#evidence by mary oliver

[knivcs]

"Violets" by Mary Oliver from Devotions

[luthienne]

Mary Oliver, from Swan; "More Evidence"

[Text ID: Refuse all cooperation with the heart's death.]

[wholenessblooming]

Mary Oliver, "Halleluiah" poem from Evidence: Poems

[swear2g-d]

save me mary oliver...

[d-i-x-i-t]

Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers. Let me keep company always with those who say "Look!" and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.

Mary Oliver (Evidence: Poems)

[fatherbats]

3.

The witchery of living is my whole conversation with you, my darlings. All I can tell you is what I know.

Look, and look again. This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes.

It's more than bones.

It's more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.

It's more than the beating of the single heart.

It's praising.

It's giving until the giving feels like receiving.

You have a life-just imagine that! You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe still another.

-"To Begin With, the Sweet Grass" from Evidence by Mary Oliver

[anelaxoxo]

@anelaxoxo

"And you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine."

Mary oliver, from Evidence :poems, "when i am among the trees"

[petaltexturedskies]

Mary Oliver, from “Evidence: Poems”

[swamp-milkweed]

mary oliver, from "to begin with, the sweet grass," in evidence

[padfootagain]

Love in Verses (XVII)

Chapter 17 : ‘Dear pine cone, let me hold you as you open’

Hi! Here is new chapter! Some cuteness and bounding between our MC and Andrew…

I hope you like this chapter! Tell me what you think!

****

Pairing: Hozier x fem!reader (professor!AU)

Warnings: slow burn, angst, hurt, hurt/comfort, tooth-rotting fluff in later chapters, some scenes in later chapters will have heavy sexual themes even if it’s not explicit nsfw description, so minors here

Summary: Your life seems perfect. You're engaged, your career is thriving as you become an assistant professor at Trinity College, and this Andrew Hozier-Byrne you're sharing an office with seems to be a nice guy you hope to call a friend soon. Life seems to be smiling at you... until everything goes sour. When your fiancé breaks up with you, your perfect world shatters. And when your colleague also gets his heart broken soon after, your shared office seems to be a curse rather than a blessing. But Andrew seems determined to mend your broken hearts... Will things finally go according to plan?

Word Count: 3483

Masterlist for the series – Hozier’s masterlist – Main masterlist

It was early

It was early,   which has always been my hour     to begin looking       at the world

and of course,   even in the darkness,     to begin       listening to it,

especially   under the pines     where the owl lives       and sometimes calls out

as I walk by,   as he did     on this morning.       So many gifts!

What do they mean?   In the marshes     where the pink light        was just arriving

the mink   with his bristle tail     was stalking       the soft-eared mice,

and in the pines   the cones were heavy,     each one       ordained to open.

Sometimes I need   only to stand     wherever I am       to be blessed.

Little mink, let me watch you.   Little mice, run and run.     Dear pine cone, let me hold you       as you open.

Mary Oliver, Evidence, 2009

The rain made a reassuring rhythm as it fell on rooftops and windowpanes. It was kind of perfect for today’s ventures through bookstores with Andrew. You both had books to buy, had decided to go together. Of course, you had two titles in mind, and had already five books in your arms. As per usual.

By your side, Andrew was softly humming. A habit of his, you had discovered. One that came through when he was fully relaxed and happy, a sign of contentment. Today’s tune was fitting the moody weather and the warmth of bookshops. Autumn in New York…

“Andy… I need your professional expertise.”

He looked up at you, glasses perched on his nose, hair tied back but loose curls still fell around his face, a couple of them hiding his right eye and the freckle above it. He looked welcoming, warm, like a blanket and hot cocoa in winter, like the cracking of fire in the hearth of a safe home.

“Devotion, Mary Oliver?” you asked, holding up the book in your hand.

He grinned.

“A must-read, obviously. Breathtaking. I have a copy though, if you want to borrow it. It’s a good selection of her poetry.”

“Would you say I will want to go back to it constantly after I’ve read it?”

“I do go back to it often,” he conceded, and you heaved a sigh.

You placed it on the pile of books that was slowly but surely growing in your arms.

“You have a terrible influence on me,” you sighed, making him roll his eyes.

“I’m merely answering your question.”

“My bank account hates you and your reliable recommendations, just so you know.”

“I’ve finished The Song of Achilles, by the way,” Andrew mentioned it as if it was but a detail, but you noticed the smile he was trying to refrain.

“And?”

“It was… good.”

You raised an unimpressed eyebrow, making him laugh.

“Alright, alright… I liked it a lot, actually.”

“How much did you cry?”

“What makes you think I cried at all?”

“Huh… because you have a beating heart, obviously?”

You saw the glimmer in his eyes, the tug of a cheeky smile on his lips that he tried to hide. You knew he was going to make a stupid joke, and that you would fall for it and laugh.

“How do you know I have one?”

“You’re alive,” you answered, playing along as you narrowed your eyes.

“So you think! I am actually un-dead. You foolish mortals should quake in fear before me.”

“How do you hide the smell of decomposition so well, then?” you asked back, and you noticed the way he was surprised by your answer, the absolute thrill he had because you were yielding into his dark humour.

“Perfume. Like the French.”

“You know it’s a myth.”

“Is it?”

“No idea.”

“I learned from the best, in the 1600s, when it grew out of fashion to stink.”

“So, what are you? A zombie?”

“No, I’m not! I’m not a brainwashed decomposing corps, how dare you?”

“Because you think you’re a vampire?”

“I would be a grand vampire!”

“Definitely a tall one, for sure.”

He narrowed his eyes at you, struggling so hard not to laugh you knew he had stopped breathing.

“Careful, mortal.”

“What are you gonna do? Sink your teeth in my jugular? Well, go ahead!”

You offered your neck to him, were surprised when his smile faltered and he fiercely blushed while staring at the skin you were now exposing.

“Besides, I’m sure I would get rid of you easily,” you teased again, replacing your scarf as it was before, and Andrew seemed to be breathing once more.

“You seem to doubt my vampiric powers to an annoying degree,” he went on again, following you as you walked further down the poetry section, before you’d stop again to look at another shelf of the same aisle.

“Hmm… maybe you are a vampire, indeed,” you pouted, acting like pondering a question. “I bet your white arse does get burned at the smallest ray of sunshine.”

Andrew couldn’t refrain his laughter anymore, it came out in a loud wave, the sound alone making you grin.

“Right, that’s right,” he nodded, doubling with laughter.

“Crispy bacon, I bet.”

His laughter came back renewed in a new wave. It lit up the entire shop, even the world beyond it.

“I cook in the sun,” he nodded, trying to calm down although his words still came out distorted by the lack of air in his lungs. “I become edible, at one point.”

You laughed too, bright and happy, the way you felt with Andy that rainy afternoon.

You didn’t have a care in the world in that moment. Basking in your shared laughter over some silly jokes, in a bookshop you loved, spending all the money you could have saved for later in life, but who cared about later? There was Andy laughing, the pile of books under his arm, the light reflected on his glasses, the pitter patter of the rain. Wasn’t that enough to fill up a world? An entire life?

You were so glad he was your friend now…

“You didn’t answer. How much did you cry?” you asked again, picking up a book, but placing it back on the bookshelf almost immediately, not liking how it looked.

“Quite a lot,” he finally admitted.

“Told you, you would. What did you think?”

He heaved a sigh, and you knew what was coming. You knew he was about to babble away for ten minutes and analyse everything in depth and question the changes made compared to the Iliad, and be too clever for his own good… He was an academic, after all.

He did exactly as you had predicted, you smiled the entire time, discussing some points with him, giving your opinion which he listened to attentively, bouncing back on your arguments to carry the conversation further. And you loved it. Every second of it. Being challenged that way about a book you had loved made your brain buzz in the best way.

You heaved a dreamy sigh, turning towards the shelves filled to the brim with books to buy.

“Oh, but can you imagine though? What it must feel like to have someone loving you that much?”

You ran your fingers across the spines of books before you, read a few titles; it was like touching dreams.

“Do you imagine what it must feel like to write about love that way? To love someone so much you write about them? To have someone writing about you?”

You smiled, a soft gesture as you let your hand fall back by your side.

“What else could we write about, though?”

You turned to Andrew, surprised by his sudden silence, and found him staring at you with an unreadable expression, you weren’t sure whether he was sad or simply deep in thoughts. You noted the red on his cheeks, though.

He seemed to hesitate, his lips parting, and then closing again.

“Like that could happen to us,” you laughed at your own silly thoughts. “Right… I’m done, I can’t allow myself to buy more books! Are you ready? Or do you require more snooping around?”

A smile was back on his lips, although Andrew still seemed a little shaken, you didn’t know why. He nodded anyway, looking down at the five books he was holding.

“I’m all good. Erm… I’m gonna order one, they didn’t have it. I’ll be quick.”

You nodded, let Andrew ask for the book he wanted, while you watched the rain fall outside, the lines it drew on the windowpane, the silhouettes hurrying back and forth in the street.

You didn’t hear Andrew joining you again, you jumped as he spoke.

“Ready?”

You had a new conversation going while you waited to pay for the books; and when it was time to walk out of the bookshop and part for the day, you didn’t want to. It was still early, you had no place to be on that Saturday afternoon. You wanted to finish this conversation with Andrew, you wanted to listen to his deep voice a little longer, let his calmness soothe you…

He looked into the street before you, holding the door open for you, but you remained motionless by his side. The rain was heavier now. It was so cold outside, you wondered if snowflakes weren’t hiding in the droplets.

“Want to get a coffee?” Andrew asked after a short silence.

You looked up at him, exchanged a glance. You read the same eagerness to stay in his eyes. You grinned.

“Yeah, I’d love that.”

You were laughing at Andrew as you ran to the coffeeshop set right across the street when he slipped, almost falling, and cursing loudly at the clumsiness of his tall limbs. The rain was so cold over your face, you savoured the feeling the same way you enjoyed Andrew’s hand on your back when he told you to hurry inside.

“Wow… your standards for that date are… very high,” Andrew declared, pushing his rebel strands of hair behind his ear.

He cursed in a sigh, mumbling something about his hair tie not ‘doing anything’, and he pulled on it to free his hair. He shook his head to let his curls free; you tried hard not to stare, failed miserably…

“You asked for like… the dream date. The absolute dream. I’ve given you the absolute dream. The unreachable standard.”

“So… a movie in a field or clearing, a picknick, at night, and with lights hanging from trees.”

“Yes.”

“That’s insane.”

“You asked for the dream! That would be so fucking romantic!”

“It’s not even feasible, on a purely logistical point. How do you watch a movie in the woods? On a laptop?”

“No! I want it like… projected on a screen, like in cinema.”

“You want to go to an outdoor screening…”

“No! I want to be alone with the guy!”

“That’s impossible.”

“Projectors do exist, you know!”

“How do you create that set up where there is no one…?”

“I’ve never said I will ever get that! That it will happen! I’ve just said… that if anything could happen… I would like a date where we would be just together, in the middle of nowhere, watching a movie we both like and eating good food in a magical setting. Or it doesn’t have to be in the middle of nowhere, it can be… like… in a garden!”

“In this economy? Who owns a garden? Are you a millionaire?”

You rolled your eyes at him. Bantering with Andrew was such a nice sport…

“Why not just… go to a cinema?” he asked, taking a sip of his coffee.

Black, no sugar nor milk. Always the same order. Predictable guy…

“You can’t talk in a cinema. But you’re supposed to get to know the other person during a first date.”

“A restaurant then? You’ll go to the cinema for a second date.”

“Restaurants are okay,” you conceded. “And again, you asked for the dream. The one that is not achievable. That no man would ever do.”

“Because it’s not logistically possible.”

“Because no man would go to such length for someone else.”

Andrew raised a surprised eyebrow, clearly taken aback by the sudden pessimism in your voice. The mood shifted a little, from casually playful to something more serious, even a little sad.

You kind of hated your own thoughts, hated your weakness that made you unable to hold back the rest of your words, but they spilled out anyway.

“Especially not for me.”

Andrew’s expression changed from surprised to a deep frown. He opened his mouth to argue, but you interrupted him before he had as much as a chance to say a word.

“Never mind that. Anyway… let’s talk about something else. It’s your turn to answer a question!”

You narrowed your eyes, mischief back on your features, and if Andrew didn’t seem fully convinced by your sudden change of subject, he yielded anyway.

“Alright, I’m all ears.”

“I can ask you whatever I want?”

“Sure… I might not answer though.”

You looked for something that would make him blush for sure, just to tease…

“Weirdest place where you’ve had sex?”

Andrew broke into laughter, clearly uncomfortable now, and blushing like a tomato all the way up to the tips of his ears. He nervously ran his fingers through his hair. And yet, when he looked at you again, there was something wicked in his gaze, something beyond playful.

“That… is a very personal question to ask a lad.”

“You’re the one who started asking about my dating preferences.”

“Dating and having sex are quite… different. One is much more tamed.”

“Only if the date isn’t that good.”

He smiled, his tongue poking against the inside of his cheek. You knew he liked that, the challenge of talking to someone witty.

“Fair enough,” he nodded, still staring at you, his voice lower and deeper than usual.

Your stomach clenched, you felt warmth spread across your entire frame under the combination of his stare and his suave ton.

He knew how to be a dangerous flirt, alright…

“I’m afraid I’ll be a little disappointing though. I haven’t had crazy experiences,” he admitted. “I guess… I don’t know… a car?”

“A classic!”

“It wasn’t very nice, to be fair…”

“Really?”

He winced, taking a deep breath.

“Very long limbs in a secluded space is all I’m gonna say about it.”

You chocked on your coffee, laughing so hard your belly was soon painful. And Andrew was laughing as well.

“Oh, no! The woods! That’s weirder!” he changed his answer, looking at the ceiling as he seemed to look through his memories. “Yeah, the woods, actually.”

“Risky business. I bet you’ve traumatised an entire family of badgers.”

“Several of them, definitely!” he chuckled, drinking and taking a bite of his cheesecake.

“Alright, next question!” you eagerly asked, making Andrew smile.

“Erm… like… erm… If you could go anywhere in the world now… Like… you’re just, transported like that,” he explained, snapping his fingers for good measure, “where would you like to go, and why?”

“Oh… It would have to be a place far away if I can teleport there and not suffer through twenty hours of flying… erm… Probably Australia or something like that. Or New-Zealand! Oh yeah… going full on hardcore Lord of the Rings fan in New-Zealand, that would be nice.”

“You’d make a very good elf,” he chuckled, but you shook your head.

“Oh, I want to be a hobbit! Quiet, eating a lot of good food, reading books, complaining about people all day long, like… with your busiest time of the day being going for a walk through the nearby fields. Yeah, I want that life.”

Andrew’s gaze softened.

“That sounds nice, indeed.”

You looked for a question to ask him while munching on your cupcake.

“Where would you like to live? Like… if you had an unlimited amount of money, and you could just… buy any house, anywhere in the world… where would you like to live?”

Andrew hummed as he was thinking of an answer, looking by the window at the rain that was still falling and showing no sign of stopping. In the coffeeshop, Mumford and Sons were playing, you hummed along the tune while you waited for Andrew’s answer.

He heaved a sigh.

“I’m… so boring,” he admitted with a smile. “But I… I would really like to live in Wicklow. Like… in the countryside, in a very small town, and to have… like… some land and a huge garden. Some old house where you can feel the weight of time and of people who have lived there before, but… I mean, modernised, cause… comfort, you know?” he joked, looking at you again. “But yeah, I… I would really like to live in a quiet house, a place with a soul. And I want a garden. I… I would really like to keep bees, one day.”

“Bees?”

“Yeah… they’re my favourite insects, even animals to be fair. They’re so… interesting and quite cute. And I just… Can you imagine? Taking care of your bees, and making your own honey? I would really like that. I would really like that a lot. Nothing extravagant, nothing unreachable just… a house with a garden, and a couple of hives. Besides, Elwood would need a garden. I’m lucky, my parents live in the countryside. I… I think I’d like to live quite close to them, actually. When I was a child, we settled in Wicklow, and it was so nice. I loved growing up there. We didn’t have a farm but we were outside any big city. And it was just so nice. I’d like that.”

You felt your heart grow warm at his words. Something so simple he wanted. Bees and a garden, some place for Elwood to run…

“You are aware it would cost you your liver to have a cubicle in the middle of a field, right?” you asked, trying to think about something else than the way your heart was making happy jumps now.

He rolled his eyes.

“You said that I didn’t have to think about the money. With unlimited budget.”

You nodded, checked the time.

It was starting to be late, your coffee was almost empty and you had finished your cake. Time to go home.

Instead, you looked up at Andrew, noticed how long his eyelashes were as he looked down into his cup of coffee. Your request passed your lips before you could think the words you were speaking.

“Ask me something else.”

A week later, Andrew was back in the bookshop, although, he was on his own this time. The book he had ordered had been delivered, he was coming to pick it up. He wouldn’t buy anything else, just what he needed. He had already bought too many books with you, the previous week, learning that you could not be trusted either in a bookshop. He wasn’t surprised. A fond smile spread on his lips at the thought.

He was about to go pay for the book when something caught his eye. A name he recognised and that made him immediately think of you.

Dante Aleghieri

He walked over to the table where a few books were displayed, including this nice copy of the Divine Comedy. He picked it up, turned the book into his hands, weighted it as he hesitated. He hadn’t read that book since his college days, several years ago. At the time, he wasn’t interested in that story, and he reckoned he was too young to understand it. He had studied later on the bits and pieces that Seamus Heaney himself had translated, but that was all.

You loved Inferno though. You had found something in it. He wanted to find out what it was. Besides, it made him think of you…

He heaved a sigh, walked to pay for both books, carried them home.

That evening, he picked up Dante instead of finishing the novel he was currently reading. He checked on Elwood, who was softly snoring in the corner of the living room, before heading to bed himself. He readjusted his glasses on his nose before slipping under the covers, turning off his phone so he wouldn’t be interrupted or distracted, and he started reading.

He was drawn into the story now, more so than he remembered being the first time around. Of course, it was a book written over seven hundred years ago, with such Christian outdated thoughts that some pieces were lost to us. And yet, there was something haunting in its imagery, something touching in the pain inflicted. He made a mental note to research more about the political context that was debated in the book, he didn’t remember the story being so heavily driven by Dante’s political views, but it was. It was mostly political, mostly Christian too. He kept on reading through Canto I and II, until he had to stop, his breathing caught in his throat, his eyes clouded with tears as he reached Canto III.

Through me you enter into the city of woes,

Through me you enter into eternal pain,

Through me you enter the population of loss.

The words carved above the entrance of hell made him put down the book, stare up at the ceiling. It was silly, that wasn’t what the words meant in the context of the book, and yet… there was so much loss in his life at the moment…

 Through me you enter the population of loss.

The words played through his head again and again. What a beautiful way to describe grief…

He let out a breathy chuckle, blinking his tears away and smiling instead.

He should never doubt you. You seemed to always be right…

[givemearmstopraywith]

the idea of a white jesus arose primarily in the 19th century, with the emergence of theories that claimed him for an "aryan race" and claimed he was, among other things, of nordic or germanic extraction. of course, medieval european depictions of jesus also show him to be rather lean and fair, but this is arguably less originating in what we understand as contemporary racism and more from a lack of context, a reliance on the known and familiar. how easy it is to erase a heritage. to know what jesus would have looked like we need to think of his mother. mary was from first century palestine. historical evidence suggests that jews of this period were biologically closest to iraqi jews. so she would have been dark-skinned- she was working class and would have known the sun. her olive complexion would be deeper and darker than contemporary art renders her. her black hair would have been oiled and parted, with the part perhaps painted with henna. she would probably have had a nose ring and earrings. she would have spoken aramaic in a broad galilean accent that her son would have also taken on- looked down on by more sophisticated city-dwellers, but nimble enough that jesus, a carpenter in a port town in a colonized territory, would have probably picked up a little latin and greek from the docks too. jesus would have had short hair and a beard in the fashion of philosophers. he would have had mary's black hair and dark skin. they would both have been short- no more than five feet, five inches. jesus walked everywhere, worked his body hard: he was probably lean-bodied. nicephorus callistus in the fourteenth century said mary's eyes were bright, with pupils like shiny olives, and strong eyebrows. i don't know where callistus gets this information, but i like it. i like the idea of jesus and his mother having arched, black brows, dark skin, dark eyes. when we call him jesus christ we call him yeshua the anointed, yeshua whose head has been touched with olive oil pressed from the olive groves of the palestinian countryside.

[wholenessblooming]

Mary Oliver, "We Shake with Joy" from Evidence: Poems

[sixminutestoriesblog]

Mercy Brown: when superstitions go awry

Tuberculosis is an insidious disease that comes in quietly and sweeps away entire families, rarely content with just one or two before its run its course. This slowly dividing bacteria travels from host to host through aerosol droplets via sneezing, coughing, speaking and other airborne paths. Considering the fact that TB attacks the lungs most often, resulting in, among other things, coughing up bloody phlegm, this means its highly transmissible and yet, luckily, very slow to be caught by the average passer-by. The longer someone spends with the sick person, and the less well ventilated an area is, the more likely the disease is to pass on to the next victim. Most people that came down with TB caught it from sick family members. These days we have a vaccine against it but TB has been around for most of humanities' recorded history, with even Egyptian mummies having been found with physical evidence of it. In Victorian (and later) times the disease was referred to as 'consumption' with little understanding of its source or its cause, an unknown horror that seemed to come from nowhere, prey on an entire family or community and than vanish again just as mysteriously.

In 1883 (or 1884 or 1888 -the dates are all over the place), a woman in Exeter, Rhode Island by the name of Mary Eliza died of 'consumption'. Six months later, her oldest daughter, Mary Olive, joined her in the graveyard. The distraught husband, George, waited, one can only imagine, with terror for the rest of their children to be swept away as well but for the next several years, all was well in the family. Then, in the cold months at the end of 1891, his daughter Mercy Lena came down with consumption.

From our place, safely in the future, we can look at the case and wonder if she was exposed to a new strain that finally found a weak spot the previous one hadn't and laid claim to her. It's entirely possible however that the same bacteria that killed her mother was now killing Mercy as well. Mercy might have contracted what's known as latent TB from her mother, a case where the bacteria lies dormant in the system, the victim a benign carrier who can't infect others until something, usually an event that suppresses the immune system, triggers it into a full blow, active bought. Whatever the case, whether it was a new infection or the haunting family ghost of her mother's older one, Mercy, and her younger brother Edwin, both came down with active TB in 1891. Edwin, a teenager at the time, was sent to Colorado in the hopes it would heal him - but Mercy died in the first month of the new year, going the way of her mother and older sister before her to the grave. She was only 19.

The story should have stopped there.

I wouldn't be writing about this if it had.

Edwin returned from Colorado and his health continued to decline. Soon, if nothing changed, he would follow the majority of his family into the grave. The neighbors had a plan though. They just needed his father's permission.

What they proposed was that an evil entity was draining the life of the Brown family, picking them off one at a time and returning for each new victim. The evil that was killing the family - was a member of the family.

Here's where we get into the superstition part of things. If you read articles online about Mercy Brown you'll find the word 'vampire' thrown around a lot. It was the word used in the newspapers of the time, that caught wind of what the neighbors planned, and its also modern culture, thanks in large part to Bram Stroker's Dracula (there is speculation that his character of Lucy might have had its roots in stories he'd read about Mercy in the newspapers of his time. Dracula, remember, was published in 1897). A dark force, rising from the grave to suck the life out of its victims. Well, yes - and no. Modern vampires, the way we collectively view them now, with fangs and a hunger for blood, creeping around through windows and walking among us on our crowded nighttime streets is a new reskinning. During Mercy's time, and much much further back than that, the 'vampire' associated with disease like TB was much more nebulous. For many cultures, what was rising out of the grave to drain the life from its own family had more resemblance to an angry or hungry ghost, than a walking, talking monster. A distinction that, realistically, has no bearing on the end result but, metaphysically, the story changes. It becomes something personal, to the victim and the neighbors around the family, someone they knew in life, someone they watched die. It's the sorrow and the potential rage and absolutely the confusion of why it happened in the first place, rising like fog from the grave to whisper across the landscape, trying to take what it once had back to the cold of its tomb with it. It's the familiar knock of a friend at the door when the friend isn't there anymore. It's the smile you knew all the nineteen years of its life on the other side of the window on a moonless night. When the neighbors wanted to dig up Eliza, Olive and Mercy, there was the quiet whisper that traced back through a thousand ancestors into the far past of humanity that murmured that love doesn't die when the body does - and that that's terrifying, not comforting.

George, with his son dying, agreed to let the neighbors go digging up his family. Maybe he believed them, some accounts say he didn't, but whatever the case, he let them pull up the bodies of his dead loved ones out of their cold graves in the late winter and lay them out right there for testing. Mary Eliza and Mary Olive were safe. They were too rotted to be the hungry ghost that was trying to take young Edwin with it. Mercy however - Mercy, according to the reporter that was onsite to record all of this, looked far too fresh to be a two month old corpse. Her hair and nails had grown, her body looked unblemished, reports said her body had shifted since it had been laid out and, most damning of all, when her chest was cut open by the local doctor, her organs were found to still have blood in them. It wasn't important that Mercy's body had been in the ground during some of the coldest, and therefor most preserving, months of the year. They certainly didn't know about the buildup of gas in a body that can make it move or the way the skin shrinks and pulls back from nails and hair, making them seem to grow. No. What they saw was that Mercy wasn't content to travel into death alone. She wanted her baby brother to go with her.

So they burned her heart on a stone in the graveyard, put the ashes in a drink and had Edwin chug it down. In a move that dates back to, at least, Achilles desecrating Hector's body in the Iliad, you rob a ghost of its power by mangling the body that ties it to both this world, and its recognizable identity.

It didn't work. Within two months, Edwin was dead as well. The story however, lived on. Perhaps in Stoker's Dracula and certainly in the papers of the day. Mercy was, perhaps, the last body dug up in New England and given the 'vampire' treatment. She wasn't the only one however. There are at least six other recorded, and possibly other unmarked, instances during what came to be known as the New England Vampire Panic that swept the upper US during the 1800s. Mercy, at this point, seems to be the last, coming in on the tail end of the old century and the beginning of the new. A last flicker of the old superstitions dying out in the face of rising science.

[ruknowhere]

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous

to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the

mouths of the lambs.

How rivers and stones are forever

in allegiance with gravity

while we ourselves dream of rising.

How two hands touch and the bonds will

never be broken.

How people come, from delight or the

scars of damage,

to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those

who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say

“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,

and bow their heads. ~Mary Oliver, Evidence

( A Poetry Handbook: https://amzn.to/3Q9BMEe )

[anonymousewrites]

A Study of the Heart and Brain (Book 4) Chapter Nineteen

Father Figure! Sherlock Holmes x Teen! Reader

Chapter Nineteen: Honest Confessions

Summary: (Y/N)'s family has a real, honest discussion.

Mouse Note: We're moving on to the final episode!

            “We, of course, had several other back up plans,” said Sherlock, clean-shaven and dressed in fresh clothes. He had been treated and was finally feeling sober and clear-headed for the first time in a while. “The trouble is, I couldn’t remember what they were.”

            “You should be glad I’m the thinker,” said (Y/N).

            Sherlock frowned. “What?”

            “Nothing,” said (Y/N), popping a lollipop into their mouth.

            “And, of course, I couldn’t anticipate that I’d hallucinate his daughter,” sighed Sherlock. “Still a bit troubled by the daughter. Seemed very real. She gave me information I couldn’t have acquired elsewhere.”

            “But she wasn’t ever here?” said John, finally back in his chair at Baker Street.

            “Interesting, isn’t it? I have theorized before that if one could attenuate to every available data stream in the world simultaneously, it would be possible anticipate and deduce almost anything,” said Sherlock.

            “Your brain would probably be so overstimulated that it breaks,” remarked (Y/N). That's how they felt when started observing too much.

            “Yes, well, that’s the side effect,” said Sherlock, shrugging.

            “So you dreamed up a magic woman who told you things you didn’t know?” John looked at (Y/N). “I think his brain already broke.”

            “Perhaps the drugs opened certain doors in my mind.” Sherlock took a sip of his tea and looked at (Y/N). “But I won’t be trying again.” He smiled.

            “I can’t believe (Y/N) let you do drugs for a case,” said John. “I thought you were still terrified of them.”

            “I don’t like them. I never will. I get anxious and overwhelmed with all the data I process with them and in people around me.” (Y/N) looked at John. “But it was for you. And that made it worth it.”

            John shifted uncomfortably. He was clearly torn between staying and leaving. “I should go. I mean, Rosie is with the sitter, and I don’t want to leave her for too long.”

            “Oh, right,” said Sherlock, also growing awkward.

            “We miss her,” said (Y/N) quietly.

            John paused. “You should…You should come and see her soon. Both of you.” An olive branch. He walked towards the door.

            “Oh, by the way, the recordings will probably be inadmissible,” said Sherlock, talking of the case to keep John there a moment later.

            “Sorry, what?” said John.

            “Well, technically it’s entrapment, so it might get thrown out as evidence,” said Sherlock.

            “Not that it matters,” remarked (Y/N). “He can’t stop confessing.” They smirked. “Ego gets them all.”

            “That’s good,” said John.

            “Yeah,” said Sherlock, nodding and still looking at him.

            John nodded and turned to the door again. But he paused. He didn’t keep moving. (Y/N) and Sherlock remained silent, leaving him room to do what he wanted. They wouldn’t push him.

            “Are you okay?” Or, (Y/N) wouldn’t. Sherlock was going to speak. At least it was a good phrase.

            John turned back and chuckled mirthlessly. “No, I’m not okay.” He stammered through the words as emotions rushed through him. “I’m never gonna be okay. We just have to accept that. It is what it is. And what it is, is…Shit.” He looked down for a moment. “You didn’t kill Mary. Mary died saving your life.”

            Sherlock stared at John.

            “It’s her choice,” said John quietly before his voice grew firmer. “No one made her do it, no one could ever make her do anything. But the point is, you did not kill her.”

            “In saving my life, she conferred a value on it,” said Sherlock. “It is a currency I do not know how to spend.”

            (Y/N) reached out and touched his hand. Sherlock looked at them thankfully.

            “It is what it is,” said John. He nodded. “I’m here tomorrow, 6 to 10, keeping you off the drugs.” Everyone was still a bit wary, though (Y/N) and Sherlock knew it wouldn’t happen again. “I’ll see you then.”

            “Looking forward to it,” said Sherlock.

            “Bye, John,” said (Y/N).

            “Yeah,” said John. He turned away.

            A familiar moan echoed from Sherlock’s phone as it buzzed.

            “What was that?” said John.

            “What was what?” said Sherlock innocently.

            “That noise,” said John.

            “What noise?” said Sherlock.

            John walked closer, and (Y/N) tilted their head. They could see an interesting look in John’s eyes.

            “John?” said Sherlock.

            “I’m going to make a deduction,” said John.

            “Oh, okay, that’s good,” said Sherlock, a little confused.

            “And if my deduction is right, you’re gonna be honest and tell me, yeah?” said John.

            “Okay. Though I should mention that it is possible for any given text alert to become randomly attached to—”

            “Happy birthday,” said John.

            Sherlock paused and nodded. “Thank you, John. That’s very kind of you.”

            “A good deduction,” said (Y/N), nodding to John.

            “Never knew when his birthday was,” said John.

            “Now you do,” said Sherlock.

            “Seriously, we’re not gonna talk about this?” John looked at (Y/N). “Did you know?”

            “That she was alive? Yeah,” said (Y/N). They were glad. Irene was…mad, but she was fun. (She also sent fancy sweets to Baker Street on (Y/N)’s birthday and Christmas).

            “How does that work?” John looked back at Sherlock. “You and the Woman, do you go to the discreet Harvester sometimes, is there nights of passion in the Wycombe?”

            “She texted him that she wants to take me out shopping,” said (Y/N), twirling their lollipop.

            “Oh my god, you’re domestic,” said John.

            “For god’s sake,” groaned Sherlock. “I don’t text her back.”

            “Why not?” chuckled John. “I mean, I know you’re on the spectrum, but you certainly seemed a bit attached.” He laughed. “You’re a bloody moron! She’s out there, she likes you and your kid, and she’s alive, and do you have the first idea how lucky you are?!” It turned to an angry shout, grief overcoming his words. “Yes, she’s a lunatic, she’s a criminal, she’s insanely dangerous, trust you to fall for a sociopath. But she’s, you know…” He ran out of steam. “Text her back.”

            “Why?” said Sherlock.

            “Because it would be good for you,” said John. “You are missing out on a type of connection you’ve never had.”

            “As I think I’ve explained to you many times before, romantic entanglement, while fulfilling for other people—”

            “—Would complete you as a human being.” John looked at (Y/N). “What do you think?”

            “I think my dad takes time to get attached, but he is, even if it's just friendly. I don't know about that stuff,” said (Y/N). “But I know he's just stubborn.”

            “Even your kid agrees that you should text her back, even if just once,” said John. “Do something while there’s still a chance. Because that chance doesn’t last forever. Trust me Sherlock, it’s gone before you know it. Before you know it.”

            Because I know how it feels to lose someone I care about, and if I had never gotten to really love her, I would regret it forever.

            The unspoken truths hung in the air.

            “She was wrong about me.” All of the pouring of his heart finished, and deep-held words came next from John.

            “Mary?” said (Y/N), tilting their head.

            “She thought that if you put yourselves in harm’s way, I’d…I’d rescue you or something,” said John. “But I didn’t. Not until she told me to. And that’s how this works. That’s what you’re both missing. She taught me to be the man she already thought I was. It’s like how you are with (Y/N), Sherlock. You are a better man because they see you as better than you are.”

            “You are doing yourself a disservice,” said Sherlock. “We have known many people this world but made few friends, and we can safely safe—”

            “I cheated on her.” John spoke with the pain of the words in his tone. “No clever comeback?” He looked at the empty space next to him. “I cheated on you, Mary.”

            Sherlock and (Y/N) looked at each other. Was he…seeing Mary? In his grief?

            “It was a woman on the bus, and I had a plastic daisy in my hair, I’d been playing with Rosie. And this girl just smiled at me.” It was John’s confession, his deepest shame, the root of all his anger—anger at himself for not being better for Mary. For not being the man she thought he was. “That’s all it was, it was a smile. We texted constantly. You want to know when? Every time you left the room, that’s when. When you were feeding our daughter. When you were stopping her from crying, that’s when. That’s all it was. Just texting. But I wanted more. And you know something? I still do. I’m not the man you thought I was. I’m not that guy. I never could be. But that’s the point. That’s the whole point.” Tears burned his eyes. “Who you thought I was is the man who I want to be.”

            John sobbed and covered his eyes as the tears finally came. (Y/N) and Sherlock stood up and walked to his side.

            “It’s okay,” said Sherlock softly, hugging him.

            “It’s not okay,” sobbed John.

            “No,” said (Y/N), joining the hug. “But it is what it is. And it can be better.”

            They stayed still for a long time, not talking. That was fine. They all needed a break.

            When they separated, John cleared his throat. “So, cake? It’s your birthday.”

            Sherlock groaned.

            (Y/N) smiled.

            Sherlock paused. “You know, it’s not my place to say. But it was just texting. It’s a terrible thought, John, but sometimes I think we might all just be human.”

            “Even you?” said John.

            “No,” said (Y/N). “Even you.”

            John swallowed and looked away. “Cake?”

            “Cake,” said Sherlock. “Oh, erm.” He turned and grabbed something. He put a deerstalker hat on his head.

            “Seriously?” chuckled John.

            (Y/N) grinned. “What a hat.”

            “I’m Sherlock Holmes. I wear the damn hat,” said Sherlock.

l

            Things went back to normal. John let them visit now. He visited them. They solved cases. John took breaks to focus on himself and Rosie. (Y/N) babysat when Sherlock and John needed guy time.

            Things would never be the same without Mary, but things would be different in a way that wasn’t bad.

            And at least some things were normal—like the crazy people on cases.

            “Get out,” said Sherlock, opening the door with a huff.

            “She’s possessed by the devil!” said the man. “I swear my wife is channeling Satan.”

            “Boring,” said (Y/N).

            “Go away,” said Sherlock.

            “I’m not channeling Satan,” said his wife as they both headed out the door.

            “Why not? Given your immediate alternative.” He swung the door closed.

            (Y/N) sighed. “We need a good case.”

            “Yes, we…do…” Sherlock trailed down as he spotted a paper under a table. He knelt and picked it up. “It’s the paper.”

            (Y/N) sat up. “The what?”

            “That the woman who said she was Faith Smith wrote,” said Sherlock.

            (Y/N) immediately went to his side. “Not your handwriting. A woman’s.”

            “She was real,” said Sherlock.

            (Y/N) took the paper. “There’s a different texture here in the middle.”

            Sherlock grabbed a blacklight and held it to the paper.

            MISS ME?

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[crimsonicarus]

I agree with the Endgame anon but hear me out.. Britcedes breakup anthem is White Mercedes by Charli XCX!! Just a small piece of evidence (the rest of the song is just as heartbreaking):

Lewis: "Don't say you love me cause I can't say it back."/George: "Don't say you're sorry cause you've done nothing bad"

I'd love to see your take on this because it's rotting my brain 😭

anon I saw the vision and now i cannot see shit from crying, ily anon

White Mercedes by Charli XCX - The first bad man by Miranda July - The gardener by Mary Oliver- The unabridged journals of Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath - The impossible by Arthur Rimbaud - Herakles by Euripides - Rilke's book of hours by Rainer Maria Rilke.