it piled like gravedirt;
news and news and news and news
until my ear was pressed against the floorboards of a bad future
for a long time, a ringing has been playing in my spine:
wake up? for what? for another day like this?
go to school? go to work? plan ahead?
for what? for what? for what?
what is money to a drowned earth?
here is my hand, though, and how it opens and closes
and when the birds get hungry in winter
i build a little house full of seeds
here is my hand though, and this moment
not-future-yet,
where i love the color of the leaves
here is my hand though, turning off the lights around me
one by one by one
in a prayer
here is the new hopeful: a generation of children saying:
i do not picture the future without shivering
but i am in love with the present
as much as i can be
so easy; to make fun of the internet poets and the webcomic artists and the fanfiction authors
i hear a man snorting into his beer about it on a tuesday night. i am waiting to pick up my boss’s dinner. i am waiting to go home to my own empty fridge. “that’s not real,” he says. “anybody can do that shit.”
once, i saw a description of modern art as “i could do that + yeah but you didn’t.”
so easy to sneer at self-published. at etsy store. at youtube singer. so often i see posts: “it’s not poetry because you hit enter”. “graffiti is vandalism, though.” “i don’t think that’s real music.”
i understand, you know. the desire to make it seem small. how easy to package art and never open it. to blame ribs or galaxies or whatever other internet trend. it is safer to live under the rock than to burn in the sun above it. i picture a life of poems they never copied out of their journals.
i understand. i laugh at my own work, but i will not cringe. it is worth it to love something so much - to love writing. it is worth it, you know. to be crushed, time and time again. it is worth it for exactly one moment:
i get a note from a young kid. “thank you for this. it helped me keep going.”
okay, then. this is why. this is purpose.
walk home, girl. she don’t love you, she’s using your blood to dye her coat and call her body sour. yes she has the prettiest eyes you’ve ever been caught in. yes when she talks you feel like the whole world shrinks to a single pin centered on her lips.
but she’s gonna wake up and pat the hangover outta her pink cheeks and never call you back. she’s gonna tell her boyfriend that the party was fun but towards the end it got boring. she’s gonna sit in his lap and play with his hair like she plays with your heart and she’ll tell him she saw you but it was kind of awkward.
go home, girl. saddle the sorrow and write a poem and cry about it when nobody is looking. don’t think about how she sounded when she said i hate how much i want this. don’t think about how she murmured while nibbling on your throat: if i left him, i’d be yours. don’t think about how she felt under your hands and under the trees and under the stars and under your skin and under you again, sighing over and over again i missed you like a prayer she was chanting, and you a cathedral fountain, and you with bent knees and worship, and you trembling to hold and behold her, pressing your fingers into her spine, trying to sort nerves from bible passages, trying to cleave where holy and hell lie twisted, trying to sip from a wine cup you already knew was poisoned.
when you wake up there won’t be a note. when you wake up your hands will be empty and there will be a stone in your throat. when you wake up and you will wake up, it will be an empty morning and you’ll know when you close your eyes that you have built your bed and your heart and your altar in her wandering bones. when you wake up, your first thought will be i want to go home.
she’s his, and she’s his, and she’s his.
but you’re hers. and when you wake up there’s nowhere to go.
@kate_notes
Saw this on Facebook. Reposting for the PSA.
As I’m always a skeptic and had never heard of this, I had to look up more information. Very true, and here are excellent sources if you want to learn more - 1 and 2
Most flowers, houseplants and succulents at home depot have been treated with neonicotinoids, and this is true of most major big box stores like it. To avoid these pollinator unfriendly pesticides, consider supporting small greenhouses that don’t use them. Many smaller specialty plant shops eschew their use and thanks to the internet many of them also sell online.
PREACH. My work does not use neonics on anything that we grow at our production greenhouses. We are not alone! And it was a combination of staff input + our customer input that caused this to happen, because frankly it is much easier to grow with neonics. Support your local plant nurseries folks, and don’t be afraid to ask them questions about how they get their plants and what they are treated with. Anyone worth their salt will know the answers or get the answers for you.
It’s when people demand neonic free plants and then shop at the big box stores anyway where this stuff all goes wrong.
We actually just did a ladybug release in our greenhouses the other day!
As a bonus, when you support your local plant nurseries, that money supports local jobs, stays in your local economy, which in turns helps to support other local jobs.
I am sitting at my kitchen table waiting for my lover to arrive with lettuce and tomatoes and rum and sherry wine and a big floury loaf of bread in the fading sunlight. Coffee is percolating gently, and my mood is mellow. I have been very happy lately, just wallowing in it selfishly, knowing it will not last very long, which is all the more reason to enjoy it now.
(via violentwavesofemotion)
posting bc ik a lot of yall need to hear this
ugh I love my friends so much I can’t wait to go back to school and live with them
And sometimes. Even though you’re careful. Some dreams die.
Life happens and you gotta cut the slack out of it. Stop reading so much because there’s no time for it, get tired easier, find yourself misanthropic. Don’t enjoy movies in the same way because you spent it wondering if you should be doing work. Used to play sports but that was before sports started to hurt.
God, I loved dance! I grated my skin raw trying to make my curvy body perfect for ballet’s expectations. I got older. Chose other things. Got thicker, because that’s my framing. Still go to the occasional dance class and see: oh. I’m aging. Oh, I gotta take this slow. Oh, I have muscle and it shows and that’s not a bad thing.
I’m learning to close my eyes and forgive the soft spots. You never became an artist but you still draw. You didn’t run to the circus but you do have a friend who has offered to help you learn aerial yoga and isn’t that close to the same thing. You had to work instead of playing, and that sucked. at least now when you get to play, you appreciate every second.
And no. I can’t move like I used to. Takes me longer to remember what used to come naturally. This Saturday, I’m going to audition for Alvin Ailey, but I don’t have the hope of 17-year-old me. Instead I’m considering it a class. Taking my hits with humility.
And okay. We aren’t going to suddenly be what we wished we were. But sometimes we get to knock. Crack open the door. Close our eyes and be just doing it. No wish for success. Just us and our dream, hand in hand.
And oh how we dance.