The Most Sure Sign That Someone Doesn’t Know Much About Poetry Is When They Insist That Poetry Has

“I don’t know what my goals are, no. Thanks for asking.”

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

One day you think: I want to die. And then you think, very quietly, actually I want a coffee. I want a nap. A sandwich. A book. And I want to die turns day by day into I want to go home, I want to walk in the woods, I want to see my friends, I want to sit in the sun. I want a cleaner room, I want a better job, I want to live somewhere else, I want to live.

just remembered this old clickhole video i used to be obsessed with

#89

I saw you today.

I had given up on spotting your sunlight silhouette.

But I saw you for a moment.

Your hand was real and raw and in my hand for the obsessing or destroying.

But I just watched my fingers curl around yours and noticed the crinkles around your eyes.

And smiled back.

I want to write you an escape.

A pocket of happy time and space.

Where you're okay.

In the mountains, in a tree, in a nothing of muted pastels.

Just somewhere where you can sing,

and your fingers don't sting from strumming.

And our lungs can go on for forever.

I can write up that sort of escape with ink and paper and imagination.

The clouds would be puffy, and grass would be wet beneath our bare feet.

The longing and worry and confusion of yesterday would slip through our fingers.

We’d watch the drops puddle and tumble and fall through the cracks out of existence.

We would stay and it falls away.

And the rain blows and the wind smiles and the leaves sing.

Nothing makes any sense, but we are safe.

Yet that place, it's not...real.

The world collapses around us and I am left with ink on paper that I can't see clearly.

Your eyes are downcast and clouded.

You can’t see my words.

I don’t know how to cocoon you in that existence.

But then you take my hand and we run away.

And we make our own escape of flesh and blood and brick.

We joke in puddles of blankets and you play your ukulele.

And yet we have to leave for the bathroom.

The conversation is jolted and a little awkward at times.

Your fingers grow tired, and strings get off key, but we are here.

We made it.

And it's just the sort of escape we needed.

Please don’t take your pets for granted. Even if you’re frustrated that your dog has been barking all day or your bird has been screaming for attention, remember you are all they have in this world. Give your fish that extra water change. Give your dog or cat that tummy rub they’ve been begging for. Chop up some fresh fruit as a treat for your rodents or reptiles. Just spend some time with them. Be compassionate to your animals. They are living creatures that are alive simply because you wish them to be. They may only be a small part in your life, but to them, you are their everything.

Joy Sullivan, from Instructions for Traveling West: Poems; “Instructions for Traveling West”

附近30 Nearby30

Translation: Guandi Wu

Proofreading: Amir Hampel