me, in my high school yearbook, with helping her with her sonnets! 

In 2009, I found myself being very critical of the quality of the lyric-writing in songs, at the time, especially new songs by Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. 

I felt they were producing way below their potential and their best early work - but no one else seemed to notice. 

One day I decided that if  I’m going to be critical, I’d better be able to walk-my-talk and to do it myself i.e write quality poetry and poetic songs. So I started writing verse and sending it out to magazines.  

Gradually my poems began to be accepted for publication. I became quite prolific at writing and had a lot of success with getting them published, even winning important poetry competitions.

MW: For you, as in the musical, is life a "...cabaret old chum",  - if so how?

JD: I’ve never considered my music "cabaret" but I suppose you could look at it that way. My partner Lin and I created a two-person show called Difficult Women which we called a "literary cabaret". We toured all over the world for fifteen years including Okinawa, Canada, New Zealand, Estonia and played fifty shows at the Edinburgh Festival.

I’ve always considered, ‘Shaddap You Face’, to be  the ‘Yellow Submarine’ of my song repertoire! I’ve  always looked at it as simply just a good song because when I was growing  up, the kind of songs that stuck with me, like most of kids, weren’t romantic songs but songs that had something humorous and colourful about them:  ‘The Purple People Eater’, ‘Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini’, ‘Alley Oop’ - hundreds of unforgettable songs with catchy hooks. To me, and kids in general, they are just songs. The term ‘novelty song’ was invented by adults, not kids. They don’t pigeon-hole music like that. They like something or they don’t.

‘Shaddap You Face’, also had a strong rebellious and singalong component and at that time that was pretty rare. Nowadays everyone knows the lyrics to just about every pop singer’s songs (e.g. Taylor Swift) and sings along at the top of their lungs. But in the 80s, the world was saturated with glamour-pop – the singalong, which had been essential during the protest folk movement of the 1970s, had become obsolete.

MW: What is your favourite musical of all time - why?

JD: I don’t really have any favourite musicals. It’s not really my go-to kind of entertainment but I suppose The Wizard of Oz and Mary Poppins are up there. Brilliant characters and songs.

MW: Tell me about some of your favourite records...

JD: ...pretty much any Beatles album. The Byrds. I love the British Invasion of the late-60s. Most late-60s & early-70s bands: Zombies, Kinks, early-Rolling Stones... too many to mention.

I have a rare LP by The Singing Nun, Lyrics For Lovers, by Dirk Bogart (a spoken word album from 1960), The Youngbloods, Blonde On Blonde (my favourite Bob Dylan album, with the dumbest title) and The Band. Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five - his trumpet playing strongly influenced my blues harp playing. Anything by guitarist Albert King. 

MW: Rank your Top 5 comedians and give details as to why you like each one… 

JD: I generally steer away from meritocracy when talking about art – or I try to as much as my ego will let me!  A truly unique artist exists in a world immune from criticism. I mean how do you rank guitarists like Robert Johnson, Jimi Hendrix and Segovia? Picasso, Van Gogh or Monet? Whitman, Lorca, or Cavafy? Hemingway, Faulkner or Henry James? Impossible. They all have their own unique space and style. Meritocracy; i.e. who’s first, second, third, etc is for the world of sport and pop charts – but not true immortal art.

Comedians who have influenced my style however are: 

Jerry Lewis – his physical humour and ability to make fun of himself.

The Marx Bros – probably my all-time favourite comedians. They all were musicians, too. My Italian broken-English ‘Giuseppe’ comes directly from Chico Marx, who strangely enough wasn’t even Italian, but Jewish!

Andy Kaufman -  taught me conceptual and intellectual comedy-  how to create something outside the box that the audience doesn’t  see coming.

Richard Pryor– I saw Richard Pryor live in a big arena. His irreverence and willingness to make very uncomfortable racial observations that were somehow endearing to both blacks and whites was very visionary.

Henny Youngman – the king of one-liners and audience come-backs. e.g "If God can make penicillin out of mouldy bread, He can make something out of you." Stuff like that. Handy to have a couple of dozen of these on hand for hecklers in the audience. I’ve always felt that a good one-liner was practically a zen parable.

MW: As a child, did you “marvel” at comics? 

JD: When I was a young child, I had the biggest collection of Marvel comics of anyone I knew. I owned the first issues of Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Fantastic Four, Spider Man, so many others. Stacks of them that went up to the ceiling that would be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars now.

Unfortunately, when I went off to college and basically stayed away from home for five years my mother threw them all away. Listen to, ‘Mr Q’, on my new album. About our hometown paedophile who ran the local comic book shop. Very problematic for kids who liked comic books.

MW: What book have you re-read the most, which book have you started but never finished, and which book have you yet to read but really want to (one day)?

JD: My reading changes from year to year depending on what else I’m doing. I think the first book series I read was the James Bond books, long before the films were made. I had read all of them. And then I think I moved into poetry: Rilke, Walt Whitman, E.E Cummings, Cavafy. I like popular novels rather than classical novels. I read the Godfather, the Red Dragon and Queen’s Gambit long before the films. Some of the more serious books: like, Varieties of Religious Experience, by William James or Robert Johnson, Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love. I read hundreds of feminist books during our Difficult Women show days. I have a huge poetry collection.

The book I have never finished – and probably never will - is James Joyce’s Ulysses. 

The book I still haven’t read but want to: Dante’s Inferno.

MW: What are your plans for Christmas 2024 (personal & professional)?

JD:

Professional: to develop, and sell, over the Christmas period, both the new albums I have produced this year – my own and my partner Lin’s Intimacy album. (We co-wrote and she sang the title song in the first Terminator movie in the 80's). Also to sell my cookbook, which won a Gourmand Award last year, and my perennial Christmas album. I get many requests for the Christmas album, recorded in the 80s. It is out-of-print but available on my website as a digital download.

Personal:  We have a big extended family meal on Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, and then go bush for two weeks - which is a 12-hour drive north and then another hour inland into the mountains. We have a secluded place in the middle of a state forest that requires a four-wheel-drive to get to, a bush house built of stone &  bush timber. We’ve been flooded out and had a house destroyed by bushfires. We say we go there for the “inconveniences” - wood chopping, carrying water, going for long walks. Once we get in there, we  put the car keys away,  put our money away for a week or two-  we don’t even think about things like that - we bring everything we need. I usually spend the time writing a lot of poetry, getting a bit fitter (I always lose about 5 kg from those trips without even thinking about it), cooking outdoors on campfires, swimming in the creek - beautiful swimming - that’s our Christmas!

JOE DOLCE WEBSITE : www.atthenoisycafe.com

(c) Mark Watkins / November 2024.

[nooahsmile]

against all odds, i turn seventeen tomorrow.

it doesnt feel real because i was 6 years old yesterday. sometimes i still wake up thinking that ill open my eyes and be in my little bunk bed in my hometown that had stickers all over the frame.

sometime between now and then i’ve been a softball player and a singer. i’ve been on the swim team and i’ve written poems. between then and now, i’ve been 10, i’ve been 15, and now i’m about to be 17.

forever since my last night laying in my BRIGHT pink and green bunk bed, i’ve been arden and bear, and i was also archer, but now i’m noah.

in those seven years (because somehow seven years have flown by my face) i’ve made friends and i’ve lost some. i’ve been a best friend and i’ve been an acquaintance (including a VERY brief stint as a boyfriend). but i’m happy to say i have some of the coolest people in the WORLD as my friends.

between then and now, i’ve felt like i was losing myself. between then and now, i think i’ve also found myself somehow.

i’ve learned to love the mountains, and i’ve learned to hate beans. i love the way the wind blows through my car when i have all the windows down, and i hate when it’s too hot outside. i still love music, but especially when it’s live now. even seven years later, i’ve retained my midwest accent and my immunity to the cold weather.

i still love the snow

after the move i forgot to be grateful for the opening of my eyes in the morning. i forgot how precious each day was. but now i can appreciate that each day holds something for me, good or bad. i recognize now that my bad days don’t define my life, and that good days are ALWAYS on the horizon. i’ve learned to love the little things, like the baby deer grazing in the field by my house and the way my friends smile after i say something funny.

i’m scared to get older, but i’m also excited. i’m scared to leave behind the days of the rickety old bunk bed and playing in the snow until my cheeks turned red. i’m excited for college, to choose what i want to do with the rest of my life. i’m excited for more days where i can roll my windows down and feel the cold air glide through my fingers.

i’m afraid to die, but i’m excited to live.