Was Your Star Next To Mine ?

wanted to join this heart-wrenching jayvik valstoick scene redraw trend

had to redraw that god-forbidden official art

if you know you know

for a while i lived in an old house; the kind u.s americans don't often get to live in - living in a really old house here is super expensive. i found out right before i moved out that the house was actually so old that it features in a poem by emily dickinson.

i liked that there were footprints in front of the sink, worn into the hardwood. there were handprints on some of the handrails. we'd find secret marks from other tenants, little hints someone else had lived and died there. and yeah, there was a lot wrong with the house. there are a lot of DIY skills you learn when you are a grad student that cannot afford to pay someone else to do-it-for-ya. i shared the house with 8 others. the house always had this noise to it. sometimes that noise was really fucking awful.

in the mornings though, the sun would slant in thick amber skiens through the windows, and i'd be the first one up. i'd shuffle around, get showered in this tub that was trying to exit through the floor, get my clothes on. i would usually creep around in the kitchen until it was time to start waking everyone else up - some of them required multiple rounds of polite hey man we gotta go knocks. and it felt... outside of time. a loud kind of quiet.

the ghosts of the house always felt like they were humming in a melody just out of reach. i know people say that the witching hour happens in the dark, but i always felt like it occurred somewhere around 6:45 in the morning. like - for literal centuries, somebody stood here and did the dishes. for literal centuries, somebody else has been looking out the window to this tree in our garden. for literal centuries, people have been stubbing their toes and cracking their backs and complaining about the weather. something about that was so... strangely lovely.

i have to be honest. i'm not a history aficionado. i know, i know; it's tragic of me. i usually respond to "this thing is super old" by being like, wow! cool! and moving on. but this house was the first time i felt like the past was standing there. like it was breathing. like someone else was drying their hands with me. playing chess on the sofa. adding honey to their tea.

i grew up in an old town. like, literally, a few miles off of walden pond (as in of the walden). (also, relatedly, don't swim in walden, it's so unbelievably dirty). but my family didn't have "old house" kind of money. we had a barely-standing house from the 70's. history existed kind of... parallel to me. you had to go somewhere to be in history. your school would pack you up on a bus and take you to some "ye olden times" place and you'd see how they used to make glass or whatever, and then you'd go home to your LEDs. most museums were small and closed before 5. you knew history was, like, somewhere, but the only thing that was open was the mcdonalds and the mall.

i remember one of my seventh grade history teachers telling us - some day you'll see how long we've been human for and that thing has been puzzling me. i know the scientific number, technically.

the house had these little scars of use. my floors didn't actually touch the walls; i had to fill them with a stopgap to stop the wind. other people had shoved rags and pieces of newspaper. i know i've lost rings and earring backs down some of the floorboards. i think the raccoons that lived in our basement probably have collected a small fortune over the years. i complain out loud to myself about how awful the stairs are (uneven, steep, evil, turning, hard to get down while holding anything) and know - someone else has said this exact same thing.

when i was packing up to leave and doing a final deep cleaning, i found a note carved in the furthest corner in the narrow cave of my closet. a child's scrawled name, a faded paint handprint, the scrangly numbers: 1857.

we've been human for a long time. way back before we can remember.

'my hands are my heart' by gabriel orozco, 1991 in art21: art in the twenty-first century (2003)

Richard Siken, Boot Theory // Frank Bidart, The War of Vaslav Nijinsky // astralcorbozo on TikTok // Mary Herbert, A Long Time in the Desert // Dan Deacon, When I Was Done Dying

unprofessional thoughts

{Hannah Green, from "Are you still hungry, Mother?"/ Unknown/Sam Gordon, "A Mother's Hate"/ Ella Wilson/ Joan Tierney/ Ella Wilson/ Ocean Vuong, from On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous/ Unknown/ Nayyirah Waheed/ Sharon Olds, “Holding To A Wall, Treading Saltwater”/ John Green, Turtles All the Way Down/ Safia Elhillo, "an inheritance," published in Narrative Northeast/ Annie Ernaux, from I Remain in Darkness/ Poplar Street by Chen Chen/ Unknown/ Tumblr User: @inkskinned/ Elena Poniatowska, from "La Flor de Lis," published c. January 2011/ Kyung-Sook Shin, Please Look After Mom}

I keep forgetting what I’m doing in the middle of doing it. Keep walking into a room only to go in circles confused. Boxes are half-packed. An old sweater is evidence in a case I can’t close. Smells like spring sweat and laundry detergent and nights I didn’t cry. Smells like someone else’s life. I fold it, I unfold it. Sit on the floor and let the carpet burn into my skin until I remember who I am. I made a home here. Multiplying myself by one; I'm the exact same number but a process has occurred. 

Moving in for the summer. To the house with the hole in the door and the woman with the tongue of a snake. The walls listen. Time has passed and new people love me. 

I want to be a lighthouse. A warning and a welcome. I know my existence is temporary. And so is yours. The fact that we eventually gave parts of ourselves to people who may only be passing through our life is even more absurd than the fact that I can still recall a stranger’s favorite movie from years ago. It’s true what they say; a place is only as good as the people in it. I miss you. 

I quit smoking two weeks ago. But the craving still curls in my throat like something half-alive. My lungs taste like promises I don’t want to make, I can't keep. A ritual, in lullaby. Warning signs I keep ignoring. A ghosted friend, it’s waiting for you to come back home. Maybe healing isn’t healing, maybe you just learn to carry your rot more quietly. You are not who you were last november. You’re safe; it’s only change. 

You walk through the world reading patterns like omens. Separate harm from hurt, sickness from survival. Studying monsters or trying to understand your parents. I’m both the predator and the prey, I’ll catch myself then eat myself whole.

I’m nineteen. Which means I know everything and nothing at the same time; an apology, an excuse. The universe is an ongoing explosion. That’s where you live. In an explosion. We absolutely don’t know what living is. Sometimes atoms just get very haunted. That’s us. When an explosion explodes hard enough, dust wakes up and thinks about itself. And writes about it too, apparently.

Sometimes I lie to my therapist because I don’t want her to think it’s getting bad again. Sometimes I cry while doing the dishes because the clinks means someone is throwing them. My ribs are setting wrong in my body. How did that sweet little girl turn into this horrid creature? everything is better when it’s private.

In the middle of becoming. I keep dreaming about the idea of home. blankets and fairy lights and spotify rain playlists and the soft. There’s something soft in me that refuses to die. It is almost time that I change shape again. It’s out of my control.

I don’t mind the walk.

It’s summer and I’m getting better. hopefully. Dandelions are starting to swell at my feet, seas going over hills. I've missed the yellow. The wishes of childhood. where had it been all this time?

happy pride fuck the police

happy pride fuck the police

happy pride fuck the police

I was jealous of july; summer storms.

05/10/2025