Please let me know what you guys think of this poem. It’s exactly how I feel about a new love but I don’t know if i should share it with them.
A thousand bolts adorn the door A door that I never asked for One that was built brick by brick Over time that has burned off a crumbling wick
So much time spent in front of this door I’ve grown quite familiar with what lies before A garden of sorts, filled with shrubs and ivy All the invasive things that make this life feel a little more lively
I feel like I was born without a key And a piece of my soul exists outside of me So I search and I search for that one wildflower The thing that could make centuries feel like days and decades like hours
Then you appeared, not just as a fleeting trace But as the sun redefining the entire space You inverted shadows and light, turned ounces into pounds The first one to open my mind to looking at my garden upside down
I can now see the flowers underneath it all You helped me dig just deep enough to uncover a remedy in my fall I’ve gone from “What good is a garden that’s all dug up?” To wanting to sit on my knees for hours; each plant I will pluck
Because with you it isn’t scary; you make me feel a calmness I’ve never felt before The silence that we share would bring the heavens to the floor You are the missing piece to a puzzle that is already complete You add something otherworldly—your protective fleet
I said it to my mom and I’ll say it again - I can’t believe you’re real The symphonies you breathe into me are ones I thought only Romeo and Juliets could feel It’s the kind of love that feels like a musical note perfectly in time To make you feel seen, I would make every aspect of you rhyme
I can say I’ve never been a builder and it would be true My hands more comfortable constructing barriers than building anew But I would build homes to give you space Teach my table to have a seat, to reserve for you a place
I’ve found so many wildflowers already in the places our love has grown I know our table will one day be covered in gardens that we’ve sown I feel the most beautiful peace when I lay my head on you to rest I wonder if God's trying to speak to me through the music I hear in your chest

here is a poem i wrote (the love thing is still something i haven’t figured out fully)
‘brother’
i am so young, innocent he has tainted that
i do not love him for the does not respect me it is black and white
my home becomes a house when he inhabits my room is stripped away from me as the wall we share keeps me from peace, from serenity
i was just 7, what did i do to deserve that abuse? i was just 7
i was just newly 17 a forced “happy birthday” by the hands of my mother, a week too late a “happy birthday” void of any warmth or care a chore to get done with i do not love him
of course i understand that there are many things he does that are out of his control/not his fault. i just need to get my feelings out as whenever i tell my mom about how he makes me feel she plays the ‘his brain is different than ours” card and moves along like nothing happened. (Also this poem barely scratches the surface)

Dear Shitty Cuneous
Seeing as though you choose to run this sub like a dictatorship and foil the purpose of a discussion board by deleting everything that you disagree with, you give me no choice but to make another post to answer your wild accusation as below:
shitty-cuneus • 2 hr. ago I remember you making a lot of exaggerated comments about how perfect Nathan was. You are so obsessed with Nathan, hope he really loves you.
I said he helped me with a poem. That's it. A POEM. It was you that wrote in another comment how jealous you are. I can't help that.
I'm sure this post will be deleted and reposted with some further exaggeration on your part but none of us care anymore. You are the laughing stock all over the Internet.
Have fun Shitty girl!! xx

Hi! I’m Ashton 22M, So this will be more of a unique post. I’ve made a post before looking for snail mail penpals which this will still be by mail but Im interested in making some penpals where we send things that are a little more unique back and forth to each other.
I think it would be awesome to send - art pages - drawings - journal style pages - small crafts - stickers - pages of just rants/vents and random thoughts - craft supplies - book exchange -poetry -postcards - long letters - random photographs of daily life
Id love to hear your thoughts, inspirations, dreams, your past, what makes you who you are, what your favorite poem is, how you got that scar when you were 5, ya know the deep stuff haha
I know this post is a bit all over the place but if any of this interests you feel free to send me a message and let me know which one (or multiple!) of these categories you’d like to send back and forth to each other!

[I wrote this article about Macbeth for my college's newspaper, and I thought this subreddit might enjoy reading it!]
I have joked before that Shakespeare’s two favorite subjects–surpassing love, murder, madness, and crossdressing–are botany and birds. If you’ve been to New York City you might be aware of the “Shakespeare Garden” in Central Park, whose theoretical aim (though it proves nigh-impossible in practice) is to house specimens of all the plants which Shakespeare mentions in his plays. As it turns out, Bard quotes make for quite a diverse garden: there are roses which assuredly would smell as sweet by any other name; there are daffodils, that come before the swallow dares, and take the winds of March with beauty; there’s holly, heigh-ho; there’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance, there’s pansies, that’s for thoughts, there’s fennel for you, and columbines–no word on whether or not they could find any violets, though. I suppose there’s no objection to be made against those who complain that Shakespeare’s language is “flowery”; even as vicious a villain as Iago deigns to express his philosophy on life by way of botanical metaphor: “Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners.” And, of course, the plot of A Midsummer Night’s Dream revolves around a magical flower which makes people fall in love.
I doubt anyone will object to my claiming of birds as Shakespeare’s other poetical fixation: I suspect that the majority of falconry knowledge which most non-falconers have today comes from reading footnotes in their copies of Shakespeare plays, explaining exactly what Richard II means by “How high a pitch his resolution soars,” or why Hamlet says “Hillo, ho, ho” to Marcellus. But while plants are so common in Shakespeare that I don’t know of one play which we might say is especially densely forested with references to them, there is one play that stands out as particularly full of birds in comparison with the rest of the Shakespearean canon. That play is Macbeth.
This is the sort of thing that one only notices after having read a play so many times that the actual events of the plot become akin to the meter of a poem–beats which must be hit, and which start to feel so natural that one hardly notices them–and one’s attention drifts away from the big, important speeches and toward the more utilitarian words and odd little moments that bridge them. I am not the first to point it out, but it is, all the same, a delightful quirk of the play, and could be a good way for Sophomores to throw their classmates for a loop in seminar [Note: Students at our college study Macbeth during their Sophomore year.]: why are there so many birds in Macbeth?
KING. Dismay’d not this/Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo? SERG. Yes,/As sparrows eagles… -Act I, Scene II
LADY. …The raven himself is hoarse/That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan… -Act I, Scene V
BAN. This guest of summer,/The temple-haunting martlet, does approve/By his loved mansionry, that the heaven’s breath/Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze/Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird/Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle… -Act I, Scene VI
LADY. Hark! Peace! It was the owl that shriek’d, the fatal bellman… -Act II, Scene II
LADY. I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry. -Act II, Scene II
PORTER. …come in, tailor; here you may roast your goose… -Act II, Scene III
PORTER. ‘Faith, sir, we were carousing till the second cock… -Act II, Scene III
LENNOX. New hatch’d to the woeful time: the obscure bird/Clamour’d the livelong night… -Act II, Scene III
OLD MAN. …On Tuesday last,/A falcon, towering in her pride of place,/Was by a mousing owl hawk’d at and kill’d. -Act II, Scene IV
MACBETH. …Light thickens; and the crow/Makes wing to the rooky wood… -Act III, Scene II
MACBETH. If charnel-houses and our graves must send/Those that we bury back, our monuments/Shall be the maws of kites. -Act III, Scene IV
MACBETH. Augurs and understood relations have/By magot pies and choughs and rooks brought forth/The secret’st man of blood. -Act III, Scene IV
LADY MACDUFF. …the poor wren,/the most diminutive of birds, will fight,/Her young ones in her nest, against the owl. -Act IV, Scene II
LADY MACDUFF. How will you live? SON. As birds do, mother. LADY MACDUFF. What, with worms and flies? SON. With what I get, I mean; and so do they. LADY MACDUFF. Poor bird! Thou’ldst never fear the net nor lime,/The pitfall nor the gin? SON. Why should I, mother? Poor birds they are not set for. -Act IV, Scene II
FIRST MURDERER. What, you egg! -Act IV, Scene II
MACDUFF. …there cannot be/That vulture in you… -Act IV, Scene III
MACDUFF. …O hell-kite! All?/What, all my pretty chickens and their dam/At one fell swoop? -Act IV, Scene III
MACBETH. The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!/Where got’st thou that goose look? SERVANT. There is ten thousand– MACBETH. Geese, villain? -Act V, Scene III
Above I have listed every ornithological reference that I’ve found in the Scottish Play; as we peruse them, we certainly cannot conclude that every individual reference is of the same kind, or carries the same import. I will not pretend, for example, that, just because geese and ravens are both birds, the Porter’s invitation for the imagined English tailor to cook his goose in Hell merits as much attention as Lady Macbeth’s ominous declaration that “the raven himself is hoarse”. Nor do I think that any individual reference particularly demands explication; by itself, any one of these bird-invocations seems perfectly natural. Shakespeare’s talent is such that he can repeat a motif in such a way that on the macro level it is obvious yet on the micro level it hardly feels present. But that macro level is what interests me here: what impression is created, on the whole, by the presence of so many birds in this play? I have a theory, which, though it may seem far-fetched, I think merits at least some consideration, and which, at the very least, I have not seen stated elsewhere, and so may make a novel contribution to the conversation.
Macbeth is both Shakespeare’s most supernatural tragedy and his most Sophoclean; these two superlatives are inextricably related. The appellative Weird given to the opening scene’s three Sisters–derived from the Old English wyrd, meaning destiny, and famously given its more familiar connotation by Shakespeare himself in this very play–is, among the Bard’s works, unique to Macbeth; and just as that word appears nowhere else in Shakespeare, so is the concept it represents absent in all tragedies but this one. Though Hamlet may cry out against outrageous fortune, and though Othello may rhetoricize about how no man can control his fate, it is only in Macbeth that we truly feel that the events we see play out before us are fated, predestined, inevitable. [See Note 1.] The ghost in Hamlet commands his son to revenge his foul and most unnatural murder, but does not tell him it is certain that he will succeed; indeed, would not the drama be sapped of its intrigue if that level of certainty were present? Meanwhile, the supernatural interlopers in Macbeth offer the Scottish thane not a mission, but a prophecy: All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king hereafter! From its mystical opening word–When, not If–the Scottish play makes us aware of the certainty of all that is to befall our tragic antihero. Macbeth is thus a different sort of tragedy than Shakespeare’s others, and it works by an inverted mechanism. While the tragedy of, for example, Desdemona’s death is that it may have been prevented, the tragedy of Macbeth’s destruction is that it represents the fulfilment of fate; and this is the very same mechanism by which Oedipus Rex operates, complete with its own “Weird” character in the form of the seer Tiresias. Though Calvin managed to accept that some men are destined for greatness and others for ruin, this idea is, to Shakespeare and Sophocles, nothing short of agonizing–the stuff of tragedy.
Now: what does all of this have to do with birds? Consider these words from Antigone, spoken by Tiresias to Creon:
You shall learn, when you hear the indications of my art! As I took my place on my ancient seat for observing birds, where I can mark every bird of omen I heard a strange sound among them, since they were screeching with dire, incoherent frenzy and I knew that they were tearing each other with bloody claws, for there was a whirring of wings that made it clear… (Lloyd-Jones translation)
Consider next these words from Oedipus Tyrannus, spoken defensively by Oedipus to Tiresias:
Why, come, tell me, how can you be a true prophet? Why when the versifying hound was here did not you speak some word that could release the citizens? Indeed, her riddle was not one for the first comer to explain! It required prophetic skill, and you were exposed as having no knowledge from the birds or from the gods. No, it was I that came, Oedipus who knew nothing, and put a stop to her; I hit the mark by native wit, not by what I learned from birds. (Lloyd-Jones translation)
The practice of divining the future from birds–be it from their behaviors, their cries, or their innards–was, to Sophocles and his contemporaries, not superstitious hokum, but a practical science at which one could be skilled or unskilled, and it bodes ill for Oedipus that he is so quick to disregard it in favor of his own native wit. [See Note 2] By Shakespeare’s day, the practice had long been relegated to the realm of outdated hocus-pocus, but the Bard still saw some truth in it; in Macbeth, there is a recurring sense that, when the world is sick with some great wrong, its first symptoms manifest in the behavior of birds. When the “fatal bellman” the owl shrieks in the night, Lady Macbeth takes it as a sign that her husband is about his bloody business. The day after the murder of Duncan, as Ross converses with an Old Man about the strange things they’ve seen the previous night, “unnatural/Even as the deed that’s done”, the killing of a falcon by a mousing-owl–an omen straight out of Sophocles–is mentioned before the madness and cannibalism of Duncan’s horses, even though the latter would surely be more immediately noticeable and ghastly than the former.
These are the most obvious examples of birds as ill omens in Macbeth; yet even the more innocuous invocations of birds throughout the rest of the play continually turn our thoughts back to the ancient Greek understanding of fate and prophecy, and thereby remind us that, however savagely he may fight at Dunsinane, Macbeth’s fate is as fixed as that of Oedipus. The birds have already foretold all.
Note 1: The closest thing there is to this kind of fatalness in another Shakespearean tragedy is the several superstitious occurrences in Julius Caesar–both the soothsayer’s message of “Beware the ides of March” and the bestial portents such as the lack of a heart in an offering and the whelping of a lioness in the streets. Still, I will insist that these omens do not convey a sense of fatedness to the audience as strongly as the Weird Sisters in Macbeth by virtue of their being told to Caesar himself, not to Brutus, the play’s true protagonist, and by the fact that Shakespeare elsewhere uses dialogue to throw some doubt upon the idea of predestination: "Men at some times are masters of their fates:/The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,/But in ourselves, that we are underlings." -I.ii
Note 2: The Liddell-Scott Greek Lexicon identifies at least two separate verbs referring to bird-based divination, both of which are present in the quoted passages: Tiresias uses ορνϊθοσκοπέομαι, observe birds, interpret their flight and cries, while Oedipus uses οιωνίζομαι, take omens from the flight and cries of birds. The latter term comes from οιωνος, a large bird, bird of prey, such as a vulture or eagle, and so distinguished from a common bird, while the former comes from ορνις, which more generally refers to a bird, including birds of prey and domestic fowls. Birds of both kinds are present in Macbeth; there are οιωναι, such as the “falcon, towering in her pride of place”, as well as ορνες, like the Porter’s goose and cock. I therefore see little value in interrogating the kinds of birds invoked by Shakespeare, the specific cultural associations and significance of the owl, the raven, or the wren; rather, if we reduce them down to their barest existence as birds, animals of the class Aves, and consider them in an ancient Greek light, then things become a bit clearer.

The garage door shut with a groan behind us, closing us in the gloom of the single bulb hanging over the car.
Mother took a drag off her cigarette and sighed as she exhaled, the smoke filled the cabin of the Ford and stung my eyes.
“You really disappointed me today, Julianne," she tapped her cigarette in the ashtray below the dash, "you embarrassed me in front of the other mothers at the Ice Cream Social, shoveling down seconds and thirds like a pig. I thought I raised you better than that.”
She took another drag, daintily holding the cigarette between her perfectly manicured fingers.
“I'm going to have to tell your brother about this," she continued, “he'll have to come up with a punishment fit for a pig."
I felt my stomach drop. My kid brother, Thomas, was only six, but could be exceptionally cruel. Mother seemed to encourage him and was deferring to him more and more frequently for how the house was run, especially concerning my upbringing.
"Mother, please, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you. I'm sorry I was a pig and ate so much ice cream. I promise I won't do it again, I'll never eat any ice cream again," I was pleading with stone, unyielding.
“Hush your mouth. Go to your room and wait for Thomas," she put out the cigarette and got out of the car, I had no choice but to follow.
It felt like walking to the gallows as I stepped inside the house and headed towards the stairs to go to my room. Thomas had grown fond recently of physical punishment, he obviously delighted in Mother whipping me with a belt or, recently, Mother had allowed him to start beating me with a wooden spoon. He would squeal and giggle like a normal child watching bubbles in the wind while I screamed. I was dreading whatever was going to happen tonight, I chastised myself for eating that ice cream, I should have known she would show up. My sins were always laid bare.
Down the hall, I could hear Thomas watching television in the den. I only got to watch TV for half an hour on Saturday morning and new episodes of Happy Days with Mother and Thomas. Thomas got to watch all the TV he wanted. He could listen to the radio and turntable as much as he wanted, as loud as he wanted. Thomas had an entire room just for his toys.
I entered my bedroom, it was a space I occupied, but it didn't feel like mine. Mother kept it spartan, white walls and white bedspread. A crucifix over the bed and a painting of Jesus over the door. I had my desk and chair and a dresser with some of the porcelain dolls Daddy gave me before he died that Mother let me keep. That was it.
I placed my book bag down and sat on my bed, waiting for Thomas. It was a while, sitting there with nothing but my own thoughts and staring at the open door. I felt humiliated, I was almost thirteen and my entire life was dictated by my brother. Mother kept the house in constant lockdown to keep Thomas a secret. No outsiders were allowed in. I couldn't have friends because she was afraid I would mention him or sneak a friend in to gawk at my brother and tease him for being different.
I would never make fun of him, I was terrified of him. Terrified of what he was and what he was becoming.
Eventually I heard his heavy footsteps coming up the stairs and I felt my heart start beating faster and my palms began to sweat. I kneaded my skirt in my hands, trying to calm myself and dry my palms. His slow arrhythmic footsteps came down the hall and I watched him as he entered the room.
I couldn't help but internally recoil at his appearance, even though I'd known him since he was born, I could never adjust to how unnatural he appeared. Thomas had been born at home and had never seen a doctor, but he was obviously unwell.
He was six years old and was barely over two feet tall, but very squat and wide. His skin was thick and gray, the whites of his beady eyes were yellow and his hair was wispy and white like an old man's, spreading out like a halo around his gargoyle face. A slight odor of decomposition hung about him, it reminded me faintly of garbage cans on a hot summer day. I hated when Mother made me help him with a bath, his skin felt like old brittle leather that flaked onto my clothes in gray flecks. His body was dense like concrete, I could barely lift him into the tub. Picking him up forced his hair into my face where that smell of rot would fill my nose, causing me to gag, silently, so as not to offend him and draw any ire from him or Mother.
Today, Thomas was wearing bib overalls with a red and green striped sweater underneath, reminding me of a grotesque doll.
“Mama says you acted like a piggy today at the ice cream social,” he spoke up to me in his unsettlingly high pitched, yet raspy voice, like a child that smoked as much as Mother, "you need to come down for dinner right now for your punishment for embarrassing Mama."
He turned and walked back down the stairs and I had no choice but to follow his toddling form downstairs to the dining table. We entered the kitchen and the table was placed with two settings. Mother was already seated and Thomas clambered up into his booster seat at his normal spot next to Mother. She took a drag off her cigarette and motioned vaguely to the floor without even looking at me.
Neatly situated on the linoleum was my dinner, not on a plate, but directly on the floor. A pork chop, scoop of mashed potatoes, and a small pile of peas. No utensils, either.
Thomas giggled with glee upon seeing my face.
“You have Mama's permission now to eat like a piggy, now. No hands! Piggies just use their face!” He stood up in his chair and reached out for Mother’s ash tray and flung it out over my meal, peppering my dinner with cigarette ash and butts.
"Oops! Piggies don't mind trash though, do they, Mama?” he giggled and the sound filled me with rage.
"No, they don't,” Mother replied coolly while maneuvering her ashtray back in place and carefully putting out her cigarette before saying prayer.
As angry as I was, I got down on my hands and knees and did my best at eating what I could without using my hands. I knew if I refused, it would be far worse. The whole meal, Thomas made pig noises and would reach down and poke me with his fork, making comments about what a fat piggy I was and how he wished he could roast and eat me. I doubted Mother would even object if he actually did kill me and eat me.
Gagging my way through another bite of ashy pork chop, I felt a warm splat over my head and heard Thomas giggling. I reached up and felt he had dumped mashed potatoes into my hair.
Choking down tears, I asked Mother if I could clean the floor and bathe. She rolled her eyes and excused me to clear the table for them as well while she changed Thomas into his pajamas. Picking him up, she walked out of the room and Thomas stuck his putrid little purple tongue out at me before they made it out the kitchen door.
I silently cried while I cleared the table and washed the dinner dishes. Tears splashed down as I mopped up the mess from my food on the floor. I hated how awful Thomas was. I hated how they treated me. Ever since Daddy died and Thomas showed up, I was their punching bag. I missed Daddy so much.
Mother was kinder then, too. She was still severe, but Dad kept her tempered. After he died, there was a change that came over her. I was only six, so I didn't remember her too much from before, but I did remember her gushing on and on when she was pregnant with Thomas. How the baby was a gift from Our Heavenly Father, that it was going to complete our broken family.
My sixth birthday happened right after Daddy died and I remember sitting on the patio crying while the house was full of people after the funeral, normally he would have gotten me a new doll and a chocolate bar, instead I was forgotten. No doll. No chocolate. Just funeral potatoes and a house full of cigarette smoke from the adults.
Nobody remembered. The closest thing I got was my dad's sister, Aunt Judy, sitting next to me on the patio step for a few minutes of comfortable silence before giving my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. I don't think she knew her brother was memorialized on my birthday. Next year, Thomas was born the day before my birthday, so it was completely eclipsed as Mother had just birthed her new love into the world…
I stopped mid mop as a lightbulb finally went off. I had never put much thought into the dates before.
Thomas was born a full year after Daddy died. He couldn't be his dad. Who was Thomas’ actual father?
Washing mashed potatoes out of my hair that evening, I ran over and over the timeline. No matter how I parsed it out, Thomas was only my half brother. Going to bed that night, I kept myself awake, going over and over again to make sure. I couldn't remember any men being around at that time, but that didn't mean much. Adults can easily hide things from children. Tension began throbbing through my head and I felt queasy. Mother had always known all of my secrets, able to sniff them out like a bloodhound out or using Thomas to spy. Now I had one of Mother's secrets and I didn't know what to do with it.
First I wanted to confirm it, but it would mean snooping, which was difficult in a house that was rarely left empty. I would have to try finding Mother's calendar book or journal to see if she mentioned any dates or men.
But when could I attempt such a daring maneuver? Thomas hardly left the house. As proud as Mother was of him, she was very cognizant and protective of his differences and didn't want to draw attention to herself or Thomas like that. Mother herself had few social engagements throughout the week and mostly stayed home to watch her golden child.
I finally decided I would take the risk and fake sick on Tuesday, grocery day, so I could stay home from school while she went shopping. All Thomas did all day was watch TV downstairs, so that should give me about an hour to look through her room for clues. I decided to tuck my head down, try to behave as best as I could to avoid their wrath, and wait for Tuesday.
That weekend limped along agonizingly slow. Thomas was in a fine mood and was constantly seeking out a reason to poke me, punch me, slap me… he'd laugh while calling me a piggy with his off-putting wide mouth. I tried to mostly stay in my room and it seemed like neither of them cared.
School on Monday was a relief, but my anxiety ramped up. The consequences would be dire if Mother caught on that I was faking sick to stay home. I didn't even want to imagine how off the leash she'd let my half-brother become in his punishment for that level of insubordination.
I stayed up all night, my stomach was in knots, but I was committed to my plan. Throughout the night, I screamed as hard as I could into my pillow. Screamed until my throat was raw and I could barely talk. It felt cathartic in a way. When it was close to school time, I put on my heaviest flannel pajamas and began doing jumping jacks until my face was flushed and my scalp was soaked with sweat.
Looking in the bathroom mirror before heading down to talk to Mother, I thought I looked pretty convincing, my skin was flushed and sweaty, my eyes had circles under them from lack of sleep, and my voice croaked like a frog.
Heading downstairs, Mother was already feeding Thomas breakfast. I hesitantly stepped into the kitchen and stood there awkwardly for a second, pawing with my pajamas to keep my nerves steady until she noticed my presence and looked up.
“Why aren't you dressed, Julianne?"
"I don't feel well. My throat hurts and my tummy hurts.” My voice graveled out more than I was expecting, I really had hurt my throat.
She strode over to me and placed a cool hand on my sweaty brow.
"You do feel warm. Take an aspirin from the medicine cabinet and go lay back down. I'll check on you later," with that she turned back and walked over to Thomas, who was frozen in place, glaring at me over a forkful of scrambled eggs. The sharp glint of malice in his beady eyes made me shiver before I shuffled out of the kitchen.
I laid in bed, trying my best to look miserable until I eventually heard the faint sound of the television playing in the den as Thomas settled in for his normal daytime routine and the garage door opened as Mother headed to the grocery store. I bounded out of bed and watched the car back out of our driveway and head up the street.
My heart began to pound as I tiptoed down the hall to Mother's bedroom, a place I rarely even caught a glimpse of, let alone entered. I very slowly opened the door, taking great care to not make any noise to alert Thomas downstairs that I was out of bed.
Creeping into the butter yellow room, I could feel my heartbeat pounding in my skull, this was the naughtiest thing I had ever done by far. I stepped onto the rug to help disguise my footsteps and slowly made my way past the brass bed and towards her desk. My hands shook as I opened the top drawer, I pawed through rapidly and found nothing. I checked the next drawer down and again found nothing of interest, just stationary and envelopes.
Finally, the bottom drawer was what I was looking for, a stack of journals from the past decade. I flipped through, trying to find entries relevant to when Daddy died and who Mother slept with afterwards.
I've never fully recovered from what I read.
July 6, 1968
Edgar died today. Car accident. I cannot believe this is real. My light, my life, my anchor... Dr. Benson gave me a sedative at the hospital and I feel so tired. So very, very tired. Why has my Lord forsaken me so?
July 9, 1968
I feel like I am in a very bad dream, I feel numb and disconnected. All the consolation and pity from everyone makes me feel sick. After the memorial, it took everything in me to not break dishes and to scream at everyone to get out of my house. Julianne was moping about crying and I wanted to throw her out, too.
If I hadn't seen my dear Edgar's body in the hospital and held his urn in my own hands, I wouldn't believe he was really gone. I still don't entirely believe it.
I have prayed to God every night asking him to show me why he took my husband from me and I have gotten no answer.
I skimmed over the next few months, as it was more or less similar sentiments repeated night after night. I finally got to an entry that caught my eye.
September 17, 1968
My battle with my faith has been fraught the past few months, but Hallelujah! I feel I can see the Lord again in all his glory and might, for he has given me a way to reconnect to my Edgar!
I was thinking about the night Julianne was born, right in this very home, it was a difficult birth and she struggled to breathe at first. Ingrid, my midwife, made a comment to me that if the baby had failed to wake up on her own, that Ingrid had ways to make sure she would have made it.
I remember asking if it was a medical methodology and she made it clear to me that in certain circumstances, it was a mystical property she used to bring the air of life into a struggling baby's lungs. She gently alluded to being a practicing member of the dark arts. At the time, I felt quite scandalized to have someone like that in my God fearing home. Now I see her as the answer to my prayers! My angel!
On a whim, I called her and asked if she still practiced such techniques. She hesitantly confirmed that she did. I asked, if she could turn breath into the lungs of a child without, could she turn breath into a child that did not exist? Could she magick into existence another child of my beloved Edgar? She told me she had to do some research and she'd be back in touch.
Ingrid just called back after a few hours and said there was a spell she found, but it was dangerous and might have unpleasant results. I said, yes, of course! I trust my Lord and I believe he sent this woman of blessed magick to me for this purpose.
She says we will have to do it soon, in a few days during the new moon. She has a potion to brew, but it is happening! Praise God!
September 23, 1968
The ceremony was last night, and Ingrid believes it was a success, but we will have to wait. It did not take long, only an hour or two. Ingrid lit my bedroom with many beeswax candles and she had me drink a thick and bitter tea that caused me to become quite relaxed and foggy.
From my inner thigh, she cut me and collected my blood in a chalice, with which she mixed quite a lot of Edgar's ashes and other ingredients which I could not glean from my supine position and groggy wits. Ingrid began to chant, calling upon a higher power, as I pleaded with my Lord to let this work. To give me any piece of my Edgar back. She came to the bed and worked the paste between my legs into my womanly chamber, which was very uncomfortable, but manageable with the numbing effects of the tea.
She continued to sit with me and chant, her hand placed over my womb, until she decided at which time it was complete. She left and I fell into a deep sleep. When I woke up this morning, I felt quite uncomfortable, my body ached and when I used the restroom, a yellow fluid like pus poured out of me, but no sign of any ashes or blood, which gives me hope it was absorbed into my womb.
November 3, 1968
Praise be to our Lord, Ingrid just confirmed for me that I am with child, I had been hoping so, I had not gotten my cycle in October, but I wasn't sure if that was because of the discharge like pus that was still coming. She told me that was common with this spell and a side effect that would stop after the baby came.
I feel like I am floating on air, for the first time since Edgar left, I feel-
I suddenly became very aware of the feeling of eyes on the back of my head. I had become too engrossed in what was written before me and I had lost track of my surroundings. Very slowly, I turned around and my heart began pounding again as I saw Thomas standing in the doorway holding his wooden spoon in one hand. How had I not heard him?
He pointed at me with his empty hand and screamed, just a pure guttural screech from somewhere deep inside his disgusting little body. He charged at me from across the room, his horrible feet thumping solidly along the rug. He began beating my legs ruthlessly with the spoon, causing my legs to buckle. I crashed down to my knees in front of him, and he began lashing at my face, pulling my hair with one hand while wailing away at my head with the spoon.
I had dropped the journal I was holding and was desperately trying to get a hand on the spoon or push him away. All I could hear was him screaming. My arms flailed and I reached around on Mother's desk and grabbed onto the first thing I found and sank it into Thomas’ neck.
The end of Mother's gold letter opener protruded under his jaw. He went silent and he looked at me with utter shock. He dropped the spoon and collapsed on the ground, clutching at his neck as his thick black blood oozed out from his wound, letting out a stupendous odor of rot that filled the room. He didn't really say anything or make any noise. He just twitched for a moment and I saw his eyes glaze over.
In shock, I stood over his little body for a moment and I watched as he seemed to mummify in just a few minutes, like an ash person from Pompeii dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt. Even his blood that looked like shiny oil a second ago became like potting soil on Mother's rug. Reaching out to touch his hand, it crumbled away like sand.
Panic ran through me like a rabbit caught in a snare. Not knowing what to do, I ran. I ran down the hall, changed my clothes, put an extra change of clothes in my backpack and the last doll Daddy had ever given me and I ran. Mother would absolutely never forgive me and I was genuinely afraid she would kill me in retaliation for taking her beloved Thomas away from her. Her precious gift from God. My feet flew over the pavement and took me away from that house.
I called my Aunt Judy from a payphone outside the five & dime, and told her Mother had kicked me out and asked if I could stay with her. She had always had a strained relationship with my mother and it didn't take much convincing that she had kicked out her “only” child. Only Mother, Ingrid, and I ever knew about Thomas.
She gave me a home and took care of me. She never beat me or humiliated me. Even with her love, I was far from okay. For years I would close my eyes and hear Thomas scream, then the sudden silence. I'd see him fumbling at his neck and turning to ash. But I would also remember all the ways he would hurt me and how bad he was becoming. I could never talk to anyone about it, especially not the silent relief I felt I refused to admit to myself. Over time, however, Thomas' screams became a whisper and his silence faded into dust in my mind.
I moved on with my life. I went to college and became a photojournalist, getting to travel the world and watch history unfold. By choice, I never married, but was quite blessed with many beautiful friendships for companionship over the decades. I found balance in my life and a sense of happiness, if not peace. I never could quite stomach mashed potatoes again, though, they always taste ashy to me.
Mother never made any attempts to reach out to me or find me, at least that I'm aware of. Ten years ago, I was contacted by a hospital and they said my mother had been admitted earlier after falling and was about to pass, so she must have kept some tabs on me to know my phone number for her emergency contacts. Apparently she had collapsed in the driveway and a neighbor called an ambulance. I got there and her only words to me were, “take care of him," as she placed a locket in my hand. I opened the locket, Jesus was on one side, Thomas on the other. I didn't say anything to her, just held her frail old hand with nicotine stained nails until she passed in the night. My mother was gone and I felt nothing except a vague sense of relief.
When I got to her house, it was like a time capsule. Other than a newer television, it was just like it was when I'd fled so many years ago. The smell of tobacco smoke hung like incense in the air. It felt oppressive, like a tomb.
I wandered the house in a bit of a daze. The one place I didn't want to go was upstairs. I didn't want to see my old room, or Thomas' room, or Mother's. Putting it off, I went to fix myself some supper, realizing I hadn't eaten in almost a day. I took a pause when I opened the fridge and saw a baby bottle on a shelf. Silently praying she had been babysitting for a neighbor, I fixed myself some toast with sardines and sat eating in the den watching TV. It had been almost forty years and it still felt rebellious not eating at the table and watching TV without permission.
My eyes grew heavy and I finally mustered up the gumption to head upstairs to go to bed. The stairs creaked in a familiar way under my feet and I was taken back to the feeling of dread hearing either Mother or Thomas climbing up. My old room was at the top of the stairs, I saw the door was nailed shut and had rambling quotes about Judas copied from the Bible in my mother's handwriting taped to the door. I sighed gently and turned from the door to head down the hallway, deciding Mother's room was probably the best place to sleep.
I passed by Thomas’ toy room and I heard a murmur from the room. I stopped, curiosity got the best of me and I entered. In Thomas' old toy room was a crib with joyful clown sheets. Dread swelled up inside me as I heard more murmurs and saw the sheets move. Approaching slowly, I peaked under the sheet and gasped.
Tucked inside was what looked like a baby gargoyle, gray and papery looking. Pus leaked out of its milky, bulbous eyes. I pulled back the blanket and saw it had no legs and its arms bent back, like wings on a bird. It was wearing just a cloth diaper, overflowing with tarry looking stool that took my breath away with its pungency, it smelled like Thomas’ blood, but somehow worse. My heart broke for this poor creature, Lord only knows how many years it has been in this crib suffering from its unholy existence.
So this is who Mother had wanted me to take care of…
Not knowing what else to do, I gently scooped him up. Like Thomas, he was shockingly heavy for how small his body was. Placing him on the changing table, I cleaned him and rewrapped his bottom in a clean diaper cloth. It was difficult, he fussed tremendously, crying and flopping around as much as his flipper-like arms would allow. I tried wiping off his oozing eyes and he snapped his mouth, which I saw was full of disturbingly square yellow teeth, trying to bite me. I carried him to the kitchen and rocked him while I heated up his bottle and he became furious with me, almost barking like a dog when my hand would get near his face.
He settled a bit as he fed, but he would still sometimes suddenly spit out the bottle and attempt to bite me. I laid him back in his crib, this abomination in a clown sheet, and I walked down the hall to Mother's room letting out a long sigh.
Combing through my mother's journals in the early hours of the morning, it looked like she tried the ceremony again shortly after Thomas died, but she either lacked Ingrid’s help or didn't have enough of my father's ashes left. Something went terribly wrong. She was vaguer than she had been about Thomas’ conception, but I suspect she had used some of Thomas' remains. The resulting birth she named Isaac.
Mother's journals told a sad tale of her and Isaac's suffering. She never mentioned me, but lamented the loss of Thomas and Dad relentlessly. She was hyper protective of Isaac, as that was all she had left. If her world had been small before, it became microscopic after he entered her life, requiring nearly constant care. According to Mother, he was blind and colicky, sometimes going years at a time without sleeping through the night. She had breast fed him for years, but she had to stop after he grew teeth and began biting her intentionally and feeding on her blood.
I spent a lot of time over the next few days pondering what to do. I had to get her estate in order, she had left me the house, in an obvious attempt to get me to continue caretaking for Isaac, but I didn't want it. I had my own cozy home an hour away from here, filled with happy memories and my possessions acquired traveling the world. Mother's home had a heavy energy I couldn't shake. Her and Thomas were both gone, but the memories of the scoldings and beatings hung in every corner, like cobwebs that would never sweep away.
So, I fed Isaac and kept him clean and tried to keep him company, although he seemed to hate me passionately. I took care of him, all the while thinking about what I was going to do. After a week, I felt resolute in what had to be done.
Gathering up all of Mother's journals in a tote, I made my way to Isaac and picked him up and carried everything to the living room.
The ancient logs in the fireplace meant for display ignited instantly. One by one, I fed the journals into the fire, burning away years of my mother's consuming sorrow. Isaac fussed and moaned next to me the entire time. When the last pages shimmered away into lacy ash, I took a throw pillow off the couch and gently cradled Isaac in my other arm. It didn't take long before he stopped struggling and I felt his little body relax after decades of suffering.
I gently wrapped up a bundle in a clown sheet and placed it in the fire. It burned furiously, like the paper in my mother's journals, and was soon gone. Nothing but ashes and embers.
“Don't worry, Mother,” I said purely for my own sake, "I took care of Isaac for you."
And finally, I felt at peace.

There is a beautful scene in Caliban's War, when Avasarala is reading a message from Arjun:

She touched the screen, her fingertips tracing the line of his shoulder. “So I understand from your message that you may not come home,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she said to the screen. “As you imagine, I find the thought … distressing,” he said, and then a smile split his face, dancing in eyes she now saw were red with tears. “But what can I do about it? I teach poetry to graduate students. I have no power in this world. That has always been you. And so I want to offer you this. Don’t think about me. Don’t take your mind from what you’re doing on my account. And if you don’t …” Arjun took a deep breath.

 
He ends with a poem:

“If life transcends death, then I will seek for you there. If not, then there too.” He looked down and then up again. “I love you, Kiki. And I will always love you, from whatever distance.”

 
Later on in the book:

... and then something else, something small, fell into place in the back of her mind and she started laughing and cursing at the same time.
[Bobbie]: "What? what is it?"
"'If life transcends death, then I will seek for you there. If not, then there too'." she said. "It's a fucking haiku. That man has a one-track mind and one train on it. Poetry. Save me from poetry."

 
The poem resonated with me in a big way. I can't say why, but when I read it I teared up a bit, and cracked up at Avasarala's "It's a fucking haiku"
Anyway, I've been playing around with AI since Chat GPT came out, and one test I like to give is to see if they can translate the English haiku into a Japanese haiku while retaining its meaning (at least, how I interpreted it).
No AI has been able to do it (not even close). That is until GPT-4o, which was announced today. It took a bit of prompting and testing (by feeding it back in to a new conversation). But this is what I came up with so far:

死後あるか (shigo aru ka) Is there an afterlife 無にても君を (mu nitemo kimi o) Even if there's nothingness 探し求む (sagashi motomu) I will search for you 

While I don't understand Japanese in the slightest, this attempt was much better than my previous ones. It captures the meaning (in my opinion), but I'm not sure of the aesthetics in Japanese. The English version "hit" in way the AI still doesn't seem to get. I'm curious if there's any humans out there who can come up w/ something better!

I’ve been with my boyfriend for two years now. We met online and we’re in a long-distance relationship. I’ve had such wonderful times with him and I love him. But lately, as we’re becoming more serious, I’ve been noticing things about him that bother me. I feel like I don’t really have a normal boyfriend and I feel like I deserve better. I suddenly catch myself wondering if this is really going to work out and if I won’t be happier with someone else. I’ve really loved him so much, he was everything to me. I was always bursting with love for him. I feel quite numb lately, because there are so many things about him that I’m starting to notice now, and they’re starting to bother me. I feel resentment towards him.
First of all, he is a bit overweight and I’ve been waiting two years for him to lose weight. It stayed the same in the first year even though he promised me he would lose the weight for me. We dated for nine months online before meeting and he only told me he was overweight two months before we were going to meet up. I didn’t know, because the only pictures of him online were of when he was slim. He is starting to lose weight now, but it’s going quite slowly and I feel like I need to push him and help him all the time.
Second of all, he’s not financially stable. He’s a freelance writer but he doesn’t earn any money. He lives with his parents which is not ideal but wouldn’t bother me so much if he was actually employed and earning money. When we ‘works’ it’s just him writing stories and poems for himself. He does receive £500 a month because he once tried to commit suicide when he was 17, but that will end soon and still, it’s not enough. He also dropped out of college because of that so he doesn’t have a degree either. I told him that I would like him to get a job because we want to get married early and it’s important that he has a steady income before we do. He asked me if I could look for jobs for him, which was fine by me, I don’t mind helping. He looked a little aswell and asked around in some libraries but he’s not really doing anything about it now. He’s not actively searching. It really comes from me. He’s setting up his writing website now but even that takes so long. I don’t feel much motivation or ambition from him.
Third, he doesn’t have his driver’s licence and he doesn’t have a car. I was the one who really spurred him on to get lessons. He’s had two lessons from his dad in two months. He’s not really doing much for it. If he really cared he would make sure to get at least one lesson a week.
I feel like there are so many things that lack in him. I really love him, but I feel like I constantly have to see things through my fingers. I’m constantly waiting for him to do and achieve the things that I want him to do. I feel anxious and stressed. I’m starting to feel like I don’t have a future with him. I can’t see us living together in a nice house with children. I can’t see him being a father. It’s all just a dream. It’s not normal that I should make my boyfriend get a job and work and get his licence. He’s turning 25 this year, these are things he should already have and that he should be doing on his own, I shouldn’t have to tell him. I stayed because I really thought it would get better and maybe it is getting a little better, but it’s not enough. I don’t feel safe, I feel unstable. I feel like it’s just a game. I’m doing my part, I’m in college and saving as much money as I can. I feel like he’s not doing his part. And now I actually feel like I love and like him less because of all these things, because it makes me feel resentful and unnattracted to him. I keep imagining myself and a man who has a job and a house and is independent and even the thought of that makes me feel so relieved. I’m thinking of being with other people and it makes me feel guilty. I really don’t need much, I’m not asking for a huge income and a big house. And I’m also willing to work hard myself, but I can’t do it alone. Even if we just live in an apartment and don’t go on holidays that much, I don’t mind if I’m with the man I love. But this is not even at the minimum.
I’m all alone in bed now, he walked away angrily to sleep downstairs because I called him a manchild because he said he doesn’t want to come to my house during the six weeks we won’t see each other. It made me feel annoyed because even if he doesn’t like my house or my parents and is afraid of flying, would it really be worth not seeing me for so long? I feel so sad and hopeless. I just want a man. I’m done with this. I’m going home tommorow and maybe I should just break it off now, although his parents booked a holiday for us all in Cornwall in June. Please help me. I’ve always been willing to fight for him and wait for him and make sacrifices for him. I’ve been cutting down my own needs for him, but my patience and hope is running out now.

Poem: what color am I By: Rashek Chandler
They told me who I am Made me feel less than a man Took control of my thoughts They stoled the identity of who I am Blind to my own image I only can see who they are If being another color was so honorable Why are we so torn a part Why are we divided by the heart Maybe I'm not getting the picture Maybe someone should do the art What color am I supposed to be When they taught us never to read When they showed us never to think And killed us when we begin to speak
What color am I Why do they hate my life What can I do to survive
What color am I Am I going blind Can the same suit co-exist Some one open my eyes My sister and brother hate me Yet they look like I do Their hatred turns against me My shame for them tears me apart That they would love someone else other than me Did I cause this to happen Did I do this to my self Did we put this pressure on ourselves
What color am I What shade of black am I
My screams are confusing My future is beyond evolution My pain is the deepest black ever seen No clouds No sun No trees No ocean No wind to feel the breeze Just the same people who look like me Unable to be free

I realized that all my life I’ve loved to write way more than a normal person would. I would sit on the computer for hours writing stories as a kid. Throughout my life I’ve written short film scripts, fiction novels, so many lists of other things I liked, analyzed characters, make songs. I write poems like every second of the day. In middle school i was inspired by “The Raven” wanted to be a writer and would write stories to read to the class and scary poems. My favorite class was ELA because sometimes we’d get to write creative writing or argumentative essays. I don’t do hours of research about writing because honestly learning grammar and structures just makes it not as fun for me and I don’t read much real books but I read an extreme amount of fanfiction and lately comic books too. I consume a lot of tv and animated media which when you think about it is all about storytelling. I like to listen to people talk like audiobooks when it’s a real book. These are some of the reasons I didn’t think writing could be considered a special interest because most my special interests I know so much about that I infodump facts about it a lot but i realized that most people don’t write as excessively as I do and I didn’t even realize but I was infodumping to a friend about some stories I’ve written and realized that it’s really been my life long interest.

So me and my ex recently broke up, again and we were together nearly one year(longest relationship thus far)…. The relationship was somewhat toxic, but i was enduring relationship as it was, with physical and mental abuse towards me, i can proudly say i have never risen my hand against a female, and i was angry barely at few times, but never have i screamed, or anything, cuz i dont see the point, like, im relaxed, i try to communicate even tho i get denied 9/10, i dont drink, i dont do drugs, i do house work, ok yes financial state is going pretty rocky at the moment, but me pulling everything together also is a bit of a challange, but i tried and did everything for her, and by everything, i mean everything, run to the store at middle of the night, go for night drives, i tried taking her to places but she declined every offer, so i just gave up on offering, i tried every possible way to be different, to show that im loyal to one e.c her parent loved me, her brothers and sisters too, but me telling my close friends after the breakup, the situations i went thro, when she cheated on me, all the manipulation, all the lying, all the disrespect i got, ungreatfulness, and the way she pushed me away like im just another guy, barely any love, barely even communication, barely any attention (even tho i wrote her poems of why i love her, complimented her, cleaned the house nesrly all the time(clothes, floors, dishes e.c)tried to communicate but all she did mostly was scroll tiktok, or get angry n hysteric or made me the bad person) lovebombed e.c e.c essentialy making it abit toxic… Im not saying im perfect, but for relationship ill try my best to be there for her, supported respected and love, humble and protect her, and again, did everything to make her comfortable and loved and relaxed, but all i got back was mostly just something…. She did return the first time, but then i was desperste for her, now im lowkey over it… will she come back again?

I (f, 22) just wanted to vent somewhere people will actually understand. I’ve been dealing with GP for about 4 years now and finally got diagnosed last year, i had the botox injection in september and was in hospital for around a month, didn’t have to go back to a&e at all until the end of march where it all started happening again. for the first time in years i actually felt free and i was able to live as close to a normal life as i could, obviously being careful in what i ate and portion size but pretty much had freedom to eat what i wanted when i wanted and it just made me feel somewhat like a normal person.
since the end of march i’ve been in and out of hospital, i had another round of botox early april but that didn’t seem to help and the doctors couldn’t explain why, they said maybe it wasn’t injected in the right place or they didn’t use enough, they honestly were nearly as clueless as i was. in the end they decided to repeat the botox, that was just over a week ago. i was sent home the same day, had to go back to a&e later that evening, was sent home 2 days later and again was back in a&e that same evening. i’ve now been kept as an inpatient for a week and i’m still finding it hard to eat/drink without being sick and feeling really intense stomach pain, it gets to the point where i’m rolling around, crying and screaming in pain. doctors don’t seem to do much at all other than keep me on regular IV cyclizine and metoclopramide for sickness, subcutaneous morphine injections for the pain and a sliding scale to manage my T1DM.
when i was healthy for that october-march period i’d managed to gain some weight and was around 50kg, a week ago i was back to the godforsaken 46kg i seemed to always be stuck at before, and now i’ve gone down to 43kg which has been really disheartening and has taken a toll on my mental health. i felt i was doing so well, not only had i gained weight but also muscle, i was exercising more than i ever could have before and even walking 10-12km a day, now i can barely walk down the hall without feeling drained. i managed to get a job which i was doing quite well at and it was my first job, at 22, because i could never get hired before due to being so unreliable with my condition, luckily they understand what i have to deal with as it is my boyfriend’s family business.
i don’t know, everything is just making me feel really down and depressed and all i want is to be able to go home and go back to my life. staff at hospital also don’t help, the majority are nice but i still get comments from certain nurses who accuse me of faking to get medication or who complain when i’m crying as i’m “disturbing others” when there’s nothing i can do. i hate the way my body looks again, i hate the gap between my thighs and how i can see my ribs and bony shoulders. i hate my arms even more, all the bruises and needle marks from blood tests and IV drips, it makes me look like a junkie and i find myself crying because of it a lot.
i’ve been referred to another hospital for a consultation regarding a G-POEM but still haven’t heard from them yet. it’s just getting to the point where i’m feeling so hopeless and helpless. i’ve also been put back on anti depressants and taking diazepam regularly to help with the anxiety and distress it all causes.
at home i smoke weed, a decent amount, which helps with my appetite and also helps with my mental health struggles but obviously being in hospital i haven’t been able to smoke which makes everything so much worse as i don’t have anything to distract myself from what’s happening. some days smoking is the only thing that will get me to eat and keep me from having anxiety toward food.
my boyfriend (m, 29) and his family have been really supportive and they’re pretty much the only reason i haven’t spiraled into a full on mental health crisis, he visits nearly everyday and so does his mother who has been such a huge support for me as my own family aren’t there for me. i actually asked my mother if she would come visit me, i knew she wouldn’t, but i did it anyway, she came up with a bullshit excuse as to why she couldn’t and that nearly broke me because i was already feeling so low and on top of that i then felt rejected by my own mother, i should’ve known better but at that moment i just needed my mom. the one who came through for me that day was my boyfriend’s mom who came to see me as soon as she found out how upset i was, she held me, she let me cry and hugged me so tightly and reassured me i was loved and cared for. she’s truly been the mother i needed through this.
i know that i can be somewhat healthy and live almost normally, but right now things are just so bleak and i’m struggling to see a way out, all i want is to just be normal, it’s all i’ve wanted my entire life and it’s like no matter what i will never get that. i’ve had T1DM since i was 9 with 2 diabetes related comas under my belt by age 10, PTSD, depression, and anxiety since 12, and the GP since i was 18, it’s like i can’t catch a break. no one understands what it’s like but i keep getting told “i get it” or “i relate to that” and i know people are trying to make me feel better but to me it just comes across as diminishing what i’m going through and have been going through for so long. I was also recently told just how bad my GP is and i just couldn’t stop crying for hours, i was always told it was ‘severe’ but now i know that i have 96% retention after 4 hours and all it did was make me feel even more hopeless.
sorry for the long post, i just really don’t know where else to go where people might ACTUALLY understand what i’m going through

Hi guys, I’m a hobby poet and I really enjoy using my creative outlets to give some dignity to my insane Limerent thoughts. Lol. Now I’ve got quite the collection built up and just for fun I thought I’d draw a few illustrations and self publish it on amazon (for free of course). Was wondering, as I cleaned it up a bit, if anyone had any suggestions or prompts to use to write a few more poems or perhaps add some elements to already created ones. Obviously stuff you yourself wouldn’t use. If you are interested in my style here is some of my work (not related to limerence):
“Heavy May:
Leave to others mild browns, let them twist their daisy crowns into emblems of their life; free of blizzards, free of strife Hand me winter's tortured twigs stain my lips with august figs. Suicide's breath is springs's warm air, how I wish I loved the fair! I have switched my white with yellow, only sought the sweet and mellow, Yet I ache for freezing lungs miss the wildfires on my tongue. My hearts needs its howling nights Bethlehem's raging candlelight. Hear, I have observed one thing, who rests in winter, dies in spring.”
“Electric Shocks:
My rainbow boy, disturbed by none is lying on the bed,
his mother is the august sun, the lightness in your head.
His father is the steady rain that lulls you back to sleep, she spread her warmth in every vein he gave him strength to keep.
But I am not admired by crowds, the envy makes me shudder the product of two thunderclouds will always be an other.
They have made something frightening in their violent clash.
My fingers burn with lightning beware my wild flash.”

OKAY OKAY new day new story also atp I'd like to call this the not so lucky chronicles of nvm too big of an intro already soo here goes the story ehm ehm
12th was over and I was doing neet entrance preps (repeat) so basically wasting an year jus cause I couldn't face my ex [whole another story]
Apo angne irunn kure avumbo I meet this girl from kasargod and start talking away and she was like proper "bro" material like angottum ingottum ookal and it went ahead very smoothly.
Until AADUJEEVITHAM happened like I was watching the movie and was bored to death so I started texting her and somewhere around the interval she said "ente ponn vazhee...." istg my brain stopped braining for a second like maybe it's the way she said it or maybe it was me having hallucinations like najeeb did but everything changed after that
We started flirting and suddenly the cringe and corny lines felt like poems....angne kure naaal poi until one day I was like "she is too adipoli like what If some other idiot figures that out" and I asked her if I could ask her out....Apo she said "ask me neritt"
That wouldn't have been a problem if she was actually near but apolekum classes were over and she was back home and since her favourite movie was thattathin marayathu I collected all the vinod-ism in me and booked a train ticket to kasargod
And when I reached there I called her to let her know I'm there but she said she was out with her fam so I'd have to wait like 3 hrs before I go to her place soo I watched VARSHANGALKU SHESHAM and ohhh did I fall for "Madhoo pakaroo" and the line struck a string in my heart ayoooo😭
Angne full romance pidich I went to her place at like 10 pm (after the movie was over) and otw I had the dumb idea to ask a random naatukaran [evdeya etta ee ______ sthalam] and he was like "Nee eth naatina entha ivde" me being the idiot I was said "njn thrissurna friendine kaanan vanatha" [when she asked me not to talk to the people there]
Pinne onum parayanda njn avde RSS ayi when infact i didn't even know what it meant 😭
Random naatukaran : nee RSS aleda Me : ala etta njn CBSE ayrnu🥹 (In full confidence) [my name being of a Hindu deity and the place I was from in thrissur didn't help support my case]
Angne I was taken to the police station out of suspicion enitu since they didn't have proof and my only known associate was her...avlde uppa had to come to get me out and the problem was he was proper orthodox conservative dad and he didn't even know I existed....soo that didn't go well at all and my parents were called to take me back home.
Out of all the people that heard my story only one policeman was kind enough to understand the kind of idiot I was for coming all this way just to ask her to be my gf but he said "ninak vidichadh anel ninak kitum"
Long story short her dad shipped her to thodupuzha and since then no contact. Last I heard they were planning to get her married off soon after a year
And the way back home I was legit crying to this song not cause I put myself or my parents through this but cause "I COULDNT SEE HER" like she was my iravinte thozhi
And like I never got into a train or ever went to kasargod kannur or kozhikode after that thanks to the police also telling me "jeevanode kitiyath bagyam"
And then till now vere onilekum poi chaadila Like I keep waiting for call ipo varum naale varum kinda thing
Angne my friends seeing me be like this took me to idukki with em we had a blast and while coming back home we had board a train from aluva to thrissur (relatively short ride)
And since we were late we had to get into a sleeper and then walk our way to general but the doors to the general were closed (the ones connecting sleeper and general) so we had to stay back with some passengers
And this lady with a kid starts talking to me and she introduces me to her daughter who was also doing neet and they were going to kozhikode and this girl jus keeps talking to me like she knew me for decades and when we finally stopped (we ran out of casual questions to ask) I put on my headphones and madhoo pakaroo starts playing
She hears it and says it her favourite song (ik ik ithu matte padam ale moment njnum atha vijariche) so I give her a piece and we listen to it apolekum my stop arrives and she gets off too get to the general compartment with her fam and before going I look at her thinking [instagram ID choikano?] And for a moment it felt like she was waiting for me too pakshe I jus turned over and walked away
With a lot of sadness but while wearing a smile and I get out to the bus stand and start crying like without even thinking where I am and my friends come and hug me and I tell em "ipo njn okay ayada" [like they were convincing me to move on from the issue and her after the kasargod incident and be like "nee okay avada ithu vidd"]
Whoever she was acted as this closure I never got from the KSG girl and also ended my ptsd with the song the place and the train
I wouldn't ever understand why I never took a chance to ask her name but ig that's how things are sometimes...I was at the right place at the right time
I guess maybe I was destined to forever fall in love with people I couldn't have maybe there's a whole assortment of impossible people waiting for me to find them. Waiting to make me feel the same impossibility over and over again - [I read this somewhere]
And maybe I'll grow to regret not asking her all this but for a moment she said everything she had to say with her eyes and like someone said "the eyes chico they never lie" and if she didn't mean anything by that look
Maybe the way my eyes interpreted it was the point of difference hence my eyes were the one speaking the truth of my heart
Lesham cringe anenu ariyam pakshe angerr paranjapole premam enum painkilli aan 😌🥹
[Shubam]

I don't trust this.
Maybe that's because since February of 2021 I've seen every fucking PsyOp trick in the book on the stock I like! All aided by heaping mounds of white collar crime, including the regular fraud, counterfeiting of securities, abusing market maker positions, plus the whole gamut from DTCC's blatant international stock fraud to market manipulation by CNBC a la the Citadel logos plastered across monitors and the set. All sanctioned by the US Government, as inaction from SEC, DOJ, FBI, and other various US government agencies makes them all complicit in all the crime of course, as I KNOW they can't play ignorant about the hundreds of tips and comments individual retail investors have submitted!
Part of me wants to assume this is yet another fake run to shake out paper hands. DFV be damned! I respect the guy, but I've been watching for years from the catwalk, and you regular investors made all this happen, not him!
But.
This saga has helped me with some of my monk shit. Discipline. Fortitude. Logic! I''m pretty Zen, in that I largely won't consider selling until we hit the floor website ticker number. Some of the No Cell No Sell people can flay me for that, but I have Supervillain Plans to get rolling to save the species. You know?
It's been a lovely little foil for my own personal goals, and everyone from Jarumba (sp?) relentlessly asking the DTCC questions to Marijuana Mills for running years, they've all inspired me!
So perhaps I can make a bet to fuel the hype even more somehow?
I won't stick a banana in my ass or eat a whole jar of Mayo, but I'm soon enough gonna beat Shakespeare and become The Second Most Prolific Poet of Human History. (Nobody gives a fuck about a Dead Art Form! Hah!) So if I can beat Shakespeare before we hit the floor website number, or if I can't... What should I bet to help build hype towards a real MOASS rather than what I see as another fake paper hand shake run?
Just thinking out loud here, after chilling in the shadows for a while. Any fun bet suggestions?
(Yes I have written poems about MOASS and GME. No I won't link them because I don't wanna get banned for fucking shilling myself!)
Hope everybody is smiling out there today!

Unveiling the Allure of the Ghazal Form**
Summary:
A ghazal is a poetic form with Middle Eastern origins, typically composed of rhyming couplets and a repeating refrain. Each line of the poem shares a common meter, and the last word of the second line in each couplet rhymes throughout the poem.
Examples:

1. "The Beloved" by Rumi.
   
2. "Ghazal" by Agha Shahid Ali.
   
3. "The Ghazal of What Hurt" by Peter Cole.
   

Tips for Creative Writing:

• Embrace Repetition: The consistent refrain creates a melodic quality.
  
• Convey Emotional Intensity: Ghazals often explore themes of love, loss, and longing.
  
• Play with Imagery: Use vivid imagery and metaphor to enhance the emotional impact.
  

Questions for Exploration:

1. How does the repetition of the refrain contribute to the overall tone of the ghazal?
   
2. Can you think of other cultural traditions that incorporate similar poetic forms?
   

Additional Resources:

• Read the works of contemporary poets like Fatimah Asghar and Safia Elhillo for modern ghazals.
  
• Explore classical ghazals by Mirza Ghalib for insights into the traditional form.
  

Creative Writing Prompt:
Step 1: Choose a theme or emotion to explore in your ghazal.
Step 2: Craft the first rhyming couplet with a meaningful refrain.
Step 3: Continue developing the theme in subsequent couplets, maintaining the rhyme scheme.
Example:
In the night's embrace, a silent moonlight gleams (A) Lost in the echoes, the heart silently dreams (A) Whispers of love in the gentle night's streams (A) A ghazal's refrain, where longing redeems (A)

KEEP GOING

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWXgojWut_o
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9 hours away from now

Good morning everyone, happy Monday, and welcome to another selection for our sub's weekly listening club. Each week, we'll listen to a piece recommended by the community, discuss it, learn about it, and hopefully introduce us to music we wouldn't hear otherwise :)
Last time, we listened to Howells’ Elegy for viola, string quartet, and string orchestra. You can go back to listen, read up, and discuss the work if you want to.
Our next Piece of the Week is Richard Strauss’ Death and Transfiguration (1890)
…
Score from IMSLP
https://s9.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/e/e8/IMSLP18779-PMLP12213-Strauss_-_Tod_und_Verkl%C3%A4rung,_Op._24_(orch._score).pdf
…
some listening notes from Calvin Dotsey

Over the course of the 19th-century, music gained in prestige until many began to consider it the most significant of all the arts. In an age of rapid social change and scientific progress, many questioned established traditions, and art—especially music—seemed to provide spiritual sustenance in an age of doubt. It is against this cultural background that Richard Strauss (aged just 25 in 1889) completed his most ambitious tone poem yet: Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration), a work that explores the mystery of death and what might lie beyond. Though Strauss himself had adopted a decidedly secular worldview as a teenager, he brilliantly depicted the physiological and psychological states of a dying man with almost scientific precision, using the most advanced orchestrations and harmonies of his time. The piece was not based on any personal experience, but intriguingly, on his deathbed Strauss remarked that “dying is exactly as I composed it sixty years ago in Tod und Verklärung.”
Strauss provided his own summary: “[…] it occurred to me to present in the form of a tone poem the dying hours of a man who had striven towards the highest idealistic aims, maybe indeed those of an artist.”
In the slow introduction, “The sick man lies in bed, asleep, with heavy irregular breathing; friendly dreams [in the form of woodwind and violin solos] conjure a smile on the features of the deeply suffering man.” When the tempo quickens, “he wakes up; he is once more racked with horrible agonies; his limbs shake with fever” amidst an orchestral maelstrom. Suddenly, the storm breaks as a new theme resounds in the trumpet, trombones, and tuba: the first glimpse of transfiguration.
The music fades “as the attack passes and the pains leave off,” and a gentle theme from the introduction returns as he falls asleep again: “his thoughts wander through his past life; his childhood passes before him […]” A momentary attack of pain cinematically cuts to “the time of his youth with its strivings and passions”: the protagonist appears as a strapping young man with a faster, fanfare-like theme for horns and winds. Another cinematic cut from the violins leads to an unmistakable Straussian love scene, but during this passionate love-dream “the pains already begin to return,” and the music of love and suffering combine in a searing, intense passage of virtuoso complexity.
All at once, the pain falls away, and the transfiguration theme now appears in a more complete guise: “there appears to him the fruit of his life’s path, the conception, the ideal which he has sought to realize, to present artistically, but which he has not been able to complete, since it is not for man to be able to accomplish such things.” But, in order to be transfigured, he must leave this world. The pained music of the slow introduction returns as “The hour of death approaches […]” The intense music of suffering returns once more, vanishing with the stroke of a gong as “the soul leaves the body in order to find gloriously achieved in everlasting space those things which could not be fulfilled here below.”

Ways to Listen

• David Zinman and the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich: YouTube Score Video, Spotify
  
• Andrés Orozco-Estrada and the hr-Sinfonieorchester: YouTube
  
• Mikko Franck and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France: YouTube
  
• Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic: Spotify
  
• Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra: Spotify
  
• Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra: Spotify
  

Discussion Prompts

• What are your favorite parts or moments in this work? What do you like about it, or what stood out to you?
  
• Do you have a favorite recording you would recommend for us? Please share a link in the comments!
  
• Have you ever performed this before? If so, when and where? What instrument do you play? And what insights do you have from learning it?
  

...
What should our club listen to next? Use the link below to find the submission form and let us know what piece of music we should feature in an upcoming week. Note: for variety's sake, please avoid choosing music by a composer who has already been featured, otherwise your choice will be given the lowest priority in the schedule
PotW Archive & Submission Link

Jana did not mention the Taylor & Travis drama ONCE. HOWEVER, since everything went down she has been posting the kids like a madwoman. She cried on the podcast as well. No doubt she wants those who attacked her to feel bad for her. Like “look I am a mom, I am so relatable, follow me, stream my horrible podcast

• Jana was crying w/in a minute of intro!!! She had a mom fail moment. “I feel I disappointed her (Jolie)”. Jana forgot to order the field day t-shirt. Jana tried to down play it like other kids may not have it. When bus pulled up Jolie saw all the kids had a t-shirt and started bawling. Jana called over Pam’s daughter to console and salvage how Jolie feels Jana should not be having another child console Jolie, as a mother that is her responsibility. Jana is going to make Jolie emotionally dependent on her friends the same way Jana is emotionally dependent on the queendumb Jana crying “she is going to remember the one day i forgot”. “I am moving a lot with the three.” Jana is literally home 24/7, has a sitter, constantly dumps J/J on Mike, and Allan is home all the time. Maybe stay off the phone and be an adult
  
• Mother’s Day “with my ex i would want him to do something really special it always fell flat because it wasn’t good enough” mike could have plucked a star out of the sky and it would not have been good enough for Jana “I had expectations because i thought I should be celebrated” “now no expectations” If I hadn’t been with a narcissist like Allan I would not have found Jana’s comment odd. Jana has no expectations and wanted an hour of peace while Roman was napping because she knows Allan doesn’t give a crap about mother’s day. I wouldn’t be surprised if he used the excuse “you’re not my mum”. As time goes by Allan will celebrate Jana less and less claiming it isn’t necessary
  
• Jana “i will always have love for my high school sweetheart. My mom still loves her first love” mental instability runs deep in that family
  
• Jana asks the guest “how do you handle negative comments?” Stop being a judgmental bitch and get off your phone 🤣 Jana “that’s why i could never do a real housewives show” girl, you tried out, they don’t want you
  
• Guest brought up now her oldest daughter googles her. Jana did a cringe embarrassed laugh. Yeah you should be embarrassed by what you put out in the tabloids.