# 31

#203

It just kept haunting.

Vying for a steely, totalitarian grasp on my thoughts,

Snatching with it’s thick greedy fingers at fragments of tranquility,

Lurking in every shadowed alleyway of my subconscious.

I eventually concluded that I needed to settle this with a confrontation.

The next time it tried to influence my thinking, I asked,

“Why are you here? What do you want?”

It rung it's hands for a moment, silent.

The first time, it replied “To change you.”

I tried to talk into it every attack.

It grew more anxious every time I asked, as if no one took the time to confer with it.

Its answers became more telling

“So you will suffer for what you've done.”

“You need to remember what a miserable creature you are.”

“I will not leave your side. I am what you deserve.”

It is extremely insistent.

But I know it will not retain this power forever.

I will continue to note its arrival.

Someday, I hope that it will be a fleeting, inconsequential specter.

But today isn’t someday I suppose.

We all live with demons.

Sadly, this isn’t the first or last.

A four page comic about drawing, drawn for the Portland Public Library's newest exhibit, "Why We Make Comics: Reflections on Storytelling".

If you live in Portland ME, you can see this comic, as well as three others drawn by Isabella Rotman, Caroline Hu, and Liz Prince, on display from October 6th to December 31 at the library!

I think I was just born with something dark and ugly inside of me. Always waiting to be found out.

planetarium - adrienne rich/@twoheadedfawnn/ugly, bitter, and true - suzanne rivecca/a burning hill - mitski/a hora da estrela- clarice lispector/ @100493503004422/sharp objects - gillian flynn

*in the 2020s* he would do numbers on twitter *in the 2010s* he would get shares on his blog *in the 1990s* he would be a wiz on the multi-user dungeon *in the 1950s* he would get ratings on the television *in the 1930s* he would command the masses on the radio *in the 1880s* he would do dots and dashes on the telegram *in the 1790s* he would do arm signals on the semaphore *in the 1600s* his prints would be distributed widely *in the 1400s* he would sound the trumpet in battle *in the 700s* his words would be passed down by oral tradition *in the 300s* he would do smoke signals in the sky *in the neolithic* his artifacts would enter the archeological record *in the pliocene* his bones would be preserved in the sediment *in the mezozoic* he would do permineralization in mineral rich groundwater *in the paleoarchean* he would facilitate recombination of his genome *in the hadean* his molecules would self replicate in the early ocean *in the matter dominated era* his stellar nursery would collapse into a star and an orbiting cloud of dust *in the cosmological dark ages* quantum fluctuations in his density would form the first cosmological structures *10^-32 seconds after the big bang* his elementary particles would dominate in baryogenesis *in the plank epoch* he would do cosmic inflation in the energy dense early universe *10^-43 seconds after the big bang* he would be

rereading @icaruspendragon ‘s poetry book and my whole camera roll is full of passages to think about and how my therapist, since her words are helping me with my words

You ever hear that old chestnut about how most people neglect the part of the story of Icarus where he also had to avoid flying too low, lest the spray of the sea soak his feathers and cause him to fall and drown? You ever think about how different the world would be if Icarus died that way instead? If the idiom was to Fly To Close To The Sea? A warning against playing it far too safe, about not stretching your wings and soaring properly? You ever think about how Icarus died because he was happy?

Housekeepers and Janitors Need Praise As Unsung but Very Much Important

if you live in the imperial core, you profit directly from the genocide in gaza. yes, even if you are poor. centuries of our comfort and commodities have been bought with the displacement of populations, the manufacture and sale of arms, and the mutual wealth reinforcement of proxies like isr ael. the literal least we can do is offset a little of our privilege by throwing people a few bucks for food and water.

When someone you love offers a bid for connection, you say yes every time. When someone sends you an article, a video, a funny post, it’s a bid for connection. They are trying to connect with you. When someone shares details about their day, their life, their thoughts, or their feelings with you, that is a bid for connection. They want to connect with you on a deeper level. They are trying to pull you into their world. If you love them, you say yes every time. Yes, even if the article they send is not particularly interesting to you. Yes, even if it means listening to them ramble about a game you don’t care about and think is stupid. Yes yes yes. And let’s hope they always say yes to your bids, too.

Bottlecap Press

poems i shouldn't have written, by amelia nason

Poetry, chapbook, 28 pages, from Bottlecap Features. interwoven with fact & fiction, poems i shouldn’t have written chronicles young lov

From amelia nason's chapbook, poems i shouldn't have written, available from Bottlecap Press!