#the poetry that you are

[foxgl-ove]

just endlessly thinking about blue eye samurai.

thinking about how akemi, taigen, and mizu are if a coin had three sides or maybe just the two and mizu is the bridge of metal between them.

akemi being the ideal image for women, for the life they endure. she was simultaneously a princess, a prostitute, and a prisoner. her entire life was men making decisions for her, even the ones that had good intentions, and she believed her deepest desire was freedom. it still is, but she has been revealed to this heinous predicament of her gender, and she’s realized that to reach true freedom as a woman is to be the bird in the cage, to play nice and to earn the love of a man until he buys her a bigger cage and a bigger cage until he trusts her not to fly away. and it'll never be true freedom, but it will come with power. it'll come with the freedom of only one master rather than many.

taigen being the ideal image of a man. not all powerful, but not weak. he had a taste of what it'd be to succeed, and when it was taken from him, that easy success, he mistook it for his honor. he hunted mizu down to kill him, and instead he saved him. he saved him and saved him and he came closer to killing mizu when they were on the cliff's edge, and just when he gets to the point where he may actually fight mizu, he's tortured for information on him. he is tortured. Literally tortured within an inch of his life, enduring such a heinous violence, and he refuses to break. this man was a fight, was the torturer, and the victim of his torturing could've been his salvation from pain but he refused. mizu gave back taigen's honor but not by fighting him.

akemi wanted freedom and learned she would need power to have it.

taigen wanted power and learned that the violence that came with it was infinite and dishonorable.

and then there's mizu. mizu who wants revenge, wants acceptance. arguably the same things as them both. mizu wants acceptance, the freedom of living and the freedom to love and be loved. mizu wants revenge, which follows after violence and power, to get said acceptance. she thinks she must do both, have both, to live peacefully, and she's blatant about how she will not live without either.

she's given acceptance with the blacksmith, her "mother," her husband, but she sees the flecks of avoidance in it.

the blacksmith will not hear of her true gender. her "mother" will not acknowledge the crime of her birth. her husband can't find tolerance for the violence within her, the man of her.

and so she has to balance the woman and man of her, the ronin and the bride. taigen and akemi. and it's meeting mizu that they start to unravel their own identities.

mizu, who is both, and akemi and taigen who thought themselves one but turned out to be neither.

god.

[within-the-last-minute]

stay safe because i like being alive at the same time as you.

[brightdeadthing]

love as recognition

anna gavalda / friedrich nietzsche / clarice lispector / jandy nelson / rebecca perry / mhairi mcfarlane

[druid-for-hire]

[image id: a four-page comic. it is titled "immortality” after the poem by clare harner (more popularly known as “do not stand at my grave and weep”). the first page shows paleontologists digging up fossils at a dig. it reads, “do not stand at my grave and weep. i am not there. i do not sleep.” page two features several prehistoric creatures living in the wild. not featured but notable, each have modern descendants: horses, cetaceans, horsetail plants, and crocodilians. it reads, “i am a thousand winds that blow. i am the diamond glints on snow. i am the sunlight on ripened grain. i am the gentle autumn rain.” the third page shows archaeopteryx in the treetops and the skies, then a modern museum-goer reading the placard on a fossil display. it reads, “when you awaken in the morning’s hush, i am the swift uplifting rush, of quiet birds in circled flight. i am the soft stars that shine at night. do not stand at my grave and cry.” the fourth page shows a chicken in a field. it reads, “i am not there. i did not die” / end id]

a comic i made in about 15 hours for my school’s comic anthology. the theme was “evolution”

[whendidmythoughtsgocrazy]

Sometimes, it isn’t the one who takes your breath away, it’s the one that reminds you to breathe.

k.b. // by jennifer johnson

[usefulquotes7]

I crave a love so deep, the ocean would be jealous. - Pablo Neruda

[firstfullmoon]

Jackie Sabbagh, “Having a Great Time Being Transgender in America Lately”

[aluminumneedles]

I'm knitting in the corner at a party

and guys my age stop by to tell me I remind them of their aunt, of their grandmother. This is a compliment and I take it as such. They confess to having tried crochet once, and I smile. They get back in line for the bathroom.

I'm knitting in the corner at a party and a queer woman sits on the floor next to me, arranges her skirt, and smiles up at me. (I try not to blush.) She asks me all the questions on her mind about my craft and I answer them, hands still moving. We swap yarn sources. She doesn't stay, but she knows where to find me.

I'm knitting in the corner at a party and everyone knows where to find me when they need a minute, when socializing is too much and the music is too loud and they need to catch their breath. They pretend to be checking in on me, which is sweet, but I can see the relief in their eyes the moment they stop performing for a house full of people. They sit down and tell me things and all the while they never take their eyes off my hands.

The party has wound down and I'm still knitting and the hosts, two guys in their twenties, thank me for "helping to curate the vibe." I had no idea that's what I was doing. I leave the party having forgotten to drink anything and without that woman's number but with many rows added to my top-down raglan sweater. I call it a night, and a good one.

[eggsdoodz]

i love love <333

[mournfulroses]

Julia de Burgos, from Song of the Simple Truth: Poems; "That You Love Me In Green,"

[soul-from-another-era]

[timetravelsong]

𝐈 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐢𝐧 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐈’𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐨𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫.

excerpts from a book I’ll never write

[lunamonchtuna]

— Franz Kafka, from Letters to Milena (via lumamonchtuna)

[inthelandofv]

'whats your intention with my daughter '

Sir, I'm trying to take naps with her and feed her pasta

[webweabings]

I WANT YOU TO BE MINE. SELFISHLY, THOUGHTLESSLY, MINE

@vaitiolo ; // “Orpheus and Eurydice”, by Virgil; // H.G. Wells, from a letter to Rebecca West (w. April, 1913); // “No, I don’t miss the dissipated night’s”, by Alexander Pushkin (tr. by D.M. Thomas) (1832); // “Blue is the Warmest Color”, by Ghalia Lacroix (2013); // “The Voyage Out”, by Virginia Woolf (1915); // Virgina Woolf; // “Soft Human”, by Emery Allen (2019)