"Being alone was never hard before I met you."

–Soft thorns, Bridgett Devoue

Soooo I tried my hand at being a vendor at a booth this last weekend. It was interesting, it was educational. I don’t think it’s for me, but maybe I should try? Main take-away was a sense of community- vendors being kind to other venders, people knowing each other and helping out.

Rambly thoughts after cut, written evening of.

 It was easy to mark that most the money I got came from within the community and much of what I earned I immediately spent at other stalls (dude! I got an AMAZING robe- super light weight cotton w/ nice print- have been wanting one for years so-- whole day is a win for that alone) It causes thoughts to scratch at the scabby question of “why?” which never goes well. Does it matter? Am I seeking a sense of community or validation of my ego? I received compliments (mostly from other vendors) and pieces that I thought lame (pink monster) highly remarked on while my favorite bits not even glanced at. 

It’s interesting to experience, knowing that it’s been A Year and we’d normally be a hopping touristy neighborhood serving only foot traffic now. There are my neighbors, the locals (approximately speaking). Do I want local friends? Here is an excellent crop to pick from. 

That being said, I don’t think vending is my scene. I don’t feel good “putting myself out there” in such a way. It makes me want to lean harder into commission work/fan work in terms of distributing my pieces/what I spend my time on. I want things out of my house and hopefully somewhere other than the trash.

It does however inspire me to visit next week and make a point of finding something. I have yet to find a right balance between “hoarder” and “I want no things” -- my ego is too large to accept other pieces of art into my home but not everyone feels that way and I could/should lean into more gifting..... 

Anyway... a day well spent. A week well spent in fact-- I had a bit of a “sprint” trying to make things/finish projects and there is joy to be had (alongside the misery) in bulk production. The efficiencies, the emergent process, the ideas accelerating other ideas. It’s like playing a board game except in real life. But it then leaves one awash in the results and... ugh, now I have more things... 

Interesting that the first book piece I sold was annoying Never Finished Mr White Legs... I meant to do more with his legs but only painted them with spots of gold this week. It was definitely one of the pieces I wanted to be rid of. The necklace I posted earlier was the only of that set to sell, it was also the only I’d bothered to mount on a real necklace chain.  I think if I wanted to get serious about booth selling these things there’s some major take aways about presentation to be had from today.

Okay I’ve changed my mind i guess

I am not here

I guess I never will be

Maybe , just maybe

You’ve witnessed fragments of me

Shreds of the book I’ve burnt

And here I go

Hopefully not to far

But hopefully too far.

some Eldrid thoughts now that i'm, finally,,, talking about her

-the fact that she survived in the Mists for years is less of a miracle and more a demonstration of her strength of will (and general strength)

- though she never received a call from the Dream in the form of a Hunt, i think she has something similar but then from the Mists. (will elobarate very tricky thoughts sometime maybe)

- toying around with the idea of her inheriting some of Balthazar's power, or obtaining it somehow? (either Balthy was already aware of her while she was in the Mists, or her odd relationship with the Mists/residual mists powers were the reason for her getting a chunk of his power)

- the shrine guardian backpack/glider made me think the floaty fire orbs could possibly be her deceased party members/friends - she doesn't know it's them and can't communicate with them, but they help her manipulate mists energy to get around places (like gliding)

- she can't manipulate said energy by herself at all, also not during battle. she's as stronger a warrior as ever (and better) and has always had a good control over adrenaline outbursts, but during really dire situations, some volatile Mists energy shoots out and she looks a lil... different.. :eyes: i'll have to illustrate cus i can't word

'Sleep' - James McInerney. Poet & Author of ‘Bloom’, ‘In between the lines’, ‘Red’, ‘The Pieces that Collide’ & ‘Everything I Write is About You’ OUT NOW on Amazon/Kindle.

things I have learned from my first, real adult job:

do NOT, under ANY circumstances lend your coworkers books

it doesn't matter how much you like them or whatnot, don't fucking do it

it's been almost a year and a half since I gave out two books, to different coworkers - who both now no longer work at the same company

one book I've just written off as a complete loss - I've already read it, and don't mind picking up a second copy especially since the second in the trilogy is set to come out soon

the other, I haven't read but really want to, so I'm getting into contact with the borrower to see what's up and to determine if I have to buy it

I've just made a server for fellow book lovers to chat! Kinda like a lil book club 🥰 feel free to join if you'd like! 📚🌿

https://discord.gg/MZuZyJ9K

since its basically confirmed that alina and mal are on the same boat as the crows when mal say 'the whole world will be after you' I'm guessing that the crows somehow decide to help alina and bring her to novyi zem OR they might switch it up and have them hide in ketterdam so that the crows plot will be more tied to the show for s2 idk

Maybe I am only cursed to forever roam the night, fooled by an illusion that every word I write would form a path that will lead me back to you.

— autumn artemis

I can feel it in my veins — she’s begging me to live and feel alive , maybe I am deaf too her cries or maybe I am enjoying it a little too much — the unstoppable desire to confront my soul who wants to scream and run in joy of feeling the wind crease her cheeks.

Louis de Pointe du Lac: victim of circumstance (derogatory)

Nobody talks about poe. Everyone only talks about will and stella. That's so unfair.

Sometimes, the strongest people in the morning are the people who cried all night.

Book of prosperity

Petals

He watched the petals fall off her each day leaving her almost bare to the core. He did this. He was slowly killing her. The more petals she lost the less of herself she became. Once a vibrant loud girl was oh so quiet and reserved. She was fading away. Piece by piece she blew away in the wind, leaving her incomplete. A bare flower was good for nothing, something people got rid of. It was exactly what he’d do to her once the last petal was gone. She had taken so much for so long her defenses were weakened. He had once helped her flourish and now was the cause of her wilting.

Thanks for tagging me @olivia4464

hardcover or paperback / rent or buy / reads in silence or reads with music / standalone or series / annotations or pristine pages / ebook or physical copy / dog ears or bookmarks / mismatched series or complete set / cover matters or you don’t judge / lend books or keep them to yourself / enjoys lit classes or despises them / browses shops or orders online / reads reviews or goes in blind / unreturned books or clean library record / rereads or once was enough / fanfic enthusiast (!!!) or a stickler for canon / deep reader or easily distracted / must read the book before seeing the movie or order doesn’t matter / neat bookshelves or messy bookshelves / skips ahead or resists temptation / reads aloud or in your head / guesses plot twists or never sees them coming

I don't really have anyone to tag but if anyone sees this and wants to do it, considered I tag u :)

- cece (melancholicwritings)

And I hope you don’t view me as the one who got a way, because I was never really meant to stay, I was never really yours anyway. I loved you though, so much that it destroyed me. You could’ve asked me to light myself on fire and I would have, with a smile and shaking fingers. You could have asked me to stay and I would have, with a smile and tears in my eyes. But you never did though and I am forever thankful for it. Because you could have returned and I would have been far too weak to stop you.

-C.C.

"it still remains"

I do not remember how this poem begins, but I do remember that it begins with a Sunday morning.

It is a Sunday morning with wilting petals from picked roses in a shimmering vase and the steam from my mother’s iron that I think of you.

It is a Sunday morning, chimes murmuring softly to one another in hushed tones, bumblebees buzzing along the marrow of my bones and grasshoppers clicking and chirping in brisk mourning whilst my thoughts place the spotlight on you.

It is a Sunday morning with my pink-tinged knuckles and scabbing scratches flush against the wooden surface of my dinged up table that I realize I hated you.

It is a Sunday morning that green fills my lungs and specks of light dances behind my eyes that I dip a toe into the flinching current of coming to terms with hating you.

It is also a Sunday morning that a warm cloak of wool memories of loving you wraps about me tightly.

It is a Sunday morning with vines snaking across my liver and intestines tightening in curiosity when I peel away the tape that burns my chapped lips, my unused tongue wetting the poor skin as I taste honesty once more.

It is a Sunday afternoon with my body swimming against the crippled clean sheets of my bed and my room humming around me that I allow myself to remember you.

It is a Sunday afternoon when I am alone with my bare, dry skin speckled pink and brown and stomach rolls and spring air sighing against my blinds and screen that I remember how judgmental you were.

I remember how stern and firm and professional you were, so like my own mother whose tongue only knows how to mold her opinions into the format of fact.

I remember how you were always so insecure about your broad shoulders and your sagging stomach and how eating disorders were a trigger to you.

I remember how we only had to talk for a few months to become close as could be, sharing a cocoon but separated by a thin wall with us smiling down and giggling at the secret only we knew.

I remember your glasses and how the sun glinted against your dark eyes, making them gleam a brilliant gold and I remember the slope of your nose and how I wanted to pepper it with soft kisses.

I remember your obsession with Dan and Phil as well as the color yellow and sunflowers so now I cannot look at a field without thriving to dedicate it to your being.

I remember that you are a Ravenclaw and you are the rarest personality type in the world and your liking to the word, “euphoria”.

I remember that you had three to four panic attacks a week and that shaving felt like cleanliness to you and how makeup was your only key to the confidence you so craved.

I also remember the thrumming doom that sinked and bubbled under my skin as my own homemade tumor when I realized a few weeks after confessing to you that I did not see you as a lover, as a partner, or as someone to romance.

I remember how you made me cry for the first time and how it was the last time you made me cry because I never again let you have the chance to make me cry.

And oh, do I remember how you always remained professional with those you were distant from and the chill that dripped down from my eyes to my toes when you became professional to me.

It is a Sunday afternoon that I shrink away from the entangled cotton of my dreamcatcher when I dare let myself whisper the fact that yes, I did agree with that person you didn’t but only silently and in my head because they were someone you did not like and I could not afford becoming that.

But I did indeed, in my head.

It was a Sunday afternoon that I bow my head to my lap with my palms slick with my saliva and snot and tears with only the creaking walls and maybe, the inquiring lamp to the side, as witness to my confession that I hated you.

That I hated you and dislike you and love you.

It is a Sunday night that I take the artwork that I had drawn and dutifully colored in with the paint made from the colors of my veins and neurons and threw it away.

It is a Sunday night that I give into the temptation that itches and cackles in my ear to look at your profile again, looking through your activity before shutting my phone off in disappointment in myself. It is a drug, one I indulge and inject into myself to free myself of your insomnia.

It is a Sunday night that I wonder freely to myself and only to myself because I had checked my closet and behind my doors and under every nook and cranny before doing so if you also think of me on a Sunday night just like this.

It is also a Sunday night that I shove my way towards the kitchen and slam the clay pot with you in it to the ground, kneeling down to grasp at the shards that dig under the skin of my palms when I slit myself with one.

It is a Sunday night that I plant a seed with trembling fingers under my skin in that slit and here it is, I can see and feel the leaves of that sunflower in me brushing underneath my skin and ready to burst again.

It is on a Monday morning, at the silent tick of 12:01 a.m that I admit to myself that I had gone through the stages of grief when it came to losing you.

It is on a Monday morning at 12:03 a.m that I know I am still struggling to overcome denial and acceptance. I had already checked the boxes for bargaining and depression and anger and checked them again and again until they were covered in ticks but even then, I probably missed a few because I am forgetful.

But it is today, on this Saturday afternoon with a poem that I wrote at 3:58 p.m to 5:13 p.m with my battery at 17% that I begin to accept a little more and grieve a little more and say goodbye a little more sincerely with this rewritten copy of a well-torn up poem in my hands.

In seven years, the sunflower I plowed under my skin will be the only evidence left of you, the scar healing wonderfully and the plant doing well as I water it as I do the other plants because I care for myself.

In seven years, all my cells will have been replaced with ones anew and my body will no longer know the smears of tears you caused or the craving for your long paragraphs of compliments and little laughing emojis.

It is also in seven years that my body will finally be mine again and you will be gone and dead and I have accepted that and even been grateful for that and all that you were and I would like to tell you that yes, I hated you and dislike you and love you. And yes, I will still think you, that is true.

But no, sunflower, I will not miss you.

- the sunday morning i kissed your purple hues before spitting on your boots.