#prose nonfiction

[mordere-diem]

How would you explain the popularity of this narrative that the oppressed have to ensure the safety of the oppressors? Placing the question of violence at the forefront almost inevitably serves to obscure the issues that are at the center of struggles for justice.

Angela Y. Davis, Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement

#angela davis #prose #nonfiction #bite of the day #quotes #humanity #resistance #palestine #activism

[peachcitt]

we're sitting under the stars on my best friend's balcony,

and everyone but us have gone in for the night. I've just told you, hazy and drunk, that my astrology app feeds me bullshit every day, and sometimes I'm weak enough to believe it. But most of the time it's bullshit.

I don't know why I told you - to you, the stars are lifeblood, or at least a personality gauge based on spinning planets and hair size. "Leos are known for their big hair," you'd said, maybe only a few hours prior. I can't remember why I chose that bone to pick - I think I've reached a barrel-scraping desperation where I feel the need to assert, over and over again, that 'I defy you, stars!' even though it would be much easier to say that mercury in retrograde may be causing my acute depression.

You pull up your astrology app. We're friends on there, and I think I remember checking our compatibility and feeling drawn to the sex & love section, but that would be ridiculous. There's something in the bullshit my astrology app fed to me that I read out loud in drunken amusement that resonated with who I am in your eyes, sitting in front of you under the stars. Your app tells you that you might experience a big change when the sun comes up, that you'll have to reach for it with both hands, and I see your eyes flick over to me.

There's a defense mechanism that locks in, underneath my skin, that acts as a human deterrent. I look at my best friend and there is something primal and soft that begs to lean my body against her and touch her with a casual intimate care. But when she laced her fingers with mine, pushing up against my stiff palm like digging through stone, I had to look away. She knelt down by her puppy and took my hand in hers, pressing my knuckles to her forehead to show her puppy that I am safe, that I can be trusted, but the little creature watched me like a sentinel behind my best friend's back, wary and right.

I think I told you it might be bullshit; I can only remember myself contrary in the string lights. You insisted that it could be true. "What if everything changes," you said, "what if it's right and today" - we were far past midnight - "and today the-"

"The world ends?" I finished for you.

I don't think that's what you wanted to hear, the careless laughing way I said it. I stared at the back of my best friend's house today, hours after you left, and I thought about fate. I bent over backwards and stared up at the stars, framed by the staircase up to the porch we sat. The world didn't end, nor did it change substantially, and I'll admit I didn't want either. I want to stay the same forever, but the goddamn stars keep moving.

I've played this game before, and I've been the one to lose every time. I'd like to say I'm a good sport, but there's only so many hits you can take before it starts getting personal, and I'm afraid my jagged edges are sharpening in preparation. I can't let you be another meteorite I strain every muscle to push to the top of the hill only to fall back in the same bloody crater. You have to understand; where you see fate in the stars, glinting just for you, all I can see is apocalypse.

(28 August 2023, 3:26 am)

#original work #creative nonfiction #prose poetry #peach writes #listen i know this is. i know this is different from what i normally post. i know that #but just listen. listen. i normally post my poetry online on my personal instagram acc #but that account is followed by family and friends including the people i am describing. and i know they read my shit #as we all know i love anonymity in stupid insane ways in my personal life so here. have some raw feelings im sharing with strangers #and you may be asking. why post this at all? . well that's easy silly it's because i genuinely think it rocks and rolls #i can separate my feelings from my art im normal about it

[angleofmusings]

HELLO JEWISH PEOPLE. what shoes do you wear on yom kippur. pick the option that’s closest and feel free to elaborate in the tags!

also feel free to share if you go to shul on yom kippur and what your observance looks like!

#judaism #polls #yom kippur #jewblr #jumblr #jewish #jumblr tag #personally i have a pair of inexpensive white shoes that i basically only wear on yom kippur #they were like $10 on clearance at cvs lol #and i go to a conservative shul and usually fast + no phone/computer/writing/classwork #most of the time (when not at shul) i read or nap #this year i read most of ‘somewhere we are human’ which is a super interesting anthology of immigrant experiences (incl. poetry prose & art) #highly recommend it to anyone interested in that sort of creative nonfiction

[colorsoftheriver]

OKAAAAAY… so last minute book cover and title change but the story is the saaaame (bear with my artistic spontaneity).

My THIRD BOOK, Write It in Lipstick will be out in a FEW DAYS!! Signed copy reservations are OPEN NOW! Click the link below to order your personalized copy.

https://www.colorsoftheriver.com/write-it-in-lipstick

PREVIEW:

River Sutaria's highly anticipated third book, Write It in Lipstick, is a fictionalized memoir-esque narrative that delves into the author's experiences with sexual abuse and family dysfunction. Portrayed through vignettes of intertwined prose and verse, the story highlights the hidden effects of trauma and the power of creative expression in healing and self-discovery.

Write It in Lipstick is not only a testament to the strength found in vulnerability but also an inspiration for those seeking solace in their own stories.

[email protected]

#writers and poets #childhood trauma #abuse survivor #writing #writers on tumblr #poem #poetry #generational trauma #trauma #creative writing #creative nonfiction #prose poetry #vignette

[pairedaeza]

The only colour I can see comes from the green pines across the inlet, the golden kelp that's washed ashore. Everything smells of drying life and sharp salt.

Jessica J. Lee, from Dispersals: On Plants, Borders and Belonging

#words #prose #Jessica j. lee #dispersals #creative nonfiction

[benitariums]

benita rosalind, "i hold a wolf by the ears"

#my writing #dark academia #sylvia plath #franz kafka #classic literature #poem #prose #spilled ink #substack #newsletter #poems and poetry #poems and words #light academia #journal #literary #literature #literary quotes #literary fiction #creative writing #creative nonfiction #benita rosalind #january

[21silverlinings]

Avoidantly, I refrain From opening my mouth Fearing that you will hear My mother's heartache Etched into my words.

Anxiously, I hold my tongue Repressing my father's anger That of which poisons my blood.

Disorderly, My silence grows A bed of unspoken thoughts, Rooted in past sorrows, Watered by the tears of every generation before me.

Yet, in time, I learn to whisper To find my voice And declare that I am more Than the fears I have inherited. I abandon the screams Of my ancestors' pain, To break the cycle So that one day, My words will flow Not with heartache or anger, But with love and peace, instead.

nb | 1902

#writerscreed #creative writing #poetry #spilled ink #poets on tumblr #prose #nb #21silverlinings #writing #p #writeblr #writers on tumblr #except from a book i'll never write #spoken word #spoken poetry #generational healing #creative nonfiction #poem #writers and poets #poets corner

[wisteria-grows-here]

I have a lil personal announcement that I'm super excited about!

On Wednesday, the literary magazine I submitted my first published piece to will be launched!

I've been studying writing in college for several years now, something I never thought possible while growing up as a JW. I was fully expecting to never continue my education after high school and settle into the ministry. Instead, I've been working on myself and studying the humanities.

My piece is called Eating My Daily Bread in Hell and is creative nonfiction prose. On Wednesday, I'll be posting it here. 😊🫶

#ex jehovah's witness #ex jw #ex jehovahs witness #cult survivor #pimo #exmormon #jehovahswitnesses #exmo #exjw #writing #writers on tumblr #writer stuff #writerscommunity #original prose #prose piece #creative nonfiction

[jimmyspades]

#that's my boyfriend! my boyfriend alan shore :) #with his bangs… his season 2 baby bangs I miss them #james spader #boston legal #alan shore #* #I wanna look through his library so bad #we really know so little about him. he is so interesting. he’s got hobbies and passions we never hear about #this is one of the few brief looks we actually get of alan outside of work #and he’s reading one of the earliest english prose novels written by a woman in the 17th century on european slavery #alan shore they could never make me hate you… #he’s so intelligent I wanna trade books with him I’d give him 19th century nonfiction and plays from the theater of the absurd #asking him to read out loud while you fall asleep to the sound of his voice. oughh

[wildrosespoetry]

i was in love with my best friend at fourteen and again at sixteen and again at eighteen and again at nineteen and again at twenty-one. oh, how i wish my favorite people never became lessons.

#creative writing #poem #poetry #prose #dear diary #journaling #rant #vent #mental health #love #creative nonfiction #memoir #unrequited love #wlw #wlw love #yearning #sapphic #sapphic yearning #longing #lesbian #lgbtqia #queer

[megafaunatic]

Half an hour before sunset I came to a pine wood. It was already dark under the trees, but there was light in the ride as I walked along it from the west. Outside it was cold, but the wood was still warm. The boles of the pines glowed redly under the blue-black gloom of their branches. The wood had kept its dusk all day, and seemed now to be breathing it out again. I went quietly down the ride, listening to the last rich dungeon notes of a crow. In the middle of the wood, I stopped. A chill spread over my face and neck. Three yards away, on a pine branch close to the ride, there was a tawny owl. I held my breath. The owl did not move. I heard every small sound of the wood as loudly as though I too were an owl. It looked at the light reflected in my eyes. It waited. Its breast was white, thickly arrowed and speckled with tawny red. The redness passed over the sides of its face and head to form a rufous crown. The helmeted face was pale white, ascetic, half-human, bitter and withdrawn. The eyes were dark, intense, baleful. This helmet effect was grotesque, as though some lost and shrunken knight had withered to an owl. As I looked at those grape-blue eyes, fringed with their fiery gold, the bleak face seemed to crumple back into the dusk; only the eyes lived on. The slow recognition of an enemy came visibly to the owl, passing from the eyes, and spreading over the stony face like a shadow. But it had been startled out of its fear, and even now it did not fly at once. Neither of us could bear to look away. Its face was like a mask; macabre, ravaged, sorrowing, like the face of a drowned man. I moved. I could not help it. And the owl suddenly turned its head, shuffled along the branch as though cringing, and flew softly away into the wood.

— The Peregrine, J.A. Baker (pp. 78-79, 2005 NYRB edition)

#owls #nonfiction #pleeeease read the peregrine it's 200 pages of the most beautiful prose you've ever read #and get the 2005 nyrb edition if you can bc robert macfarlane's introduction makes me (singing) insaaaane

[putah-creek]

Reach inside yourself for the strength you need. It’s there. Your strength is in your own heart, it has always been there. Hold on to your faith in life, in your own humanity. Believe in yourself. Keep hope. Love and life will go on. Until it doesn’t.

James Lee Jobe

#prosepoetry #prose poem #prose poetry #poetry #poets on tumblr #poetry on tumblr #poem #poems on tumblr #writers and poets #writers on tumblr #poetrycommunity #poetscommunity #dead poets society #poems and poetry #poetry blog #poetry corner #poets and writers #creative nonfiction #creative writing

[kateubanks]

teen angst

for me, teen angst looked like a raw, visceral hatred for my prettier, more affluent peers. rich bitches who drove roaring broncos — a birthday present from daddy, the richest farmer in the county. girls who, come prom season, will roam the halls with too-warm spray tans and nails that click furiously on their phone screens. snakes in basketball shorts and boater shoes who treat their semi-circle of gripped whiteclaws like camp david.

i couldn't stand them, and i wanted nothing more than to be them. those girls were beautiful. they were smart, and teachers liked them more than me. they were never without someone to share the experience with — a friend to advise on prom dresses, cry on about the evils of #college app szn, and whine to about the boy in basketball shorts and boater shoes.

their lives were simple. they did school, cheer, hair appointments. their parents served warm, sit-down dinners every night. they had little siblings that annoyed them and parties to keep them busy. their last names bought them security.

they never had to wash clothes in the bathtub and dry them on the space heater. they never had to close the store at three and make it to school by seven. they never worried about how next month's rent was getting paid, and they never felt truly, deeply that the things they wanted were unattainable.

i thought they pitied me, and i hated them for it. they don't know me. my life makes me better, smarter, more equipped than them. i would never want to be them.

and yet, when i found myself in the midst of the elusive creatures, i fawned. i pretended. in my stained rags, i made myself like one of them.

#when does nonfiction stop being nonfiction and just start being a diary entry #also thinking this will definitely need a reprise bc i have WAYYYY more to say #stay tuned for part 2 bc it shocked me too girl #writing #writers and poets #literature #writeblr #prose #flash fiction #microfiction #short fiction #writerscommunity #writers on tumblr #writing community #writerscreed #creative writing #personal essays #nonfiction #nonfiction essay #poets on tumblr #kateubanks #no i didnt cry writing this why do you ask #i have allergies you bitch

[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

[syringavulgaris]

I need a moment. I need to lie down. (from the Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia, wr. Stephen Bertman)

#nonfiction #mar23 #it's the dry ass scholastic prose and then how he hits me with these

[pairedaeza]

A crush is distinct from friendship or love by dint of its intensity and sudden onset. It is marked by passionate feeling, by constant daydreaming: a crush exists in the dreamy space between fantasy and regular life. The objects of our crushes, who themselves may also be referred to as crushes, cannot be figures central to our daily lives. They appear in the periphery of our days, made romantic by their distance.

Larissa Pham, from 'Crush'. Published in Pop Song: Adventures in Art and Intimacy.

#Larissa pham #essays #pop song #prose #words #creative nonfiction