made a poem i wrote into a comic. anyone else angry that you have to yearn
online communities are so strange because people slip away so easily. you can be on here for years, folding people you've never met into the fabric of your daily life, and then they disappear, leaving only ghost posts scattered across tumblr behind. or their blog stays dormant, for weeks, months, years, until you're only still following them because you remember that they love sunflowers or they were kind to you when they didn't have to be or the last thing they posted was sad and raw and you still worry about them sometimes.
and sometimes they come back when you least expect it, years later, even, and there's this sudden rush of relief like there you are, there you are, even though you barely knew each other.
there's a strange kind of love to it. i don't know you and i want to hold your hand across miles and time zones and oceans. i can still see the imprint of you in this community you left. you don't anyone will notice or care when you're gone, but we notice and we care and we wish you well.
i hope you're all okay out there. i hope the sun is shining on your face and you are breathing deeply. i miss you.
When I was in middle school, I tried to learn how to crochet. I knew how to knit already, so I figured ‘how hard could it be’ and used my Christmas money on a brand new set of aluminum hooks and a how-to book.
To say it was difficult was an understatement. I spent hours pouring over my book, begging to gain some inkling of understanding from what felt like incomprehensible runes. My reward? One lopsided trapezoid of lumpy fabric and a resolve to never pick up a crochet hook again.
And so life went on, I finished middle school and high school without giving crochet so much as a second glance. In college, I read about how crochet couldn’t be replicated by a machine, it was unique in a way that knitting and many other fiber arts weren’t.
For Christmas last year, my girlfriend gave me what I now consider to be my most prized possession: a crocheted plush of my favorite pokemon. I raved over her skills and, since she never learned how to knit, we decided to have a yarn date at some point and teach each other our respective skills.
We never did get around to that yarn date. She passed a few months after our declaration, leaving me to inherit what was left of her yarn.
Nearly a decade after my initial attempt, I got ready for the toughest battle of my life. My weapons? One skein of yarn, a YouTube video, and a crochet hook that I had somehow never gotten rid of.
I slowly made my way through the video, redoing my work a couple times until I was satisfied with my product: a small, slightly misshapen rectangle.
I looked at my pristinely-made pokemon plush with hope for the first time in months and thought to myself, ‘maybe crocheting isn’t the hardest thing in the world, maybe you were just 12.’
Maybe this isn’t the hardest thing in the world. Maybe I’m just 21.
ive retired this zine from print but you can still look at it here - take care of yourself idiot <3
I make more stuff go look at it.
https://instagram.com/cytoplasm.kd
To The Person Who Walked Past The Window - Jordan Bolton
My first book ‘Blue Sky Through the Window of a Moving Car’ is now available to pre-order! Get it here - https://smarturl.it/BlueSky
I’m begging you to write for yourself.
“But readers don’t like—“ who cares?
The only reader of your story that you should care about is yourself.
Do you like your story? Yes? Then it’s perfect.
adhd is fun bc everything I got taught is backwards
a good day makes good sleep
starting with a lil treat gets the work done
More things to do is less overwhelming
don’t make a plan just get in there
you’ll never take good care of what you don’t like so throw it out (this one is my favorite bc it’s easy to see what you don’t like)