Winterreise

First five years spent poor

Beaten, clawed by toxic stress.

A rough start, darling.

WHIMPER, CRY, YOU KNOW WE'RE SCARED

Psychedelicatessen 

End of every easy street 

Serotonin slicked sidewalk skating 

Scar scratched snacktimes

New town home

Ammonite teddy bear touch

Old as prophet bones 

Soft as a rotting embrace

Symbiosis on homesick string 

Hold close to my home-heart

And whimper and mumble 

Into nostalgic oblivion 

the way ivan aivazovsky looks at the sea…i think…i think that’s what love looks like.

@judas-redeemed / Wilhelm Schulz, “All Soul’s Day” / Neil Hilborn, “Our Numbered Days” /@petfurniture / Hugo Simberg , “The Garden of Death” / Ramona Ausubel

A special shoutout to LGBTQ+ Mormons and exmos this pride; to you in the closet, sitting awkwardly in sacrament meeting, finding excuses to duck out of homophobic Sunday school lessons, you, wearing a rainbow pin to girl's camp, you out and proud and still attending, enduring side eye from sisters and comments to "maybe tone it down" from your bishop. You, afraid to bring your partner home, you who's only Mormon on Sundays but can't bear to let your parents down (earthly and heavenly). To you who took the bravest step and left the church and your community, and feel like you'll never find a new one. To you who hears "no way you were a mormon!" but are still unravelling the trauma of purity culture.

I see you.

I love you.

It gets better.

Maybe we are not at any center of the universe but at the very bottom of it, looking up.

Praying for autumn, as we all do, we ask for mundane to hibernate a pounding heart at last . At last .

the trees might be changing… but what about you?

nvmillustration

Luck I by Joy Sullivan