#source: natalie diaz

[trickago]

“It is really safe to do Fall Out Boy because I’m hidden behind Patrick and he’s hidden behind me.” - Pete Wentz

[id in alt text, sources below]

caption: Pete Wentz interview with NME by Ali Shutler (April 21, 2020)

image one: Black Sails, Episode 38

image two: Fall Out Boy at Los Premios by Kevin Winter (October 15, 2009); Earth, My Likeness and Here the Frailest Leaves of Me by Walt Whitman; "It's Not a Side Effect of the Cocaine, I Think It Must Be Love" by Fall Out Boy

image three: "Fall Out Boy: 'So Much (For) Stardust' & New Beginnings | Apple Music" (timestamped link to 21:20)

image four: n0hartandsole (June 28, 2007)

image five: There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib

image six: unknown photographer (October 12, 2008); “Cranes, Mafiosos, and a Polaroid Camera" by Natalie Diaz

image seven and nine: Kerrang Issue 1554 (February 2015)

image eight: cover art for Believers Never Die

image ten: The Castle by Franz Kafka

image eleven: Black Sails, Episode 32

[tyriongirl]

Genesis 4:1-5, translated by S. R. Driver, from The Book of Genesis, 1905

A Clash of Kings, Prologue - Maester Cressen

Emanuel Krescenc Liška – Cain (1885)

Claus Westermann, Genesis : a commentary, 1984

Arthur Segal - Kain und Abel (1918)

A Clash of Kings, Prologue - Maester Cressen

Natalie Diaz, A Brother Named Gethsemane, from When My Brother Was an Aztec

Lovis Corinth - Kain (1917)

Genesis 4:6-9, translated by S. R. Driver, from The Book of Genesis, 1905

A Clash of Kings, Chapter 33 - Catelyn IV

Odilion Redon - Cain and Abel (1886)

A Clash of Kings, Chapter 33 - Catelyn IV

Genesis 4:9-14, translated by S. R. Driver, from The Book of Genesis, 1905

A Clash of Kings, Chapter 31 - Catelyn III

St. Omer, Benedictine Abbey of St. Bertin; c. 1190-1200

A Storm of Swords, Chapter 36 - Davos V

S.R. Driver, The Book of Genesis, 1905

A Clash of Kings, Chapter 42 - Davos II

Lazzaro Pisani - Death of Abel (1885)

S.R. Driver, The Book of Genesis, 1905

A Clash of Kings, Chapter 42 - Davos II

A Clash of Kings, Chapter 42 - Davos II

Cain and Abel - City of Zeven - 2015 (source)

Genesis 4:14-16, translated by S. R. Driver, from The Book of Genesis, 1905

[kittywritesfic]

Quote sources:

-A Thin Line, Ryuichi Tamura (translated by Samuel Grolmes and Yumiko Tsumura) 

— Shane McCrae, from "Constantly Throwing Up," Cain Named the Animal

-"A Brother Named Gethsemane" by Natalie Diaz 

[cosmiclove-heavenstruck]

OH, WHAT A WAY TO DIE

sources under the cut

vàzaki nada / ivy by frank ocean / these hands if not gods, natalie diaz / guilty as sin? by taylor swift / jennifer hubbard / guilty as sin? by taylor swift / my heart has claws, fatima aamer bilal / guilty as sin? by taylor swift / sierra demulder / guilty as sin? by taylor swift / the angel experiment, james patterson / lily rain / blood wedding and yerna, federico garcía lorca / death wish, josh alex baker / guilty as sin? by taylor swift

[tothecrucifieddeer]

Hi there,

I just wanted to reach out to you because I've seen some of your recent posts and I'll admit that they have me a bit concerned.

I don't believe that God would be "testing" you by trying to tempt you into idolatry (worshipping the doe).

I think it would be good for you to eliminate all possibilities of what could be happening here. Share all of this with your therapist and listen to what she has to say.

If she can't find you any answers then I think the next best thing to do would be to share this with your priest and let him know that you have pursued mental health support with this. He will be able to help you with determining the origin of the doe. If it is from God, he can find you help with interpreting and handling what you're experiencing. If it's not from God, he can find you help for that too.

We are not an island, we are not called by God to live in isolation. Please please please don't try and navigate this on your own.

Pray to God for his mercy and help. Take advantage of the sacraments. If you truly are a prophet, remember that the prophets and the saints were very devout and always took advantage of their opportunities to worship and partake of the sacraments! I'll be praying for you during this time. Glory to Jesus Christ!

Hi, I really appreciate your concern, and of course prayers are always welcome! I love prayer and I will pray for you too. I worry about what is going on too--but this was all stuff in my fyp without even looking for it. God is speaking to me--not even through Doe anymore. Doe is important--and she represents a possibility if Messiah is not properly revealed--I must wait. I must proclaim his coming, but his realization, is his realization and I cannot force, whether I see it in my lifetime or not. Glory to God! Glory to Jesus Christ!

Of course, I will remain in contact with my therapist and my psychiatrist--but I am feeling much better today in receiving signs from God. It is much better to hear from God than anybody. I feel much better.

I know people have their doubts about the Doe--but she must be some kind of messenger of God--something strange and unknowable in truer sense of Earthly things--but of God. Even in its horror--even in the fear. Doe works for God. She means well and God is pleased with me.

As far as talking to a priest--that's tricky. I have some history with my Diocese--not anything like this--but some drama with a previous priest that makes me feel wary of talking to the bishop or my local priest any more than absolutely necessary.

Some of the Signs I have Received Today Alone that Seem to Say I am On the Right Track:

https://www.tumblr.com/book-of-summer/747190925871169536/god-loves-you?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/nachosforfree/757188996899160064/woman-why-do-you-involve-me?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/mournfulroses/755498544549543936/natalie-diaz-from-i-minotaur-featured-in?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/bloom-with-grace-and-faith/755177848357175296?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/proverbs31girly/747144030572412928?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/aoifecowboy/749896007542865920?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/stqrrynightss/752695908068704256/i-saw-the-decemberists-perform-this-live-a-couple?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/hiddenplacx/735146374457442304?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/apenitentialprayer/757105248062111745?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/wolfythewitch/752376331793317888/c0mmission-my-father-if-it-is-possible-may?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/redeemed-renewed-restored/754572464033529856?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/miseducatedmelanicmuse/754186194032656384?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/dorrance30/750725974394617856/the-holy-spirit?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/godslove/749740863124553728?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/sunrisebythesea/751842958327873536/fear-not-for-i-am-with-you-be-not-dismayed-for?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/wiirocku/749861448129380352/mark-923-nkjv-jesus-said-to-him-if-you-can?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/twiggy-in-pink/756847773096230912?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/saltofthearth/756955653331877888?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/wholehear-ts/756845203118342144?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/wholehear-ts/756206464581943296?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/gospel-art-project/756379988722401280?source=share

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

confusing entity that bites and holds on; if you hold onto something long enough it becomes love

Mary-Alice Daniel // Natalie Wee // Silas Denver Melvin // art source unknown // Natalie Diaz // The Mountain Goats // TV Tropes page on "snake versus mongoose" // Susan Sontag // Euripides tr. Anne Carson // TV Tropes // Pinterest // caption via tags by @brown-little-robin

[unsalve]

in my insanity, i sharpened my teeth for you. 

pablo picasso / timothy joshua  / george seferis /  source unknown  / alicia ostriker / christopher bursk / natalie diaz / yayoi kusama: chandelier of grief (2016) / let’s scare jessica to death (1971) / mirror - stray kids / haruki murakami / fallen angels (1995) /  euripides’ hecuba c. 424 bc. / little women (2022)

(  kofi . )

[just-wublrful]

on loss, grief, and praying to the stars for absolution

The Hand Has Twenty-Seven Bones—: These Hands If Not Gods, Natalie Diaz | And What Good Will Your Vanity be When the Rapture Comes, Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib | Saying Names, Richard Siken | Falling Stars, Franz von Stuck | On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong | Salvage, Ada Limon | Snow And Dirty Rain, Richard Siken | Mural, Mahmoud Darwish | Snow And Dirty Rain, Richard Siken |  Rihanna – Birthday Cake, Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib | Sound of the War, Vincente Aleixandre | Tsunami’s Debris, Lee Ann Roripaugh | Reasons for Staying, Ocean Vuong | Stardust Hands, Danielle Buetti | All the Wrong Colors, Yrsa Daley-Ward

[ID: An assortment of quotes and images from various sources.

1. Those lovers are mostly gone. My hands remain —: like altars.

2. like I will never touch a beautiful thing again and the man / looks me in the eyes and he points me to the blue-orange vault / over heaven’s gates and he says the face of everyone you miss / is up there and I know I know I can’t see them but I know

3. a sound. The waters of the dead, a clear road, / every lover in the form of stars, the road / blocked. All night I stretched my arms across

4. A painting of two people sitting and looking up at a star-filled night sky. The person on the left has dark hair and wears a white dress, the person on the right wears black clothes and has their back to the viewer. They are sitting on a green hill, with another green hill and a river in the background. Two lines streak across the sky, indicating shooting stars.

5. When does a war end? When can I say / your name and have it mean only your / name and not what you left behind?

6. Staring / at the tree for a long time now,  I am reminded / of the righteousness I had before the scorch / of time. I miss who I was. I miss who we all were, / before we were this: half alive to the brightening sky, / half dead already. I place my hand on the unscarred / bark that is cool and unsullied, and because I cannot / apologize to the tree, to my own self I say, I am sorry. / I am sorry I have been so reckless with your life.

7. We’ve read / the back of the book, we know what’s going to happen. / The field’s burnt, the land destroyed, the lovers left / broken in the brown dirt. And then it’s gone.

8. I haven’t said goodbye to the ruins yet.

9. Makes you sad. All of your friends are gone. Good-bye / Goodbye. No more tears. I would like to meet you all / in Heaven. But there’s a litany of dreams that happens / Somewhere in the middle. Moonlight spilling

10. In truth, I only remember closing my eyes. In truth, I believe you were all there / because I knew that in a dream, I could keep all of you safe. In truth, // I woke still afraid. In truth, all of my teeth were aching when I crawled / from underneath the covers.

11. I’m lying down and all I can see is the stars. / The hole in my chest breathes / like a stupid mistake.

12. what belongs to you / doesn’t // in the shattered absence / of an unraveling cosmos // what tiny bits of debris will you / unexpectedly ache for? // what small particles will you / cling to / as if you actually could?

13. Because this mess I made I made with love.

14.  A picture of two hands on a black background. The hands are colored and lit blue and hold onto a cluster of star-like white dots. The white dots overlap at the center, creating a white sphere, and flake out from there.

15. What else can my hands / do with the blood? Pray? End ID.]

[rosyzhaorph]

I posted 137 times in 2022

That's 73 more posts than 2021!

37 posts created (27%)

100 posts reblogged (73%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@supportcontentcreators

@thelittledarkrose

@olivaraofrph

@hayley-mikaelsons

@nicolemaiines

I tagged 124 of my posts in 2022

Only 9% of my posts had no tags

#rph - 48 posts

#gif - 35 posts

#rpc - 19 posts

#tailored for me - 18 posts

#answered - 13 posts

#gif pack - 10 posts

#gif hunt - 10 posts

#signal boost - 9 posts

#anonymous - 9 posts

#templates - 7 posts

Longest Tag: 58 characters

#disability checks are a pain and a half for cost of living

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

04/∞ maia mitchell being an absolute babe: instagram

30 notes - Posted May 21, 2022

#4

In the source link, you’ll find 193 HQ textless all under 5MB 268x160 gifs of Sarah Jeffery as Maggie Vera in 1x04 of Charmed (2018). These gifs were ALL made by me. I don’t mind if you use them in crackships or edit them into icons as long as you credit/tag me. But DO NOT put these into other gif hunts or repost them into gif sets! DO NOT use my gifs to roleplay characters that are minors. DO NOT use my gifs to roleplay real life people/celebrities, or in any taboo situations! If any clarification is needed, please feel free to ask! Please like or reblog if you find this helpful and don’t claim them as your own! If you’re a fan of my work and have a few dollars to spare, please consider buying me a coffee! (paypal available upon request)

Credits: PSDs: @nqqgifs TASKS WEEKLY: 021 ETHNICITY: Sarah is Black (Unspecified) & Indigenous Canadian so please cast her accordingly! TRIGGER WARNINGS: magic, flashing gifs, kissing, flying debris FEATURING: Melonie Diaz, Madeleine Mantock, Nick Hargrove, Natalie Hall, Rupert Evans, and Leah Lewis. Tag List: @malafvma @supportcontentcreators @tasksweekly​​ 

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31 notes - Posted March 21, 2022

#3

See the full post

34 notes - Posted May 13, 2022

#2

In the source link, you’ll find 51 HQ textless all under 5MB 268x160 gifs of Candice Patton as Iris West in 1x03 of The Flash. These gifs were ALL made by me. I don’t mind if you use them in crackships or edit them into icons as long as you credit/tag me. But DO NOT put these into other gif hunts or repost them into gif sets! DO NOT use my gifs to roleplay characters that are minors. DO NOT use my gifs to roleplay real life people/celebrities, or in any taboo situations! If any clarification is needed, please feel free to ask! Please like or reblog if you find this helpful and don’t claim them as your own! If you’re a fan of my work and have a few dollars to spare, please consider buying me a coffee! (paypal available upon request)

TASKS WEEKLY: 021 ETHNICITY: African American (Unspecified) so please cast her accordingly! TRIGGER WARNINGS: Kissing, eating, hospital FEATURING: Grant Gustin, Rick Cosnett, Jesse R. Martin Tag List: @malafvma @supportcontentcreators​ @tasksweekly​

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38 notes - Posted January 8, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

In the source link, you’ll find 260 HQ textless all under 5MB 268x160 gifs of Candice Patton as Iris West in 1x04-1x06 of The Flash. These gifs were ALL made by me. I don’t mind if you use them in crackships or edit them into icons as long as you credit/tag me. But DO NOT put these into other gif hunts or repost them into gif sets! DO NOT use my gifs to roleplay characters that are minors. DO NOT use my gifs to roleplay real life people/celebrities, or in any taboo situations! If any clarification is needed, please feel free to ask! Please like or reblog if you find this helpful and don’t claim them as your own! If you’re a fan of my work and have a few dollars to spare, please consider buying me a coffee! (paypal available upon request)

Credits: PSDs: @lcverevermcregifs TASKS WEEKLY: #021 ETHNICITY: African American (Unspecified) so please cast her accordingly! TRIGGER WARNINGS: Kissing, eating, drinking, flashing gifs, physical violence FEATURING: Grant Gustin, Rick Cosnett, Jesse R. Martin, and Greg Finley Tag List: @malafvma @supportcontentcreators @tasksweekly​

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39 notes - Posted June 28, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[judesbelligoal]

https://www.tumblr.com/judesbelligoal/754750001818828800/i-honestly-dont-think-jude-takes-likes-that?source=share

Nataly obvouisly takes the like very serious by the way she directly changed everything lmao 😭 Even went and unliked Ruben diazs post with jude lol

Why cant they ever be normal 😩

[ao3dorian-gay]

the self restraint i have to not just include natalie diaz poems in full with every chapter.

mini webweave of river poems:

from The First Water is the Body:

The river is my sister—I am its daughter. It is my hands when I drink from it, my own eye when I am weeping, and my desire when I ache like a yucca bell in the night. The river says, Open your mouth to me, and I will make you more. Because even a river can be lonely, even a river can die of thirst

[…]

If a river spoke English, it might say: What begins in water will end without it. Or, I remember you- I cannot forget my own body.

from Exhibits from the American Water Museum

Out of this opening leaped earth’s most radical bloom: our people— we blossoms from the original body: water, flowering and flowing until it became itself, and we, us: River. Body.

These Hands, If Not Gods

Haven’t they moved like rivers— like Glory, like light— over the seven days of your body? And wasn't that good?

Grief Work

We go where there is love, to the river, on our knees beneath the sweet water. I pull her under four times until we are rivered. We are rearranged. I wash the silk and silt of her from my hands— now who I come to, I come clean to, I come good to.

That Which Cannot Be Stilled

America is the condition—of the blood and of the rivers, of what we can spill and who we can spill it from.

Postcolonial Love Poem

The rain will eventually come, or not. Until then, we touch our bodies like wounds— the war never ended and somehow begins again.

other ones i have in my Quotes Document that are just labelled Natalie Diaz but idk the source poem :/

“A river is a body of water. It has a foot, an elbow, a mouth. It runs. It lies in bed. It can make you good. It has a head. It remembers everything”

(thinking about how many cree verbs there are for rivers. “it is a river” (verb) not just “the river” (noun)); “the river has lots of bends” as a single verb and not a sentence)

unrelated but for my personal note: from 5. of The Hand has Twenty-Seven Bones--: These Hands if Not Gods: “looking for a lover with one violent eye/and one tender eye.”

[sword-dad-fukuzawa]

btw I have a side ao3 acc for my especially yikes trigun content :) the user is a blatant reference to Natalie Diaz’s “a brother named gethsemane” which also happens to be the source for every fic title on that account presently. it’s all KV so far and will probably stay that way unless I merge it with my main acc.

[howwonderfulisthemoon]

*OITNB SEASON 7 SPOILERS*

Ok so today i watched last season of oitnb. Im so sad i mean i cried so much that after 30 minutes when i stopped crying i would still feel that ive cried. It was beautiful and im so thankfull that i could watch whole Orange Is The New Black. I cant describe in words what i feel after watching this masterpiece

SO GOING TO THE POINT

Dafuq happend to Vauseman. Well not dafuq but i was pretty sure that Piper was going to Northampton not to Ohio to Alex but i guess it is a fuxkinf endgame FUCK Y’ALL i love them and they cant be apart they have to be together. I was kinda happy for Piper that she got Zelda but meh. Vauseman is strong and i cant imagine them being like really happy with other people after lines like „I will be always loving you” or „I will always love you” or even after their „break up” i love you’s.

Red, oh Red, im so sad that she got health problems. I loved her

Lorna, oh Lorna, i kinda disliked her in this season but still love her

Aleida, are you fucking stupid? Omg

Daya why you have to take drugs, whyy

I love Caputo and Fig together i fucking love them. Well i think its kinda because Fig is hot i love her character.

Taystee i love that she decided not to suicide, her story in this season was beatiful and powerfull and its a fucking pity that Dogget didnt see that she passed the GED with T’s help

The end was beautiful. Looking at those faces again. Some less some more important but those are the people who made that show i cried so much i feel like a part of me will be always with OITNB, like really, it has been an amazing journey and i want to thank you for making this show so amazing, incredible and wonderful. Thank you for showing me really important things, especially in this season. I love you and i need a fuxking spinoff to that. I NEED IT. I have to see Vauseman when Alex is out because at the end it looked like they find their way out ❤️

It was a most beautiful story ever,

Orange Forever🧡

[antigonick]

Highlights in reading / 2021

Since I’ve read like, 4 books and a half this year, the process of choosing my favourites shouldn’t be too hard. But, no, okay, reading-slumps at least have that for them: I only mustered enough energy to read GOOD shit.

‣ Fallen Hero: Retribution (alpha), by Malin Rydén Fallen Hero makes the list for the third...?? Holy shit, third year in a row. Okay. I won’t gush too much. If you haven’t been brainwashed by my shameless propaganda by now, you can check out some commentary in the dedicated tag, or start with the first volume and read Fallen Hero Rebirth. It’s science-fiction superheroes-themed, and under the theme it’s about humanity, trauma, its consequences, queerness, grief, freedom, love, agency, perspective (and inside the writing it’s also about communication, language, what it can do, what it can obfuscate). I recommend it in a screechy way, and in a “it’s made me grow up a bunch” way. 

‣ Postcolonial Love Poem, by Natalie Diaz Best poetry I’ve read this year, by far. It feels... Somehow both decadent and very controlled, and the mergence of intimacy and identity (what happens inside, what pushes outside) is just—so well weaved. 

‣ Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir This was... so exciting on a lot of levels. Story-wise, obviously, but I also have a bunch to say about Muir’s writing and how fun and efficient it is. It’s one of those books where you don’t hold the reins, even if you’re an aware (or jaded) reader, and reading The Locked Tomb has the exhilarating quality that comes with this... lack of control. Plus, Muir’s character writing is so exciting, her genre writing is so boundary-breaking, and her work on perspective and mindfucks in the second volume feels like a lesson in writing in and of itself. 

‣ Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado I wasn’t even into all of the stories in that collection, but Machado’s writing makes even the weakest compelling. Her writing is so... so gorgeously fleshy, if that makes sense at all. Walking the line between horror and sensuality and baroque with confidence. If you like Süskind, Carter, Waters, and haven’t picked her up yet... do it.

‣ An Assembly Such as This, by Pamela Aidan So indulgent and I still have two volumes to go but—okay. So this is a rewriting of Pride and Prejudice from Darcy’s point of view, and, also, the only Austenian rewriting I’ve ever enjoyed. I appreciate Aidan’s work a ton: her careful abiding to regency rules, her work on pastiching Austen without losing her own voice (or her Darcy character voice), her subtle and unrelenting humour, even (especially) at Darcy’s expense, her exploration of the characters in a way that feels both exciting and like an homage to the source book. Also, she doesn’t depicts Bingley as a brainless dumbass, and that’s justice for you. It’s so fun to read, and it acts both as a novel in itself and as personal commentary on Pride and Prejudice, which never hurts. 

‣ Autobiography of Red, by Anne Carson When my thesis is submitted I’m not picking this one up again for ten fucking years, but, that being said... Still groundbreaking. If you’re into Carson, also very interesting in light of her publishing H of H this year and comparing Herakles in both. 

[luthienne]

do u have any poems/works/just any words at all about feeling like your body isn’t yours or like it’s your enemy?? i’m in a battle with gender dysphoria and rn it’s winning and i hate it

dear anon.... i have felt like my body is my enemy, like it does nothing but betray me and do what i don’t want and try to protect me in all the wrong ways, but i think for different reasons. and so i don’t know that my coping strategies would help and i don’t want to assume anything of your own experiences... but most of these are words that speak to me when i am feeling at war w my own body and i hope they help at all... i’m sending you so much love <3

“I’m not sure it is possible to articulate grief through language. You can say, I was so sad I thought my bones would collapse. I thought I would die. But language always falls short of the body when it comes to the intensity of corporeal experience. The best we can do is bring language in relationship to corporeal experience—bring words close to the body—as close as possible. Close enough to shatter them. Or close enough to knock a body out. To bring language close to the intensity of experiences like love or death or grief or pain is to push on the affect of language. Its sounds and grunts and ecstatic noises. The ritual sense of language. Or the cry.”

— Lidia Yuknavitch, The Chronology of Water

“I have always tried to make a home for myself, but I have not felt at home in myself. I have worked hard at being the hero of my own life, but every time I checked the register of displaced persons, I was still on it. I didn’t know how to belong. Longing? Yes. Belonging? No.”

— Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

“These days, someone else / inhabits this body, perhaps / someone you do not want to be. / The soliloquy of these thoughts  / all amassing to one, is bluest too: / you are not you.”

“Who knows you, knows / this, this thing hidden / beneath your skin? / See how it glows at night / when everyone else is asleep / in a dreamless world, see how / it seems to breathe a different air, / and exhale only poison, like the / greenest plant in an empty room. / There’s the metaphor / you’ve been looking for: / you are the empty room. / And now sit: / your poison is just settling in.”

“...and this kind of sorrow does not let you be / who you want to be,”

— Mahtem Shiferraw, from Your Body is War

“I even distrust my own shadow,”

— Frida Kahlo, ‘You are always with me: Letters to mama,’ c. 1st January 1931

“I wake with my hand held over the place of grief in my body. / ‘Depend on nothing,’ the voice advises, but even that is useless. / My ears are useless, my familiar and intimate tongue. / My protecting hand is useless, that wants to hold the single leaf to the tree / and say, Not this one, this one will be saved.”

— Jane Hirshfield, from After

“Today I forgot what it was I went looking for, my own face, or the shape of something I should love. I just watched the leaves gather around my feet, their small dead selves lighter now, unselved. Perhaps this is part of it, a willingness to forget the way the world has touched our bodies sharply,”

— Molly McCully Brown & Susannah Nevison, Post-Op Letters in the Field Between Us

“My friend and I call grief the beautiful terrible because it is a wound that opens you but also shows you the miracles of what is inside you. Rather than try to escape my griefs, I’m trying to recognize them as a wildness I can submerge myself in, to be washed clean by the very thing that aches me so deeply. To give my grief to a beloved’s body, to take her grief into my body, to rearrange ourselves with it and become both more and less of one another and of our own selves—this is a lucky thing.”

— Natalie Diaz

“How to explain that “trans” may work well enough as shorthand, but the quickly developing mainstream narrative it evokes (“born in the wrong body,” necessitating an orthopedic pilgrimage between two fixed destinations) is useless for some - but partially, or even profoundly, useful for others? That for some, “transitioning” may mean leaving one gender entirely behind, while for others it doesn’t? …How to explain, in a culture frantic for resolution, that sometimes the shit stays messy? I do not want the female gender that has been assigned to me at birth. Neither do I want the male gender that transsexual medicine can furnish and that the state will award me if I behave in the right way. I don’t want any of it. How to explain that for some, or for some at some times, this irresolution is OK - desirable, even - whereas for others, or for others at some times, it stays a source of conflict or grief? How does one get across the fact that the best way to find out how people feel about their gender or their sexuality is to listen to what they tell you, and to try to treat them accordingly, without shellacking over their version of reality with yours?”

— Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts

[newsmutproject]

Natalie Diaz reads "Ode to the Beloved's Hips" at the 2014 Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness, March 30, 2014 at the National Geographic Grosvenor Auditorium in Washington, DC.

Text of the poem (source):

Bells are they—shaped on the eighth day—silvered percussion in the morning—are the morning. Swing switch sway. Hold the day away a little longer, a little slower, a little easy. Call to me— I wanna rock, I-I wanna rock, I-I wanna rock right now—so to them I come—struck-dumb chime-blind, tolling with a throat full of Hosanna. How many hours bowed against this Infinity of Blessed Trinity? Communion of Pelvis, Sacrum, Femur. My mouth—terrible angel, ever-lasting novena, ecstatic devourer. O, the places I have laid them, knelt and scooped the amber—fast honey—from their openness— Ah Muzen Cab’s hidden Temple of Tulúm—licked smooth the sticky of her hip—heat-thrummed ossa coxae. Lambent slave to ilium and ischium—I never tire to shake this wild hive, split with thumb the sweet- dripped comb—hot hexagonal hole—dark diamond— to its nectar-dervished queen. Meanad tongue— come-drunk hum-tranced honey-puller—for her hips, I am—strummed-song and succubus. They are the sign: hip. And the cosign: a great book— the body’s Bible opened up to its Good News Gospel. Alleluias, Ave Marías, madre mías, ay yay yays, Ay Dios míos, and hip-hip-hooray. Cult of Coccyx. Culto de cadera. Oracle of Orgasm. Rorschach’s riddle: What do I see? Hips: Innominate bone. Wish bone. Orpheus bone. Transubstantiation bone—hips of bread, wine-whet thighs. Say the word and healed I shall be: Bone butterfly. Bone wings. Bone Ferris wheel. Bone basin bone throne bone lamp. Apparition in the bone grotto—6th mystery— slick rosary bead—Déme la gracia of a decade in this garden of carmine flower. Exile me to the enormous orchard of Alcinous—spiced fruit, laden-tree—Imparadise me. Because, God, I am guilty. I am sin-frenzied and full of teeth for pear upon apple upon fig. More than all that are your hips. They are a city. They are Kingdom— Troy, the hollowed horse, an army of desire— thirty soldiers in the belly, two in the mouth. Beloved, your hips are the war. At night your legs, love, are boulevards leading me beggared and hungry to your candy house, your baroque mansion. Even when I am late and the tables have been cleared, in the kitchen of your hips, let me eat cake. O, constellation of pelvic glide—every curve, a luster, a star. More infinite still, your hips are kosmic, are universe—galactic carousel of burning comets and Big Big Bangs. Millennium Falcon, let me be your Solo. O, hot planet, let me circumambulate. O, spiral galaxy, I am coming for your dark matter. Along las calles de tus muslos I wander— follow the parade of pulse like a drum line— descend into your Plaza del Toros— hands throbbing Miura bulls, dark Isleros. Your arched hips—ay, mi torera. Down the long corridor, your wet walls lead me like a traje de luces—all glitter, glowed. I am the animal born to rush your rich red muletas—each breath, each sigh, each groan, a hooked horn of want. My mouth at your inner thigh—here I must enter you—mi pobre Manolete—press and part you like a wound— make the crowd pounding in the grandstand of your iliac crest rise up in you and cheer.”

(”Ode to the Beloved’s Hips” is also included in Diaz’s collection Postcolonial Love Poem.)