#okay maybe not poetry

[whaliiwatching]

kaleidoscopic crush

#spider man: across the spider verse #pavitr prabhakar #gwen stacy #spider noir #spider punk #hobie brown #noirpunk #so. maybe i went a bit insane #i like poetry a regular amount i promise #this might be one of my favorite things i’ve ever made #first time drawing pav & gwen! they turned out—uh. okay! #the universes & noir himself get brighter as he acclimates :) #treacle (tart) means sweetheart in cockney rhyming slang #bc i cant fucking help myself lol #noir is so in love……….. just like we all are sdfkjhg #mans CANNOT handle how pretty hobie is in his element #to the anon who gave me the idea: thank you so much oh my gods #cw eyestrain #just in case #there is so much going on lol

[inkskinned]

it's the levels of scrutiny too.

a movie that has a largely-female cast has to be well-written, well-shot, well-acted, well-advertised. people will spend 2 hours on youtube talking about a single plot hole; about a moment of bad pacing, about a singular background character's poor scripting. if there isn't something obvious, they will say - well there's nothing specifically bad, but it wasn't specifically good either.

they will turn out another all-male movie, and it's just a movie.

a book that has queer representation in it has to defy every convention of writing while also being true to traditional plot, structure, format, and pacing. it must have no boring chapters, no missteps, no awkward dialogue. it must be able to "prove" that any queer relationship "makes sense", their sparks must fly off the page and their love must be eternal. the writing must be clear and beautiful, the storyline original and fresh, the values traditional but with an undercurrent that is modern and saucy.

they will turn out another book without queer rep, where a man and woman just-fall-in-love, and it's just a book.

i am latinx. i am queer. i am nb & neurodivergent. my father said to me once: you will need to be exceptional to be just-as-good, and you will need to be beyond exceptional before they see you as just-a-person, and not your labels.

i am not beyond exceptional. i am a human person. i am skilled because i worked my ass off to be skilled.

i am currently reading a book that's so-bad-it's-good about a girl that falls in love with a vampire. i was 64% of the way through the book before she figures out tall-dark-fanged is not natural. i like books like these, i like letting myself relax while i just enjoy the read. but i do spend a lot of time wondering - would this have been published if it was about queer people? would this have gotten past the editors if the characters weren't white and sexy?

i want to write a movie about being a woman in a male space, and i want to start that movie with a 10 minute scene where the woman is lectured with the exact same whining that occurs in the youtube comments of even the trailers for those movies: "haven't we had enough diversity?" "we've had enough girl power movies" "sorry, this is just pandering. it's boring."

here's what's fucked up: it shouldn't matter, you're right. my identity shouldn't fold after my name like a battalion of stars: a cry of what i've gone through. what we all know i had to move past and through. i should just be a writer, plain and simple, without my work being shifted through with tweezers - i know everything i make, always, i am incredibly responsible for. beholden to. i don't like knowing that if i fuck up, i am also fucking up for every person like me. every person in a community i belong to.

once, back in undergrad, i wrote a short story about a girl who had been kicked by a horse. it was my first time writing about my experience with my ocd; i felt proud of it. the story was mostly about grief and slow recovery. the queerness of the main character was not important to the plot, my main character was just-queer. there wasn't even a romantic interest in it.

i remember one of my classmates being disappointed. "i just feel like you always write about girls who like girls, and i'm bored of it," he said. "you're a beautiful writer, but i'm like - oh, at some point, it's gonna be gay again." during the workshop, he folded his hands over my story and said, "and okay, i'm just going to say it. she's ocd, she's gay, she's depressed - it's a little much for me to believe is all happening to one person."

it is a little much to be that person (and more besides). i have therapy weekly, after all.

over and over, belonging to exception.

#spilled ink #poetry #prose #warm up #idk what this is #maybe more of a confession #btw the book is called crave it's OKAY #it's very straight #main character keeps being like totally okay with situations where dude is DEF #being a stalker villian #she's known him for a WEEK and shes like #'hes all that matters' #girlfriend ur parents only died a MONTH ago #there's a lot about timing in that book im like .... did this author ever have any #actually bad experiences #like main character being like ''i shouldn't cry over them it's pathetic'' a mONTH after her parents die #btw this isn't bc she's in denial/suffering/etc it's bad writing #the narrative is instead like #'' .... bc the author doesn't want to remember to discuss it'' #she forgets she has a sprained ankle a lot #tbh im THIS close to saying ''fuck good writing'' #and writing my OWN stupid supernatural school YA romance #and YES!!!!! IT WOULD INDEED BE GAY #''oh this school? we're all... different here....bc... of the witches??oh . i mean yeah but no actually we just really believe in a diverse

[geryone]

Poems From An Email Exchange, Hanif Abdurraqib

#id in alt text #hanif abdurraqib #quotes #quote #poem #poetry #me rereading Hanif during a horrible week & thinking maybe it will all be okay

[six-white-venus]

the worst trait of me and my family is probably this: we never learned to say the word sorry.

i) my best friend and i, we are no people. knives? maybe. liars? definitely. but people? i’m not so sure.

knives were never forged to be tender (what a shame, what a shame) and we too, fall and slay what we meant to protect. him and i, we go for the throat when we clash. we hurt and bleed and oh, i should be terrified, i should be running for my life, but all i am is tired and a bit lonely and would really like his arms around me.

( “can we please stop fighting now.”

“oh god yes please.”)

because time and time again, this man has held my heart in his hands and cleaned its festering wounds with cotton dipped in alcohol (always the healer, always the lover) and wrapped gauze around them with clinical precision. and i have walked through the maze of his head and tended to his withering garden, have dragged the sun and fresh air and all the oceans to the barren land to make it bloom (always the poet, always the lover).

him and i, we have never needed words because we are knives forged in the same fire and at the end of the day, we both know that he will be the one who wordlessly stitches my broken heart and i will be the one who sings him to sleep.

ii) let me paint you a picture:

blue that fades into red that fades into black that fades into blue that fades into red. loud, clashing and nonsensical. a pit in your stomach that was dug with desperation and blunt fingernails. how do you colour anger that is also pain, grief, hate, love, fear and truth? the smell of the paint is foul and clogs your windpipes. blunt fingernails and blue and black and madness. can you bear to look at what you created without flinching?

that’s what anger looks like on my father. a horror. a mottled bruise. a hellfire.

all his life, my father has been scorned, belittled, beaten, spat on. his mother didn’t love him right because her mother didn’t love her right. my dad loves like he hates. something is fucked in his head and heart and his words fade into black and blue and red and this shitshow always ends with me sobbing, bleeding, dying on the floor. my father watches with his hackles raised and his eyes red and wide and glowing. once wounded, an animal never sheathes its claws. it strikes the ones it loves and walks away with its head held high and hands trembling.

but here’s what happens when the curtains close: he pulls me into his arms and brings me tea. he wipes away my tears with hands that has moved mountains to make me smile. he kisses my forehead and tells me that his mom didn’t love him right. my grief is like anger and indignation and love. i wrap my arms around him and cry all the tears he never had the luxury to. who should say sorry, really? is it him or his mom or his mom’s mom or this stupid fucking world? my father has never said the word sorry. he never needed to. this is what love looks like on us. a horror. a mottled bruise. a hellfire.

iii) despite it all, i am not usually an angry person. i take after my father and my mother, after all. i rage like my mother (quick, loud, fire that burns out almost as quickly as it sparked to life) and fight like my father (aim, shoot, bullseye). my sister does something even mildly upsetting and before i know it, i’m cursing her to be miserable till she dies. not even an hour later i’m draping myself over her shoulder and bugging her till she rolls her eyes and smiles ever so slightly.

(“do you have no shame?”

“yeah no i don’t think so.”)

my family and i, we never learned to say the word sorry. because the word sorry never meant sorry, not to us. because at the end of the day, that’s all it is: a word. and it sticks to the back of my tongue and the dents of my molars and gets tangled in my mouth when i try to spit it out. so i grab it by its throat and thread it into my being. i find it so much easier to hide my pathetic inability to do one thing that doesn’t scream that there's something wrong with me with the truth of another three words:

“i love you”

and they are always echoed back to me, just a few million times more tender, in ways only we can understand.

“yeah, i know.”

“that’s great, but there’s no escaping dishes duty.”

“oh, shut up, you.”

“what’s that for?”

a pause and a hum.

“i love you too.”

#vi is back on their dysfuctionally healthy familial love agenda again #it's like. that one quote #love is a doing word #everything stems from love. everything gets its meaning because they are all doing words #maybe it's the way we've all benn raised/fucked over by the world but #saying sorry feels so.... wrong. hollow. it's simply not enough #i've grown up feeling like nothing i do is enough and that also travels to my way of apologising #we are all damaged in one way or another but we are all capable of so much love #and that's what my family and friends have taught me #it's okay if you're messed up and have no idea how to be a functional person. it's okay to screw up. we can sit and fix it #together #my writing #prose poetry #love #words #writeblr #prose #familial love #love languages #anger

[sheavesandbounds]

sometimes her family looks at me and their tongues curl around the name of a dead girl i stare them in the eyes with an unfamiliar smile until they swallow it down uncomfortably they do not know what i am all anyone knows is that she went away and i came back in her place i wear her skin i carry her flesh and bones and puppet them as if they were mine but they do not fit me and so her family wails and cries: how could i desecrate her memory? how could i even consider changing her body? how could i mutilate her? she is not the one being mutilated i have sliced and torn and ripped away parts of my soul to try and fit this body, yet it slowly rots around me i can feel it coming apart at the seams from the pressure of containing even fragments of me and still they call me her name, as if they cannot smell the stench of death

i understand that they loved her they miss her they mourn for her they think that i am doing this to hurt them her can they not see that dragging around this corpse under the guise of being her is more disrespectful to her memory than anything else? can they not see that i loved her too?

the girl is dead but the body remains i will reshape it to fit me and it will be my turn to live.

Inspired by this post and the tags

#pretty proud of this one #i had fun writing it #I know the original post itself was about literal undead but I got all metaphorical which was like the opposite of the point lmfao #(even though I used very zombie-demon-whatever focused language) #so I decided to make my own post #writing #my writing #original writing #zombies #demons #possession #sorta those vibes #undead #transgender #trans #transmasc #transmasculine #queer #lgbtq #queer writing #writeblr #poetry #mild body horror #maybe? #just in case #death #okay now i'm done with tags

[non-un-topo]

Was thinking about Ye Olde Teenage Parties and the picture drew itself

#the old guard #tog #tog fanart #yusuf al kaysani #nicolo di genova #kaysanova #teenage edition #like just imagine... go on this journey with me: #yusuf frequented a lot of parties while he travelled with his merchant father. he's sort of a rich kid?? #always dressed in pretty colours and always very friendly and outgoing. do NOT tell his father he's drinking alcohol #or maybe he's not drinking alcohol and he's just really buzzing off about poetry and art idk #ye olde solo party cups #anyway like 13 year old nico snuck out of the abbey with some other dudes #who have since left him to fend for himself because no one is speaking latin or zeneize and he is Lost #then yusuf plops down next to him and either he's confusing nico for someone he knows or he's just being really friendly #talking about some romantic poet or the stars or the universe or something. and nico is like Uh huh sure okay Wow pretty guy... #and either this is an au where they met as teens or this happened in their timeline and they literally forgot / were too drunk to remember #that's it that's the fic #also NO One is allowed to bully nicolo about his little hat. he made it himself! #siggy draws

[arpeggio]

this is the first poem i've written in a while, and although it's not perfect, it's very dear to me. titled revision of the fourth of july.

#my writing #first post? lol #admittedly i sat on this one for a long time and despite having read it over many a time and knowing there's still something it's lacking #i can't bring myself to make any changes. this is 'revision' and she's said all she has had to say. maybe the lack is just an inherent part #of this poem. that i can't make this complete because the poem dictates that i'm not. that i lie and lack...haha #original poem #original poetry #sapphic poetry #wlw poetry #okay. that's enough exposure tags i think. #i submitted this to my school's art zine for extra credit in my creative writing class so i hope that no one actually reads said zine #or that this doesn't reach any of my schoolmates who also happen to be on here. lol

[fuckthisshitimin]

Unalive -- A Love Letter

I came across the word unalive first in a tumblr post. Reading it several times over, I got that it showed distaste for the term but was yet unaware of its censorship-roots and tik-tok popularity. For a split moment before my mind caught up and started thinking, my non-native-English-speaker brain went “new word; un + alive; looks like [unsee—unsex]; associated with [impossible—reality-shifting]” and I fell in love a little. No, no, I fell hard in love, lots in love, okay, with unalive. Sorry. I know it’s a bad word.

But unsee, unsex — the one who wishes to unsee is the one that has seen, when Lady Macbeth asks to be unsexed it is to higher god-like powers, unalive suggests; the hand that kills had a hand in a-living you in the first place. The Cambridge Dictionary defines unsee as “to return to a situation in which you have not seen something” to unalive would be “to return someone to a situation in which they have not been alive” ;;; this is TERRIFYING actually. It is worse than being merely killed.

What the hell is unalive. What the hell happened. It’s so grammatically weird, I’m not sure it’s a verb or a noun. An action upon someone or a state of being.

Oh, Oscar, he’s —

unalive? analive?

it’s not that he’s dead but

he’s the opposite of what he was.

unalived?

see, something grabbed through Oscar and turned the organs inside out/or his soul, inside-out

he’s been — hallowed — unalived — was it “hollowed”? — claimed back — taken a-way and a-part —un-a-live-d — his living license got revoked — we got a call from God — It said “we’re gonna have to have to have to; unalive Oscar” — emptied out — unalived.

We’ll forget he ever was here soon.

#i hope one day this word is claimed back #or just claimed really #poetry #[meaningless statement] #i really enjoy this word beyond reason #'i'll make you the opposite of alive/not alive anymore/maybe erase your life altogether' hits harder than 'i'll kill you' sorry #'dead' has nothing on the dread 'unalive' calls from within me #i guess i'm more okay with this word because i've never seen it used the tiktok way and i'm more flexible with a language that isn't mine #unalive

[i-didnt-do-1t]

It’s mid august and everything is okay. you’re not running out of time, the summer isn’t fading so fast there’s next to none of it left, winter is waiting and autumn will ease you into it with open arms and the faint scent of cinnamon. you’re not running out of time

#words #ramblings #august #maybe poetry #looking at dates has been stressing me out recently #I feel like I have so much to do #but time passes #that’s the nature of it #sometimes it’s okay to sit and watch it tick #it has forever to run out off #the way I’m just stressed about a uni deadline #it has not been summer in weeks 😭

[shaunashoochiebae]

i put on my headphones

and higher up the volume

i look at my arm

the pained one

my scars are faded now

still there, less so

i look to the little black box

i know exactly what’s inside

my pain, my relief

i long for it

#tw? maybe #tw s3lf harm #i am okay #i’m like healed and stuff #but yall #girl in pieces is not for the weak #is this poetry? #Sure! #poem #poetry #this is actually cringe but #i needed to put this somewhere #daisys whimsical words #is this whimsical #no #but still

[smallepics]

Lot 14, Lau B. || 01.31.24

@nosebleedclub February 2024 #1: glowing skin

#original poetry #poetry #writing #original writing #nosebleedclub #okay i’m going 2 try for the journal prompts this month. #i think maybe erasures in may #and see where nanopomo takes me #idk idk

[cheeto-flavoured-pasta]

It’s always one little mishap and then all of a sudden, I’m a shitty person. A fool. A careless idiot. Well, in my eyes, that’s what I am. Maybe in others’ too. I don’t know. I hope not. But it’s a cycle at this point, just some spinning wheel fueled by the desire to never fuck up anything again. 

I got called stupid a lot as a kid. Someone  could ask me to find, I dunno, a cup lid in the kitchen and it’d take me way too long to figure out where it was. My sister would vaguely point, tell me to “turn off the light,” and there were about four of them, but asking would only make her angrier so I fumbled with each switch until she finally told me which one. Doesn’t sound bad, I know. And maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was just the yelling afterward that stuck in my seven-year-old head. Maybe it was just the “too slow”s and “fucking incompetent”s that wormed their way into my brain and stamped themselves on the prefrontal cortex. 

Silly mistakes, plus a kid who doesn’t know jack shit, equals an entire outburst from everyone older than I was. I still don’t understand why the math works that way. Then again, what do I understand? I don’t wanna say nothing, because that’s harsh. So let’s see what I do understand. 

I understand… that little mistakes and imperfections in my behavior define who I am. I understand that people can make all the stupid slip-ups they want, and I don’t — or, well, maybe I can’t — say anything about it, but when it’s me, I should shut up and take the insults. I understand I can’t always comprehend directions and that makes me a fucking idiot. I understand there’s something wrong with me. My brain. Myself as a person. 

Oh, and there’s one other thing that just popped into my head right now. 

I think I understand where my crippling self-esteem comes from. 

#writeblr #spilled ink #prose poetry #creative nonfiction #writing community #writers of tumblr #creative writing #prose #Okay now that I’ve made enough tags to bury this under. it’s time to rant #I found the first half of this piece sitting in my notes document from maybe 6 or 7 nights ago #I can very vividly recall having a near-mental breakdown at that time #(Kinda funny how my reaction to whenever I’m spiraling is just “hey we can write the fuck outta this” but that’s aside the point) #There was literally like two little things that caused me to spiral and they were like three-second incidents that I shoulda brushed off #Yeah I think that the more I write these the more I realize that maybe my mind isn’t. Like. As well-put-together as I think it is. #And that’s saying a lot because I didn’t have much faith in the quality of my mental state to begin with. Lmao

[toytulini]

god I know this is like The Wrong Stance on AI. I know its not about whether the art is Real and Human or If It Has A Soul and how a lot of the arguments against it are the same bullshit arguments people made against digital art like I Know. I Knowwww. but god, I'm really sorry, not to post like one of those annoying poetry bloggers I cant stand (yall are valid, live your truth, theres nothing wrong with what you post I'm just a petty bitch who hates poetry. unless I dont hate it.)

But theres just something about the way AI art will almost certainly never be able to mimic the exact way my pencil leaves an indentation in the paper, the way some of the lines I can never fully erase cause I pressed too hard, theyll have to at least train them to draw with a physical pencil first, and sure, they could train it to draw with a pencil and even erase the exact same piece I drew, line for line, on a piece of paper with a robot arm powered by AI, but they can't replicate. idk. the lineage of lefty bitches in my family, and the way I grew up going through school with my entire left arm silver with graphite, from doodling on my schoolwork. not yet anyway. but I guess I do live for the day we make the ai sentient enough that we can traumatize it by giving it homework after kneecapping its executive functions so it copes by drawing a big tiddy lobster monster. sure

#toy txt post #reblogs OFF i dont trust yall to be normal with this one i do NOT want it getting notes #i posted part of this before in a chat to a friend but im feeling it again. so #i havent drawn my big tiddy lobster bitch in awhile i should draw her again #also yea SORRY im sure this is The Wrong Feeling To Have About AI but also sometimes im a little grateful that i dont think my style is #smth a lot of the ppl coding ai to make art find to be worth trying to replicate except maybe as like a fake progress shot on a piece #which is smth i used to be really insecure about. how unfinished all my art looks bc it isnt to the point i cant fucking watch #like speedpaints and shit bc i just start feeling stupidly insecure about all the points in the video where I Would Have Stopped and been #like. im not touching it anymore i dont want to ruin it #and ive been insecure about my inability to really do digital art with like a stylus and shit like the way i do it with a pencil #and i know that is just me needing to Practice it but being too frustrated by it #anyway i know its just a Tool and its Fine and the problem is the art theft and the labor problems of it but liiiiiiike #i just. #im sure there will be unique things and usages of ai as a tool and i genuinely hope that ppl can figure out a way to make one that isnr #isnt* just full of stolen content bc theres unique fuckin shit about like digital art programs u can write stupid poetry that you hate #about it. or stupid poetry that i hate. cos im the poetry hater. listen. i cant stress this enough: its fine. youre fine. keep posting your #poetry and reblogging shit that speaks to you. im just a Bitch okay Ignore Me #i should go draw bokrae like. eating a computer about this #the real reason for that graphics card shortage was bokrae ate them all when she was in the mood for a crunchy snack

[daevstroders]

(i go to work. i empty the ashtray. the sun is shining. its a new day.)

#i saw a butterfly at the bustop. maybe it will be okay. #find a poem in everything or whatever #fr tho it was bad the courtyardy bit fucking stunk #poetry #sloan writes

[milkyspine]

—the heart that flees and the heart that bites

#mine #writers of tumblr #poetry #spilled ink #writing #okay to rb #poem #spilled words #angst #? #companion piece to boy #typical he wanted me. i didn't want him. i got to know him more and then i started maybe feeling something for him. he found someone #me and my indecisive heart #always late #he's kind. makes me feel good. makes me smile and want to feel and write. wrote him that poem #then i wrote this when i felt sad about “missing out” and sad about having to let go of what felt like something #but by now it's much much easier. i don't think about him as much as before or in the same way. feels lighter now #i'm glad he's happy #anyway #hope you and your heart are okay #try to be kind to each other. life's hard and can be so complicated and confusing

[seldaryne]

overall i think i enjoy the multiple protag au stuff even if it's making me go back and forth on some of my preferred worldstate choices.

however, it also kind of makes that decision for me in some areas i think?

in general, the characters i've ran so far & have been the loudest in my head, don't neglect that part lmfao have tended to stray more to the side of letting shadowheart's parents die in her personal quest. she's ended up leaving shar each time, yeah, but that's been consistent. with haelryne, she felt so weird about overstepping like that. her personal relationship with her parents is... pretty fine? but as a general rule i think she's someone who leans towards a more hands-off approach with everyone's choices. yes, she's got opinions & will voice them if appropriate, but she's acutely aware that it's Not her or her life & she doesn't entirely trust that she can have some of those opinions with her context as an outsider. she's not part of that family, how is she supposed to form a rebuttal when they ask shadowheart to let them die?

velrith is kind of the same, except oh my God the choice paralysis in this moment. absolutely insane. because up until then she's been relying heavily on her oath & if not that, pure pragmatism. usually a combination of the two. but this feels like a no-win situation to her & it's not one that's covered by either of her typical decision-making mechanisms. she's also personally just got a lot of baggage surrounding family, despite not remembering it actively or being aware of it (something about cell memory or stains on the soul, take your pick). she also feels deeply out of her element here & can't even begin wrapping her head around a choice like this. because letting the die for the sake of freeing her friend from shar makes sense to her! they're telling shadowheart to do it & it seems to come from a place of love, she can see that her mother is actively deteriorating, and it also takes care of that wound on her hand. but she doubts herself, because she can also see how emotionally taxing this is even if she lacks that frame of personal reference & that feels bad. maybe the logical choice on paper isn't actually What she should allow here, even if it seems to be better on an individual level...? she killed her parents, even if it was compelled out of her. she doesn't think this should be up to her & ultimately finds that she's unable to say anything at all.

and then tertiary to all that, you have ashlanna, who is Fully acting on a selfish impulse when she's like '??? are you serious? get them Down we can solve your hand later, i refuse to believe there isn't a loophole & it's not worth letting them go after everything in your life you've suffered.' like. she loves shadowheart & yes she is notably vain & selfish and doesn't apologize for this, but she's also surprisingly family-oriented. she loves her own father so damn much & wouldn't hesitate or feel the need to ask the audience if she were in shadowheart's position. it seems like a no-brainer & i honestly can't see her being able to keep quiet while this conversation was happening. unlike the others, she's not hung up on making choices for other people; she runs theatrical productions on a regular basis. if she's not in charge, she's probably incapacitated because other people simply Cannot get anything right, not without heavy guidance from her anyway. which absolutely Can get annoying at times & i think there's probably also a part of shadowheart that's even miffed in the moment but also like. thank god for Someone at least feeling an appropriate amount of 'what the Fuck?' towards the whole thing & sure yeah maybe she's smug about what she did but it's coming from a loving place.

so i think yeah this is definitely something that changes wildly depending on who's there. sometimes you need your unhinged theatre girlfriend to cut you off mid-sentence to shake you out of your emotional ruminating, consequences of your actions be damned.

#oc tag #velrith #ashlanna yain #haelryne myrret #baldur's gate 3 #yeah yeah what abt the other ocs look i haven't ran them all yet ill figure it out when i get there sjhgd #ashlanna's appearances in this au i sometimes waver on but then i think of this stuff & im like okay yeah maybe she has more of a function #than i initially realized #also god holy fuck would she have a Field Day with raphael's fucking theme song & bad poetry #you have to understand. this woman was raised by what can only be described as an Apex Bard AND she's a dhampir which only drives up #the perfectionism. she also doesn't register shame as an emotion & thinks everyone needs to hear her correct opinions constantly. #what im saying is she would have fucking Opinions on him and it would be funny as hell to hear them #vicious mockery? no she's just sharing her thoughts normally it only SOUNDS like vicious mockery to the untrained ear lmfao