#just need to like

[berk-brain-rot]

Ok, ok, poem has been reread, walls have been stared at, and I have thoughts (I'm not entirely sure they're coherent but this is tumblr and a blog based on the hyperfixation of one poet, I cannot ever promise you coherency)

So

Berk tends to have a pretty conversational style to their poems in general, but this one is presenting in a way a lot of their others aren't.

These lines, man these lines make me insane

The half formed thoughts that keep going until you have to just stop?? The way you can feel a breath taken after "okay."??? The childlike quality to it of just needing the other person to not be upset, anything but upset?????

Insane.

Then you have this

Berk isn't talking to some generalized audience, they're not talking to some unknowable god, intangible grief, or even themselves. They sat you down right in front of them "face-to-face" to speak.

Excuse me while I go stare at another wall for five minutes.

Then again man, you can hear the panicked look up, the immediate rephrasing as you try and get them to know and understand that "I cannot". She can't, she can't, and they know it looks like they won't, but they can't and-

~author falls into indistinct mumbling once again~

But, I think the thing I appreciate most about this poem is how hopeful it is in it's portrayal of affection nonetheless.

Because the listener (you, me, and every reader after) is letting them speak. They're letting her trip over words, rewrite phrases, pause to take breaths, put pebbles over and over and over again back in your bucket while pretending to put ones back into theirs until your bucket is full and theirs is not-

And then we still "together set off",

"Shoulders brushing" in companionship,

"fingers joined" in the only way you know they'll be able to accept and give help,

and a silence filled with company for miles as you refuse to leave them behind.

[bulbabutt]

i don't know the etiquette for posting other peoples tiktoks but the delivery of this punchline hit me like a FUCKING TRUCK please

NikhilClayton <- you should follow this guy on tiktok he's fucking hilarious

[void-drifter]

it’s cheaper to buy vegetables here

[beaft]

do genuinely find it fascinating how indeed.com is like the biggest job-hunting website out there and yet manages to be profoundly useless in every possible way

[kochei0]

I turn to Ares.

Thanks to Tyler Miles Lockett who allowed me to draw inspiration from his ARES piece for page 2! Look at his etsy page it's SICK

⚔️ If you want to read some queer retelling of arturian legends have a look at my webtoon

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

girl why the hell WEREN'T you at the devil's sacrament 👀 that's three sacraments in a row you've missed 👀 👀 👀

[lgbtlunaverse]

The world exists in such a baffling state of simultaneous sex-aversion and sex-hegemony. Every social platform on the internet is trying to banish sex workers to the shadow realm but I can't post a tweet without at least two bots replying P U S S Y I N B I O. People are self-censoring sex to seggs and $3× but every other ad you see is still filled with half-naked women. Rightwingers want queer people arrested for so much as existing in the same postal code as a child and are also drumming up a moral panic about how teenage boys aren't getting laid enough. I feel like I'm losing my mind.

[kensatou]

i'll let phie-san say it:

[badolmen]

WARNING 18+

19

[inkskinned]

she's singing in another room and my dog is asleep at my feet. my grandma asked me why i haven't found a man yet and i laughed. oh, you know. i like my house clean.

my girlfriend is also my man is also "my partner" if i'm in a professional setting. yesterday we went to a ren faire and a man mimed at me - you're together? and at my delighted nod, his baffled, you're gay? made me laugh. a woman with rainbow hair said i love the two of you together. you're both so beautiful it's absurd.

my dad introduced my partner as my "..... friend. or whatever" the other day. he knows we're dating. in the same way, i was never able to get my sister's husband to stop saying that's gay like it's 2008. he still uses the word fa***t, and my sister's defense of him has always been well, he's just kidding.

my lover and i dance to old music in a tiny kitchen. we judge new music together and take food critique very seriously. we watch love is blind before we fall asleep and agree that if they had a queer season, it would be bloody but also make for excellent tv. of fucking course queer people would know someone for only 2 weeks and agree to get married. what are you saying.

at a bar with friends, a man puts his hand on my wrist. got a boyfriend? and yes, i do have a boyfriend, she's amazing. i am texting her while i wander around a gas station named after geese. i am visiting a swing state for a wedding. in the candy aisle i overhear: she's actually like a lesbian it's disgusting. two teenage girls with packaged sandwiches in their hands, giggling. no literally, like. i'm not, like. okay with her being there while we're all, like, naked and changing.

my girlfriend and i tailgate, drink gin and cider out of cups. from the frat group beside us, a man corrects himself with one of his friends: bro, i mean, nonbinary entity, and it makes everyone around him laugh, myself included. he razzes his friend the same way i would have killed for at 19 years old - like nothing happened, he continues: you apply sunscreen like an alien. he does a little sassy (and fairly accurate) dance interpretation of the motion. his friend is laughing so hard they're crying.

i am lucky, i live in a safe neighborhood in a safe state. my masc passenger princess comes up from DC. i drive her for an hour to where all the leaves are a violent arrangement of color. we walk along the trails, letting autumn into our blood. in this part of the state, there's a lot of pickup trucks and trump signs. when we chastely kiss before getting into the car, i accidentally make eye contact with a woman holding her child's wrist. she looks disgusted. she looks fucking pissed.

two hours later my girl and i are eating dinner on a patio, soaking in the last warmth of new england sun before the chill of winter sets in. we are giggling and trying to talk through plastic vampire teeth. at another table, i see a young woman sit up straighter. i watch her watch us. she blushes and takes her partner's hand from across the table. shy, like the taste of evening has just become something deeper.

it's worth it for this moment, i think. my lover is still humming the same song she's been singing for four days straight and i don't want to kill her for it. her guitar is beside my bed. her toothbrush is in my bathroom. in a few moments i will make us lunch. we are lucky enough to have found each other. it is lucky enough to be in love.

[sunbloomdew]

do you ever see a person and you are overcome with incredible fondness? and you just think "oh." but not in a romantic or sexual way you are just filled with warmth and it makes you happy, it just does. and you think "i'm so happy you exist. i'm happy you are somewhere out there in the world, doing your thing". it's love but also not entirely

like people are lovely and i feel it in my entire chest like a burning candle that smells like roses and a sunny day

[ot3]

i dont like the idea that kids these days are doing their fandom rps with ai chatbots. that's how you're supposed to make lifelong friends as a weird really online teen.

[beaft]

google help me

[hinamie]

to moving forward

[kendyroy]

Seeing Logan in the TVA makes me laugh so hard for some reason? Like I know he’s lived to see technology evolve and stuff, but there’s something so funny about a guy from the 1800s standing in some kind of retro-futuristic timey wimey agency to me. Man is confused as hell.

like what da hell is a polar bear doin in arlington texas

[isjasz]

[Ready for a new game?]

day 11 definitelynottober - heart in your fist & week 1 weeklyhermittober - beginnings

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IM SO READY LETSGO SO EXCITED FOR THE NEW LIFE SERIES💥💥💥💥💥💥