#to promote my poetry

[queenoftheashes]

A game - by queenoftheashes on hellopoetry.com

[ash-elizabeth-art]

(x)

[amoxicillin-tangent]

"siblinghood, as a series of seasons"

//

[spring]

our father brings you out into the hospital corridor. you are swathed in a linen blanket. i am impressed that you are not crying. 

on the way home, our mother makes some comment, something like i hope you aren���t upset that the baby was born so close to your birthday. i do not respond. i am staring into your eyes, and you are staring back.

-

[summer]

summer, in all its brutality, is us together in the scorching heat. it’s me, the only one who can interpret your toddler babble. it is looking over as you take shaky steps and knowing, before anyone else, when you are about to fall. 

you are old enough to walk now. i still spend my spare time wondering who will catch you. 

such is siblinghood. such is life.

-

[autumn]

when everyone else thinks of autumn, they think of golden leaves. 

we think of the reason why they turn.

this is the nature of siblinghood; we grow up in a burning house. we leave with ashes under our nails. you are the only one who will ever hate our parents as much as i do. you are the only one who could ever love our parents as much as i do. you accidentally call me mom once and i say it’s fine, so long as no one’s listening.

i am old enough to leave, and i fly like a bat out of hell. you are too young to leave, and you stand in the hallway with crossed arms and a glowering face and you burn, and burn, and burn.

-

[winter]

winter is an echo of all we should’ve had; a world where we imagine siblinghood and think of warmth instead of salvation. 

our golden forests have faded to gray. i could not save you from the fall, nor could you save me from the flight. i could not save you from the burning house, but i’ll try my damndest to patch the wounds it left. you hate me just as much as you hate our parents and i love you just as much as i love them. 

i try to imagine a world where i am not stitching up your wounds as i bleed out from my own. there is no such world.

winter is all we have.

-

[spring]

a patch of dandelions blooms to our left. 

have you come to save me? you ask, and i shake my head.

no, kiddo. we already tried that.

well, what are you here for, then? 

the answer to your question chokes in my throat. i’m going back to college. your birthday is my phone password. i still think of you every time i eat a marshmallow. 

you are still bleeding, and you are still smoldering, and you are still glowering in the hallway. i have stitched up my wounds; they are healing into scars. i saved me first. i saved me at your expense. 

i lived to regret it.

i would not have, if i’d stayed. 

i’m here to make a wish. i say, and i hand you a dandelion. wish with me?

you puff the seeds into my face. it is just as annoying as you stealing my clothes in autumn when you were thirteen and cutting up my books in winter when you were five and taking what remained of our parents’ love in spring when you were born. siblinghood is a list of sins you’ll never remember and being the oldest means letting them cease to matter. 

i reach out. pick a dandelion. blow the seeds off in some unforeseen direction.

would you believe me if i told you that my wish was for you to be happy?

you do not respond. but you do not leave.

i stare into your eyes.

and you stare back.

[in spring, we are reborn.]

[moonfountain]

i want to do the complete opposite of gatekeeping

i wanna write a song or poem about a place i love and the whole world sees it and that place becomes a famous landmark of sorts because of the song/poem and everyone will want to go see it

kinda like the black dog by taylor swift or strawberry fields forever by the beatles

[rustbeltjessie]

And what of those men you only loved for a night, for the price of a drink and a bed to sleep in, though you never slept, just sat in a window and watched your sisters in leopard, in velvet, walk the streets. Those nights, wide and dark as boulevards. You find yourself glancing up at where you lived in how many apartments and houses, with how many windows? Where, as a child, you watched the stoplights change; yellow-red-green and back, in the postwar suburbs of Philadelphia. Or Chicago’s tableaus: sleepless vigils of doomed loves, regrets, the sick sheen of your skin, striated by streetlamp light, the overflowing ashtrays.

—Jessie Lynn McMains, from "Insomniac Glosa"

I posted a recent poem of mine on Ko-fi. If you become a supporter (one-time or reoccurring) of $20 or more, you can unlock the full poem!

[casimirt]

Dear Readers,

If y'all want some dark, angsty or romantic poetry, that is low-key Good Omens, Our Flag Means Death or The Magnus Archives coded...

Check out my big serious poetry blog @casimirat

[blastacola07]

Repost of my notebook after i got termed (tw for ED and SH, triggering art is under the cut)

[queerfictionwriter]

Writing Update: March 2024

March wasn’t what I expected, on about four different fronts—at the end of February, I’d hoped to get back in the saddle in a way I didn’t quite manage, between unexpected bouts of adulting (bureaucracy, whee), some sticky health stuff, and falling in love. All of that was important, and took time and energy, and I can’t regret it, even if it wasn’t what I’d planned from a writing perspective. 

Total wordcount: 2, 698

Highlights:

I wrote a fair bit of poetry, because apparently that’s what I do when I’m in love (and which I don’t add to my wordcounts, because those are written on paper)

Posted a fair bit to my sideblog (which I also didn’t add to my wordcounts)

Prepped most of April’s Patreon content

Made significant progress on the BDSM AU

It doesn’t feel big, but I did, in fact, write more than I did in February

Goals:

Work on the next batch of Patreon content

Continue making progress on the BDSM AU 

Continue trying to get back on my feet with slow and steady progress

[peoplecallitpoetry]

So.... I published a book! (although it says it's unavailable for now ... IDK)

[ghostlyfeelings]

i am hungry, how embarrassing

i am so hungry and it feels shameful to admit to such a basic human necessity. i count backwards from one hundred while i chug back my water. deep inhales. i imagine a balloon extending inside of my stomach. it pops and i am starving. i work myself into a hysterical cry. why can't i just walk to the kitchen and flip on the light and fix myself a bowl of ice cream. i visualize myself doing it but it stops there in my mind. i think about calling my friend. i don't because i can see how absurd this all is. and what is she going to say? go get that ice cream. and how do i tell her that i can't. there is a force holding me down in my bed. it's crazy, i know. i am so hungry and i can't let anything fill me.

[endof-an-era]

I tied lavender to my bed post the other night

The first thing I dreamt of was kissing you

- You were just as pretty in my head as you are in the flesh, just letting you know

[most-ment]

Regret

Anger blinds us.

The frustration clouds our eyes,

With cruelty and mistrust.

We become someone we can't recognise.

~

Harsh words force their way out,

Our heart hardens in preparation for an attack.

We scream profanities and insults we shout,

Painful, cruel and we can't take it back.

~

No peace or ease, it's just that disease,

That eats at your heart, darkens it.

No calm for the ones who let the fire or anger burn.

Their souls will obliterate in the burning heat.

~

Anger blinds us,

From the cruelty of our action and words.

In anger insanity lurks;

We don't feel guilty, we feel no remorse.

~

In anger and rage we are ourselves but less.

One mustn't let themselves be caged by a simple upset,

For the beginning of anger is madness,

And the end is regret.

~

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Hello loves! Hope you like this poem.

"Do not get angry"

I do not regret this tag list: @febpots @think-through-pen @jordynhaiku @hauntedjellyfishtraveler @songofsutarima @haikudude

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

The last two verses of this poem come with a Hefty /Sarcasm and/or /Irony tone indicator.

Another of the poems from my 2016 poetry chapbook, available as a paperback from Amazon. I was reminded of it, again, after I added to this post about the similar mindset between belief in Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria and the belief that vaccines cause autism.

From a Documentary on Science*

“It is miraculous,” the surgeon says, “To place electrodes deep within the brain, And see these patients, trembling in their chairs, Each stand and walk, like normal people do, And so regain their human dignity.”

The television host across from him Nods placidly, with just the slightest smile. The lighting, and the set, and cutaways, All make it seem impossible to doubt His words or deeds or hopes for all mankind.

But, still –

Perhaps it was like Santa Claus, you know, A pretty fable Mother told to me, To soften life’s hard edges for my sake, When she had said that dignity was mine – For me, alone, to squander or to keep.

But now I’ve learned the gray and dreary truth: Whatever makes me worthy of esteem Is held completely in the public trust Revocable without recourse or right, When strangers, in disgust, avert their eyes.

*It was a a three- or four-parter from the BBC, hosted by Brian Cox, which is now no longer archived on their site (Not that I'd be comfortable linking to the BBC, these days, anyway). And I watched it through pirated episodes on YouTube. This particular episode was focused on controversies in science, and the ethics of animal experimentation.

In this interview, the surgeon was defending the ethics of doing brain experiments on chimps (I think?) because it led to the ability to do this neurosurgery on his young patient, and bestow on him the dignity of being able to go to school, and not have to be cared for by nurses, etc..

And it made me so angry that I had to do several laps around the house in my wheelchair (and a few good bellows of rage) before I could calm down. Because that kid could have gone to school if the school had given him accommodations, and being cared for by nurses wouldn't have been degrading if they treated him with respect. No surgery necessary.

But this physician was acting like some kind of saint because he'd figured out how he could bestow the gift of dignity.

I altered his dialog in the first verse only enough to make it fit iambic pentameter, which wasn't much.

[codedparaiso]

𝐖𝐄'𝐃 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐄𝐄 𝐈𝐓 𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐓 𝐁𝐋𝐔𝐄 𝐒𝐊𝐘

canon divergent 𝐀.𝐈. 𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐎 from 𝐏𝐎𝐊𝐄'𝐌𝐎𝐍 𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐓. by ghost. sideblog of soultoken.

[britneyshakespeare]

You know what's a realization I've made just now at this moment. I've been thinking for the last couple of days about how lately my poetry feels like it has no significance to me anymore, and I don't know why or how. It certainly felt more significant to me when I was youngest, when my poetic offerings were least often worthy of much praise, when I was excited and felt catharsis. Before I was even twenty, poetry became more of a craft/hobby than a diary (to give myself credit, it was a craft/hobby when I was fourteen/fifteen too, but I built that craft/hobby out of my teenage sentiments and obsessions rather than a more concerted effort of skill or construction). And it's been many years since I wrote poetry that was about people; I can't tell you the last time I wrote a poem that was purely about my feelings for another person. More often I write poems about conflicts or problems or things I'm figuring out. Very often my poetry is just inspired by whatever book I'm reading. But I'm not interested in my poetry lately whatsoever; I write it coincidentally. I have no interest in elaborating through that medium anymore at this point in my life. I'm not sure why I continue. And my realization is that I actually have felt this before. My poetry feels like a dormant interest because very few things inspire or excite me right now. My poetry feels insignificant when I'm in a phase where my life feels insignificant.