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whisperthatruns · 11 months

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After Preparing the Altar, the Ghosts Feast Feverishly

How hard it is to sleep in the middle of a life. — Audre Lorde

We wake in the middle of a life, hungry. We smear durian along our mouths, sing soft death a lullaby. Carcass breath, eros of licked fingers and the finest perfume. What is love if not rot? We wear the fruit’s hull as a spiked crown, grinning in green armor. Death to the grub, fat in his milky shuffle! Death to the lawlessness of dirt! Death to mud and its false chocolate! To the bloated sun we want to slice open and yolk all over the village. We want a sun-drenched slug feast, an omelet loosening its folds like hot Jell-O. We want the marbled fat of steak and all its swirling pink galaxies. We want the drool, the gnash, the pluck of each corn kernel, raw and summer swell. Tears welling up oil. Order up! Pickled cucumbers piled like logs for a fire, like fat limbs we pepper and succulent in. Order up: shrimp chips curling in a porcelain bowl like subway seats. Grapes peeled from bitter bark — almost translucent, like eyes we would rather see. Little girl, what do you leave, leaven in your sight? Death to the open eyes of the dying. Here, there are so many open eyes we can’t close each one. No, we did not say the steamed eye of a fish. No eyelids fluttering like no butterfly wings. No purple yam lips. We said eyes. Still and resolute as a heartbreaker. Does this break your heart? Look, we don’t want to be rude, but seconds, please. Want: globes of oranges swallowed whole like a basketball or Mars or whatever planet is the most delicious. Slather Saturn! Ferment Mercury! Lap up its film of dust, yuk sung! Seconds, thirds, fourths! Meat wool! A bouquet of chicken feet! A garden of melons, monstrous in their bulge! Prune back nothing. We purr in this garden. We comb through berries and come out so blue. Little girl, lasso tofu, the rope slicing its belly clean. Deep fry a cloud so it tastes like bitter gourd or your father leaving — the exhaust of his car, charred. Serenade a snake and slither its tongue into yours and bite. Love! What is love if not knotted in garlic? Child, we move through graves like eels, delicious with our heads first, our mouths agape. Our teeth: little needles to stitch a factory of everything made in China. You ask: Are you hungry? Hunger eats through the air like ozone. You ask: What does it mean to be rootless? Roots are good to use as toothpicks. You: How can you wake in the middle of a life? We shut and open our eyes like the sun shining on tossed pennies in a forgotten well. Bald copper, blood. Yu choy bolts into roses down here. While you were sleeping, we woke to the old leaves of your backyard shed and ate that and one of your lost flip-flops too. In a future life, we saw rats overtake a supermarket with so much milk, we turned opaque. We wake to something boiling. We wake to wash dirt from lettuce, to blossom into your face. Aphids along the lashes. Little girl, don’t forget to take care of the chickens, squawking in their mess and stench. Did our mouths buckle at the sight of you devouring slice after slice of pizza and the greasy box too? Does this frontier swoon for you? It’s time to wake up. Wake the tapeworm who loves his home. Wake the ants, let them do-si-do a spoonful of peanut butter. Tell us, little girl, are you hungry, awake, astonished enough?

Jane Wong, How to Not Be Afraid of Everything (Alice James Books, 2021)

#quote #jane wong #after preparing the altar the ghosts feast feverishly #how to not be afraid of everything #poetry #audre lorde

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judgingbooksbycovers · 1 year

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How to Not Be Afraid of Everything

By Jane Wong.

#How to Not Be Afraid of Everything #Jane Wong #books #book covers

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yumi-reads · 2 months

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“Once, when I was four, I poured Carnation condensed milk all over my face. I was as white as I’ll ever be. Eyelashes of cream, I blinked on, too ghostly for my own good.”

— excerpt from ‘When You Died’, How to Not Be Afraid of Anything by Jane Wong

#poetry #jane wong #When You Died #how to not be afraid of everything #favorite excerpts

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lolottes · 5 months

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Ida pendant

Ida Manson is Constantine's ex

that ended badly and she created magical distancing pendant and a silencing spell that prevents him from talking about her

When Justice League Dark sends Constantine to Amity Park, he can't even enter the city

he sighs, how is he going to be able to explain this without mentioning ida

#dpxdc #dcxdp #dc x dp #dp x dc #dp x dc crossover #dc x dp crossover #ida manson #john constantine #JLD #he recognizes ida's magic #magical ida #ida knows how to make magic objects from scratch #she is the one who taught Sam everything about creating accessories and modifying / customizing her things #she plans to teach her magic when she turns 18 #more by afraid that she will be kicked out of the house before she is ready than out of fear that she will be irresponsible #Pamela knows the basics of making magical artifacts #but refuses to follow the family tradition and make it her profession #or talk about it to Sam especially since she became a goth #she continues all the same modified her jewelry by adding a little lucky charm #a supernatural pinch of luck never did any harm after all #or to do the same to the bargain she offers to her daughter #yes she is slightly hypocritical while loving really his daughter #a lot of people would like an anti-constantine pendant #that's why she also stopped him from talking about her #my #my prompt #my prompts #prompt #I have two other ideas on ida and constantine that I have to edit which I will publish to you in the coming days ;)

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little-pondhead · 5 months

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Danny moved to Gotham.

Freakshow is touring in Gotham.

Freakshow knows Danny is in Gotham.

Danny knows Freakshow is still after him.

Danny's faith in heroes has been shattered.

Danny turns to the only person powerful enough to run Freakshow out of town, hopefully for good.

Danny turns to the Joker for help.

The Joker is looking for a new punching bag sidekick after Harley Quinn left him.

Danny is just the perfect person to be shaped by the Joker's hands.

Danny becomes the new Joker Junior.

#pondhead blurbs #dpxdc #how we feeling about this fellas #i think it's an ideal angst fic #but i don't wanna write it lol #the younger danny is the worse it gets #someone said that danny shouldn't be afraid of the joker because he's a clown and freakshow is a ringmaster. not a clown #if i find that post i'll tag the creator cause i can't remember rn #but i'm imagining danny who is heavily traumatized and scared and lonely #finding out that one of his worst enemies he hoped to never see again is hunting him and is so close danny has to check his eyes every day #just to make sure they haven't turned red #his anxiety is out of control and he's not about to go find a Bat or Bird to talk to #who would believe him anyways? he's a monster #but danny needs help cause he will not survive this on his own and he knows it #freakshow haunts his every waking dream #but freakshow isn't from gotham. he doesn't have the city's curses engraved into his blood. he never died and he's not truly teasing death #so danny chooses to plead for help from the only predator bigger than freakshow (in his eyes) who IS from gotham #danny goes to the Joker. prepared to offer everything but his free will and free mind. he can't give those up. it's all he has.#danny is a feral house cat asking a tiger to take care of a mountain lion for him by offering the tiger his own liver on a silver platter #joker is...delighted? maybe? no one is quite sure. but he takes what danny offers.#here is this little boy. almost the same age as the second robin when he died. pleading for the JOKER to be his savior. this will be fun

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smhalltheurlsaretaken · 4 months

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y'all need to get a grip. you blab all day about how much you hate bigots and hateful people and how evil it is to dehumanize anyone and then you turn around and say "kys" and "i think [x] should all just kill themselves" and other disgusting, violent and childish trash

so many people on here are just full of hatred and vitriol and turn into frenzied sharks anytime the target 'deserves it' and they think they can get away with it and not be called bad people. then they whine about how sad it is that we can't all just get along and if only all the evil people in the world would stop doing evil things wouldn't that be nicer

you're just as vicious, hypocritical and fanatically puritanical as the caricature you have made in your minds of the people you think you have nothing in common with. if you've ever told someone, ANYONE to kill themselves you're not advocates of justice, you're not artisans of peace, and you certainly don't have any moral high ground that would allow you to pass judgment on others

#i'm tired #you're so terrified of being bad people that you convince yourselves you could *never* be bad #and then any expression of hatred towards others (the “bad people”) gets reframed as proof of your own moral character #((making you even more afraid of being bad because you don't want to be at the receiving end of the hatred and so on and so forth))#you can say whatever you want about religious people and esp christians but 1) you're as religious as they are but at least they know it #and 2) most of the christians i've met are magnitudes more forgiving of others than this website's self-righteous preachers #(this isn't about anything people have said to me btw it's about what i see reading blogs from all across the social/political spectrum)#this about the radfem-hating liberals and the pro-life-hating radfems and the liberal-hating pro-lifers. Round and round we go #it’s about the people who put rabid antisemitism on my dash and whose only socio-political analysis is to call EVERYTHING bad #“Just like nazism”#Yapping about how much more moral and enlightened they are than ppl who introduce nuance into complex topics while they parrot slogans #I hate slogans so bad

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exhaustedalien · 1 year

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This was meant to be a bunch of little charles studies but it turned into just one detailed one?

#ive been afraid to draw him hes so beautiful i cant do him justice #i feel like i got everything wrong but thats what i get when i skip the studies!!#also sorry idk how eyes work #charles smith #rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #rdr

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starry-bi-sky · 3 months

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I'm having incoherent thoughts about clone danny again from the clone/clone^2 au (when am I not?) but more specifically I'm thinking about his reaction to finding out he's a clone. The standalone clone au digs into that a little more than clone^2, which is more focused on Danny and Damian's relationship. But neither (so far) really get into Danny's issues about finding out he's a clone after 15 years of thinking he wasn't.

Because he resents his parents for not telling him for so long. He resents the way he found out; through a trivial school project rather than a sit-down talk. He resents the fact that, apparently, they had meant to tell him sooner. But forgot. He resents the fact that they never told him because finding out feels like something was stolen from him when it had the chance to not be.

Danny Fenton, just fifteen, cloned not even half a year ago, knows what that personal violation of autonomy feels like. He knows what it's like to be cloned and while he loves Ellie, he does, she's his sister, and in this au his twin. But he is still left with that feeling of unsafety after realizing he'd been cloned. Being cloned is violating. The onset realization that it's so easy to get DNA without the other party noticing, and that what was stopping someone from trying to clone him again?

Followed only after with the rest of the inexplainable mix of feelings of being cloned, the rest of that inner conflict and panic that's an ugly mocktail of emotions that range from horror to fear. Trying to imagine what it's like to be cloned from the cloned party, and I imagine that it leaves you with the feeling of needing to crawl out of your own skin with discomfort.

And then he gets put on the other side of it. Danny Fenton, only fifteen, was cloned not even half a year ago, finding out he is a clone. And reactions, I imagine, can vary from person to person. But to him, it feels like something got stolen from him, like someone took a hole puncher and stuck it right into his chest and stole a chunk of himself from him.

It changes nothing about him and yet it changes everything. It's a betrayal on it's own to just find out he was a clone and they didn't tell him for fifteen years -- it shouldn't mean anything, because he's still Danny, and yet it means everything. It's him, it's him, it's about him. It's his personhood. It's about the fact that a load-bearing rock in his identity just crumbled beneath his feet and now there's a rockslide.

Because then he finds out that they used the wrong DNA. Its like pouring salt in an open wound. He's not even related to his parents or his sister, when for years he thought he was. It's the fact that pieces of his identity that he's been so secure in for so long just got ripped away from him in an instant. Then they tell him -- only through his own horrified prompting -- that the person whose DNA they used -- Bruce Wayne -- didn't even know he existed. That they accidentally used the wrong DNA, then didn't tell the person whose DNA they used.

The betrayal of being lied to for years turns really quickly into horror at his own existence. Something very similar to the horror he felt at being cloned and the skin-crawling discomfort that made him feel like his own skin wasn't really his. And then its not. It's actually not. Nothing but his own name feels like it belongs to him anymore -- not his hair, not his eyes, not his heart or his lungs, nothing feels like his anymore and he didn't know what that felt like until it was gone.

It's a question of Nature Vs. Nurture -- where does the line of "nature" begin and where does the line of "nurture" end? What of him is actually his? What of him is Bruce Wayne's? It's not logical, it's not supposed to be. It's a load-bearing wall on the house of his identity being destroyed and now everything else is caving down in on him. What belongs to Danny, what belongs to Bruce Wayne?

#dpxdc #dp x dc #danny fenton is not the ghost king #dp x dc crossover #dpxdc crossover #dpdc #clone^2 #danny fenton is a clone #its a combination 'oh my god i've been cloned too i know how violating that feels holy fuck' empathy and also the horror of finding out tha #the things you knew about yourself that you thought were unchanging was all WRONG.#its the fact that tragedy is always one step away from comedy. they're twins for a reason. the humor of finding out you're a clone through #a silly school project and the *horror* of finding out you're a clone from a silly school project instead of a proper conversation #danny goes into his room after he's done talking to his parents and he vomits into the garbage can under his desk. utterly horrified #and he calls sam and tucker crying. it shouldn't change anything he knows this and yet it changes EVERYTHING. he doesn't feel like himself #he doesnt feel like himself any*more.* this might be cause for him to do a closet overhaul. something to make himself feel like he's #in control of himself again. piercings. temporary hair dye. *something* to feel like he's in control.#its no wonder why he never wants to tell bruce wayne he exists because he *knows* how violating that feels and he's *afraid.*#it makes him takinh in damian a little more remarkable bc it undoubtedly made #his identity issues worse. but thats a child and a child who needs help and danny is *kind*

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whisperthatruns · 10 months

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My mother fills an empty can of soup with water and swirls it, until each speck of oil catches. How beautiful, this twinkling tin. I have always loved what most people throw away: broccoli stems, fish heads, the white of green onions and its dangling foot like an anemone, the rat tail of a radish. I dream of boiling the salty shells of pistachios. Of gorging myself with compost, slick with nutrients.

Jane Wong, from “When You Died,” How to Not Be Afraid of Everything (Alice James Books, 2021)

#quote #jane wong #when you died #how to not be afraid of everything #poetry

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smallmightsupremacy · 1 year

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Ok but I'm obsessed with the idea of Bakugou and Deku being awkward around each other after the war because they're only just becoming friends again

#can you imagine all those stolen glances and unspoken words between the two of them?#they have so much to say to each other but are too afraid of crossing a line and risking breaking the relationship they've rebuilt #and tbh if my childhood friend had a breakdown over my dead body on livestream I wouldn't know how to act around them afterwards #this is only at the beginning though. Once they talk everything out I have no doubt they'll be the most comfortable w each other #bkdk #bakudeku #bnha #mha #my hero academia #boku no hero academia

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yumi-reads · 2 months

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"Am I the only animal here?"

This also appears in How to Not Be Afraid Of Everything (2023) by Jane Wong! Originally found in The American Poetry Review.

#poetry #jane wong #How to Not Be Afraid Of Everything

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babydarkstar · 6 months

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so many griddlehark doomers on this website. smh my head…….theyre doomed by fate AND the narrative to be intrinsically intertwined no matter what. i cannot conceive of a finished locked tomb series where theyre not lying dead in each other’s arms or existing together in some fugue state of unbeing. not even death can separate the lesbians that scratch each other bloody and then cry in each other’s arms. they have been fated to orbit one another literally since their conception. one flesh one end, bitch.

#also harrow literally lobotomized to forget gideon and she still couldnt in the end #anyways i often think abt the whole #‘i gave you my whole life and you didnt even want it’#and the thing is like. yeah gideon. she didnt want it because she never wanted to lose YOU who was attached to it #you who she just bonded with. has had a very tumultuous girlbestfriend situationship with #when i think abt how young they are i fucking scream #this is why i hate john gaius. insane man. kill him to death alecto #tlt #griddlehark #tlt spoilers #anyways. thinking about the saddest girl in the whole world tonight :(#this is a john gaius HATE account all my homies HATE john gaius #anyways. why is everybody so so scared that theyre going to have a terrible endgame #baby theyve already been falling through a terrible endgame thru the duration of their entire existence #i will say. if harrowhark ends up with anybody else i’ll have to off myself #i support womens wrongs but ianthe can go be wrong somewhere far away from harrow #im about to go through the entire series again so i can screenshot and prove why im right about this #theres a narrative thread to follow #and never once have i been afraid of them not finding their way back to each other #the thing is like. above everything. these girls exist to orbit each other #gideon thinking harrow is her past when harrow has always been her present and her future #harrow thinking gideon’s death will be her undoing #because to harrow. gideon is unable to die. she WOULDNT die for so long #and when she found something to die for. she went to it with her whole being #but heres the thing. one flesh one end is more than just becoming one body and dying one death #idk im incoherent i need to talk abt this in a post instead of tags #i will. soon

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cosmics-beings · 6 months

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I think another thing I like about starscream, yet hate that the fandom fails to acknowledge about starscream is that, a lot of his rotten personality and his nastiness comes from way before he meets megatron and way before he was a deception.

That’s not to say that a lot of the ways he acts doesn't mirror megatron and the mistreatment he went through. and that impacts how starscream heals, makes friends, etc., idw - like what megatron did still badly affects him and that's not something to be ignored, and it's still not fair that he doesn't get the same happiness megatron did.

But, I think that people do tend to act as if Starscream was perfect and uncorrupt before Megatron.

That's not true...starscream was also a rotten, manipulative and bad person before that. and a lot of that was in response to how he was treated and hating his own body/existence, and the caste system, etc. We see how a lot of people in transformers react to oppression and I think starscream is such an interesting case of someone who is so angry and furious at the system he was created in that he takes it out on others yet still fights for himself and only himself. It is sad, and it’s awful to see how his own existence and the caste system does destroy him, but I think its important to note and to understand to just see how oppressed people still have to fight through their own oppression and sometimes, because of that, because of the trauma they go through, turn rotten. And Starscream did terrible, sneaky, and awful things. He did shitty things to climb to the top and he hurt those around him, he hurt people he trusted him, and he was happy to be that way. No one made him evil, manipulative, or untrustworthy, he did that on his own.

I don’t like that a lot of the fandom tends to tie Starsream’s negative and problematic behavior and personality to megatron because it also takes away from a lot of growth, agency and discussion about starscream’s personality and why he is the way he is.

He wasn’t a perfect, innocent and shy person before he met megatron, or before he became a deception. He still did awful things and while becoming a deception was a way he could grow past the system that created him, he still did very much do so for power. Starscream was an ambitious yet a morally ambiguous person before megatron and he had to be to survive in his own mind. His life wasn’t perfect and happy before megatron, he was still fighting and he was still scheming to survive.

I really don’t like how people kind of take that away from him, and act like everything he does and every shitty way he acts is *because* of megatron. I know it’s not fun to have to admit that he wasn’t a good person before megatron met him, but I think it’s necessary to understand his character, and not a lot of people do. And when you don’t do that, you have people misinterpreting his character and being genuinely shocked when he does villainous things. Like for instance, sky bound starscream’s actions shock a lot of people because they don’t think that he is a villain - I remember a lot of ES critique is that earthspark starscream doesn’t need a redemption act- he just needs people to love and accept him. And I think you guys forgot that he was also a space fascist and enjoyed killing people on his own accord. And while megatron himself does impact how starscream acts and treats others - starscream still was an extremely problematic person eons before he met megatron.

I don’t think this negates just how badly Megatron’s treatment fucked him up, and made it so that it was difficult for him to form relationships even after, or find happiness. And I think that’s just something that cannot be ignored. But I also think starscream is more interesting as a character if the fandom acknowledged that he was this way before, that he wasn’t perfect or innocent, and that he reacted that way because he was unhappy with is life, his station, his caste, etc.

this also isn't a chance to come and try to excuse how megatron treated him, so pls don't do that on here.

#i remember looking at an earthspark video and it's like 'starscream does bad things but none of it is his fault because of meg-'#and im like 'nooooo'#it's okay for people to acknolwedge that he was 'bad' to begin with #i don't know how we as a fandom got to the point where they convinced themselves he wasn't a villain #and when you tie EVERYTHING he does to his time with megs #then you invalidate him #he is more than than his relationship with megs (also not saying his name bcos i don't want it to end up in his tag)#like it makes me so upset when fans tie everything he does to him #and it's like they are afraid to admit that he is evil and highly problematic #and in many ways just like megs BEFORE he met him #because you guys again - think a victim can only be one way #it's insulting #starscream #transformers #also sorry for the slurry of unpopular starscream opinions #i just hate how i feel that his character is only allowed to be seen s *one* way

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forcebookish · 7 months

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"topmew don't like each other," "topmew only tolerate each other because they're in love," "topmew were never happy together"

meanwhile, topmew throughout their relationship: