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60 mph.

a contrapuntal poem; this can be read straight down, first lines only, and indented/second lines only.

#inkstay #spilled ink #poetry #writerscreed #deadpoetsnet #rejectscorner #my writing #old thoughts on growth and identity and the desperate need to get out of the small town i was stuck in #this was fun to write!! i adore contrapuntal poems #contrapuntal poetry #<- tagging so its easier for me to find in the future #will try to write more of these in the future just as practice bc its a good way of looking deeper into what i write

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I ; who/le.

a poem about being half-Okinawan.

#spilled ink #poetry #nosebleedclub #inkstay #writerscreed #deadpoetsnet #okinawa #identity #to be clear. i am fine with calling myself half and having other people use it as a way to describe my identity #what i dont like is people looking down on me for being half and therefore not american or japanese enough for their standards #and how constantly defending myself and my identity made me mean. in certain circumstances #this is pretty personal to me but also i dont like thinking abt bad experiences around my ethnic identity #so i'll probably try to unwind by writing something nice. maybe i can give yall a happy poem for once #沖縄

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what little sisters remember; a poem about siblings.

#poetry #spilled ink #nosebleedclub #writerscreed #poets on tumblr #thinking abt siblings lately. thinking abt my own relationship with my older brother. #hope he comes home soon i miss bullying him

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the cyclical theater.

ACT ONE.

Curtains rise. The lights are blinding. Actors fill the stage, setting the story into motion.

In the wings, you wait. 

The shouts of the stage echo throughout the theater. A gunshot would not startle you as much. 

Backstage, the world is still. Everyone waits for their role. There is no other reason for them to exist.

ACT TWO.

Walk in the background. Be more than one person. There is a crowd here, you try to tell the audience, even if it’s just me.

There’s you, and you, and you, and you. 

Actors and stagehands trapped between curtains. Audience trapped in the seats, held down by the dark.

A light follows you. 

You can’t see the world beyond it.

ACT THREE.

Here is a happy ending where everyone pretends to have gotten what they wanted.

The couple is together, the children look to a bright future, the conflict is resolved. 

In the wings, you wait for the break of

                                              the chandelier—

                                                           the catwalk—

                                                                       a bone—

The curtain falls. 

The world stills its motion. 

You keep waiting. It will always come. Nothing ever survives the story. 

INTERLUDE.

Murmur of conversation. Lights on the other side. A brief respite.

Costumes are changed. Makeup is fixed. Lines are studied.

No one will look at each other; we only wear the faces we are given and those faces are only visible on stage. 

Who are we when the story is paused? Who exists outside of these roles?

You don’t have a name. 

You are just a background character meant to fill in the space. 

You wonder what it’s like to be on the other side.

ACT FOUR.

Another screaming match between sisters. It is here that you thrive, stepping out of the shadows and into center stage. 

You, who was never important before, suddenly become the very thing that holds the play together. 

The audience can’t take their eyes off you.

It is exhilarating.

It is agonizing. 

The fight is scripted. You can only save one and that is a choice made for you. One sister dies, knife to her throat, and one sister watches from the cradle of your arms. 

You are not important until death has arrived. Perhaps you are not a background character, but a banshee prophesying death, or a grim reaper whose arrival is inevitable.

ACT FIVE.

Here is the end: bodies on the stage, blood pooling around them. The audience is silent and horrified. The lights burn, unrelenting in their exposure of the crime. 

You are alive. You are on your knees amid the carnage. 

Here is the one who is meant to be your heart; dead.

Here is the villain who set it all in motion; dead.

Here is you, the survivor; alive. 

Curtains fall. There is no applause. 

You walk back to the wings and wait for the story to begin again; all new bodies wearing the same old faces.

#31doh2022 #prose #short story #microfiction #horror #time loop #about a theater that never lets anyone go. a story that repeats endlessly. #the fear of continuing until you are a part of the theater and not your own self.

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family practice.

cw: cannibalism, body horror, needles

. . .

A severed finger drops to the floor. The blood has been sucked clean out of it, leaving only pale skin and bone. Dirt is stuck under the nail, jagged and worn raw. 

This one must have tried to climb out of the garden.

Above you, Mother slurps loudly, eating her fill. She’s so hungry these days. She doesn’t notice anything beyond the hunger. 

You miss when she would carry you around the house, humming as she held you up to see the visiting hummingbirds. They were so small and fast, darting between flowers and feeders with their long beaks and vibrant plumage. 

Sometimes, Mother would hold her hand out and a hummingbird would come to rest on it. In those moments, Mother was magic and you wanted more than anything to be like her. 

She smiled when you told her this and passed the hummingbird to you. So gently, she nudged the fragile creature into your small hands and it was the brightest moment of your life. The sunlight was warm, Mother was pretty and soft, the hummingbird was patient as your clumsy fingers pet it. 

Then Mother cupped her hands around yours.

The hummingbird died restrained and terrified. The phantom of its heartbeat lays its rhythm on your skin still. 

Mother took the corpse and bit the head off. 

You couldn’t scream. All you did was remain in her arms, hands empty, and watched as the hunger began to overtake her.

She moved onto larger hearts after that. Dogs and cats and foxes. Then people; visitors from out of town, people wanting to see her carefully tended to gardens, people who should know better than to trust a stranger in Mother’s skin. 

You wait for an eternity before she finishes eating. Mother climbs off the table and walks away, stumbling as if she’s drunk. She doesn’t look for you. She never does, and that’s why you are still alive. 

From under the table, you reach out and grab the finger, pulling it back to you. The house is silent when you crawl out from your hiding spot and hurry to your room. The door locks behind you, and a chair fits under the doorknob so Mother can’t come in. 

Sitting next to your toy castle is your Doll, your favorite one, your only one. It had taken you so long to make, but it breaks too easily. Bits and pieces are always falling off. 

You take Mother’s sewing kit, the one you stole a year ago that she never noticed was missing, and thread the sharp needle. With practiced motions, you attached the finger to the empty space where the previous one had fallen off. 

The Doll is still bald. You wish there was hair you could attack to it so you could comb it and pretend you had a little sister. 

Mother never leaves the heads. Those make the best fertilizer, so she buries them under the roses. 

Perhaps you could steal some clothes for the Doll. All your old ones are dirty and stained. The Doll deserves to look nice. The Doll needs something to hide the rotten flesh of its body. 

Mother doesn’t change her clothes anymore. You could take some from her closet while she sleeps. 

It’s always safe after Mother falls asleep. She sleeps deeply when her hunger is sated. Doll in hand, you tiptoe down the hallway to her room.

The door is open. Mother lies on top of the covers, blood drying around her mouth, on her hands, across her throat. 

Setting down the doll, you creep closer to the bed. Mother doesn’t stir. 

You haven’t looked her her properly for a long time. Your memories are hazy, a mess of song-hummingbird-hands-corpse but you know Mother was pretty. She was prettier than any flower in her garden.

Now, she’s gray and gaunt and her skin stretches across her bones strangely. Her mouth is open, teeth yellow and black. The skin around her lips has fallen off, leaving open pockets of dried flesh that you can see through. 

She almost looks like your Doll.

You made your Doll pretty. You can make Mother beautiful.

Needle and thread in hand, pulled out of the Doll’s arm, you climb onto the bed and sit next to Mother’s head. 

You sew a smile onto her face. Mother sleeps through it all.

Mother takes people apart, but you can put them back together. You can make things better like this. Humming, you push the silver needle in and out of her face, tugging on the thread to pull it tight.

Mother will be happy to see your work. She always loved your sewing projects. 

Through it all, your hands are steady, hummingbird heartbeat singing in your palms.

#31doh2022 #horror #short story #prose #microfiction #for day 14: sew #tw cannibalism #tw body horror #tw needles #ask to tag #hello this is an attempt to write shorter things bc i never shut up :)

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the last car disappears down the road. bodies are cooling in the bedrooms and the kitchen. windows are broken, glass all along the hallways. 

at last the house is silent. dawn approaches with gentle promise;         it’s over. it’s over. it’s time to find the light.

no more wails or wraiths. the anger of memory has died, embers cooling and ash drifting away on the breeze.

abandoned only by people the gardens are wild and lovely;         blooms awaken from the night         and cradle family graves with years of care.

silent is the property, a foreign stillness settling in the bones and foundations of the house. here is the aftermath:         blood and blades and secrets.         tears and memory and restless dead.         nightmares and dark.                                                                                       haunting now finished

here is the statue of a weeping woman. eerie in the night, with weather-worn veil and hands cradled before her chest.

a bird nests within her palms. her stone gives home to this body of hope—

                                    sweet song at dawn                         where there is finally nothing to fear.

- after the haunting (a.a.)

#poetry #inkstay #writerscreed #nosebleedclub #deadpoetsnet #spilled ink #thinking abt the aftermath of a haunting. the morning after the ending of a horror movie #when its all over and still but there is still something soft that remains despite it all

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Late summer sky & cicada song giving voice to August when the world feels heavy and ripe, the way a peach does in your hand                                   on your tongue                         beneath the press of white teeth

                                                    sinking into flesh.

Humid comes the heat, thunderstorm rolling in like a promise for change,  

            for something better on your skin—                     satin or silk or soft hands on thighs.

    Cherry red whispered against your lips a promise of sweetness dark & lingering in the still air; lipstick smears & locked doors,                                        Better than the rain 

Drops against your fingertips & the whole world turns gray beyond your arm. Not dark.      Never dark. Summer storms are color heavy—                             orange & red, sky in blush                             blue swallows all like a camera filter                             for that coming-of-age you always dreamed of;

Summer’s almost over you whisper, eyes fixed on a world ending       yet again, cyclical & soothing & more a beginning than anything else.

Steady heartbeat of                                 soon—                                               soon—                                                               soon— 

The sky is steady above you, clouds rolling from horizon to horizon. On your tongue is sugar, a remnant of something good a desire for what’s yet to find its way to your empty hands.

august in your hands. (a.a)

#spilled ink #inkstay #writerscreed #deadpoetsnet #poetry #thinking abt summer and endings and intimacy #between you and the world #a body within a larger body

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the first thing you must do is insist upon your innocence.

no, you didn’t go out that night. no, you didn’t see anything. no, the mirrors in the house are covered for a different crime                                                              of knowing yourself                                                              of knowing you’re not yourself.

eyes catching in the window, reflection reaching out and                    you know them by the way you can’t escape them;

                                      same mouth same nose same tired shoulders                                                                   who else could it be?

say nothing. silence is a right you wear like a blanket, your only comfort from the storm. see the ghost but don’t speak the name—       

                               maybe they ran away, you say.                                                   they always wanted to.

innocent is not the same as innocence and neither fit you well.

                     bury the body. hide the knife.

their name is your name,

                    which is to say there’s no name at all.

- missing person report (a.a.)

#spilled ink #inkstay #writerscreed #LGBT poetry #deadpoetsnet #poetry #thinking abt gender by not thinking abt gender #its fine i'll deal with it later #thinking about who i used to be years ago and how its changed #how my skin fits differently now and i cant describe how

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digital collage ft. blackout poetry from an old work of mine.

(original poem here)

#collage #digital collage #mixed media #collage poetry #collage poem

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commentary under cut

nostoi: greek for “return”. used for homecoming stories; that is, heroes on their journey home. the most well-known example is the odyssey, in which odysseus goes home after the trojan war ends. there are likely many others that have been lost to time but are referenced in the works of other ancient authors. the aeneid is also a nostoi as well as an epic, as it is a hero’s journey to find a new home.

katabasis: a journey into the underworld, a requirement for ancient heroes to be known as “heroes”. many go to fight monsters, or trick gods. aeneas goes, lead by the sibyl (a woman prophet whom the gods speak to) to speak to his father and encounters dido and many fallen soldiers from troy.

not a hero’s journey: where in the hero’s journey, the hero has changed so much their home feels different though it is unchanged (ex.: bilbo from the hobbit). here, the home, by being abandoned, has changed.

aeneas, creusa: aeneas, the one who survives the fall of troy. creusa, his wife who dies trying to escape.

no shades reaching to embrace you: a common motif found when shades or the underworld is included in an ancient greek narrative, but reversed. usually, the mourner reaches out to embrace the shade but cannot, since they are no longer tangible, only image. reversed, the shades are unable to reach out or be seen despite haunting the mind of the you in the poem.

haunted house elements: the house performing human actions; weeping. the house having a skeleton. the house abandoned, haunted by its loss. watch jacob geller’s video on haunted houses if you want to hear more.

nostoi: a homecoming

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nostoi: a homecoming

#inkstay #nosebleedclub #writerscreed #spilled ink #poetry #classics #inspired by greek epic and tragedy and nostoi #specifically the aeneid #will add transcript and commentary in rb

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you dream of summer skies in the dead of winter. there's no snow, just an abscense of warmth.

this wound is always present; you either live with it or are consumed by it. grey skies and a distant sun like some tragic sci-fi where the dead can't be buried and are sent to drift in darkness, endlessly.

that space is a different cold. it's a sibling of winter with all the same emptiness but none of the hope.

turn to her, tucked inside your heart. reach into the organ in search of familiar warmth; its the same humid heaviness that lives in june.

hands wet, blood coolingー

summer born children all ache in the winter. you do not belong here. it eats you whole.

she is not here.

just memory. just ghost.

you were once young with her, puppy love and first crush, alive only inside you where the cold has yet to reach.

it tries. it tries.

better luck next year.

surviving winter. (a. a.)

#spilled ink #inkstay #writerscreed #deadpoetsnet #poetry #winter and grief and loss #something about remembering childhood in winter hurts a little more. different from summer. more numbing. #anyways long time no poem here's a notes app poem right before the new year #lgbt writing #wlw poetry

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postcard memories - a.a.

from honeyfire’s newest issue, milk teeth, which you can get here! my poem is only one of many many others and i highly recommend you grab this issue and get suckerpunched by emotions :)

#sr

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postcard memories - a.a.

from honeyfire's newest issue, milk teeth, which you can get here! my poem is only one of many many others and i highly recommend you grab this issue and get suckerpunched by emotions :)

#poetry #litmag #nosebleedclub #inkstay #spilled ink #honeyfire #reading the issue rn and it is putting me THRU it #girl i am in the water with this issue

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a message to baa-chan’s garden

To the flourishing plants I remember fondly, To the butterflies and cicadas that I spent hours catching, To the koi fish and turtle in the little pond, To my baa-chan and the plants under her care,

I still think of you. When I think of Okinawa, I remember you first; the pathway lined with green, large leaves swaying in the wind, flowers growing bright and vibrant after typhoons. In my mind’s eye, I walk slowly through you, reaching out to run curious fingers along the stems. I am smaller, much younger, in this garden. I have not yet learned of the impermanence of things.

My baa-chan used to tend to each plant so carefully, giving it her attention as she watered and pruned it, checking for harmful bugs and sickness. In that little corner of the world, I used to imagine little dragons and lion dogs living in the roots of trees and dancing on the petals of flowers.     My baa-chan grew magic there. 

And there was a little pond, lined with large, gray stone like that found in the walls surrounding Shuri-jyo. I would wake up early just to feed the fish and watch the turtle swim around them. Life thrived under my baa-chan’s warm gaze. You were a monument to healing after she lived through so much loss.

They destroyed you, the garden and the pond, after my baa-chan first collapsed. They built a new house; the old one had been standing since before my mother was born, and it was too tired to continue holding us all. I have trouble recognizing that house now; without my baa-chan’s garden, is it really home?

These days, I say nothing of my memories, and speak as best I can to my baa-chan. Our sentences repeat, the wordss forgotten the moment they’re set free in the air, and I wonder if she remembers how she brought to life even the weakest of plants. Will you remember her when she is unable to care for you? Will she remember you at all? Or will my heart be the only one that lingers on a place long gone?

I wanted to tell you, that garden and all it held, that I keep you alive in my memories. I tend to you with my baa-chan, who is just as I remember in my mind. I will make sure you don’t wither. I will have the dragons and lion dogs and turtles and koi fish live in that beautiful corner of the world. There will be no graves for gardens, just opportunities for new ones.

As I grow older, I find myself carefully tending to plants as my baa-chan once did. I start my own little garden, carefully line the walkway with potted flowers, and watch over them each day. 

Baa-chan, do you know that I inherited this from you? Will you remember your garden through me?

Enough years have passed that I don’t remember the specific plants you held. I don’t remember much beyond the soothing green that surrounded me. My mind fills in the blanks, carefully adding flowers here and there, letting the memory of my baa-chan watch over them carefully.

I spotted a hibiscus at a plant nursery and was overcome with nostalgia and homesickness. I bought it without a second thought just to try and keep the garden with me. It’s too hot and dry here, nothing like the humid air of Okinawa, and I do my best to keep it from wilting. 

I tend to my little hibiscus, carefully watching it grow. 

I wait, endlessly, for the blooming. 

To my baa-chan’s garden:

    I hope you can live on through me.

#prose #spilled ink #okinawa #writerscreed #creative nonfiction #inkstay #found some old cameras and looked thru the pictures. unlocked some memories and started crying. this is the result of that. enjoy ig

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Sing, o Andromache, the lament of Hector. You held a dead man’s body while his heart was still beating And only watched as he walked steadily to his fate.

Who else has been widowed to a man not yet buried? Let the poets sing of his battles and his glory; The women will sing for those left behind by cruel Destiny

Never a part of the story until it’s over. Speak to the dead and throw away honor and morals, The living hold nothing for you once the body is buried.

Call out to the shade of the life you once had; Reach for the silhouette of someone you could never keep. Weep, weep, only your voice will be heard in this song.

Look at yourself and know that you Are only a shadow of your former self. Now this shadow is only grief                                                grief                                                      grief.

- andromache after troy. (a.a.)

#spilled ink #poetry #classics #andromache #nosebleedclub #i think a lot abt women in tragedy and how they represent something bigger than them #also this was written for a class this semester lol

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when I was young, my mother told me the story of sunlight, how the makers of this universe                      reached out for each other                                                                      in the dark

                         and their love lit up a thousand suns.

I think of it often,     how strong love must be to create light where there was none before. the lonely days I endured were only softened by the thought that somewhere, anywhere,

                    there is someone who loves me into daylight.

like dawn, the realization came in slowly,     in shifting colors that changed without warning;                                         you smiled and I thought,                                           “oh, there you are.                                                           there you are.”

there is love in the light, yes,     but my heart looked to the waters and the shade.

though my eyes could only see your silhouette, i followed the soothing cadence of your voice in the bells, the robins, the waterfall.

wind like ribbons wrapped around your wrists,                                      always                 just out of reach

no matter how hard I tried to hold your hand my touch would always fade from your skin,             like a ghost a moment before disappearing.

yes, the oldest gods reached for each other,     but reaching is all they could do; where     else did the light come from but the gaps     between their bare fingers?

light, a product of love, light, a sign of emptiness. where there is light there is no one;         shadows are proof of existence and we had none.

like any other lonely creature,                 I am best loved from a distance.

and so I chase after you endlessly, helplessly;     dragonflies dance in my wake as you drift away from the day.

you look back, you do, but our hearts beat differently and the divide between us grows. all distance and longing, that’s what we are.             just another light that couldn’t find its shadow.

- distance, as lovers feel it (a.a.)

#spilled ink #nosebleedclub #inkstay #writerscreed #poetry #just thinking abt two spirits who love each other but cant really interact bc their in different realms... yeah #its fantasy yearning time tonight babes