i grew up thinking love had to be dramatic.
that it needed to feel like chaos—
a rush of adrenaline,
complicated, spontaneous, a constant guessing game.
and sure, love can be like that.
it can burn hot and fast.
it can throw you into the sky
and drop you just as quickly.
but love can also be secure.
reassuring.
constant.
and i think that kind of love is beautiful.
the kind where someone chooses you,
not because you’re hard to get
or because there’s tension and mystery,
but simply because they see you
and they want you.
no questions.
no confusion.
no waking up and wondering where you stand.
just—
you and them.
side by side.
quietly, naturally.
you know they’ll be there tomorrow.
and the day after that.
and in a week, a month, a year.
and suddenly, you’re celebrating your tenth anniversary,
realizing love didn’t need to be loud to be extraordinary.
i’m tired of dramatic love.
i don’t want to burn.
i want to be held.
i want love that is quiet.
predictable.
safe.
because peace is not the absence of love—
it’s what love is supposed to bring.
Hope wins every time the sun peaks over the horizon after a long dark night, it softens the day and baths the ground, it warms the air and we breath easier and maybe our souls uncurl a little from that protective crouch we've grown used to, maybe we let our limbs loosen, maybe we let hope sink into our skin, maybe we let it melt our misery from within.
Sometimes I like to stare into the face of death.
It awakens a part of me I'd typically rather stay hidden.
A part of me that wishes I was in it's place,
Rotting away slowly,
Unaware of my body as it withers away,
Becoming one with the earth
as I'm somewhere on the other side.
by Langston Hughes
This is for the kids who die, Black and white, For kids will die certainly. The old and rich will live on awhile, As always, Eating blood and gold, Letting kids die.
Kids will die in the swamps of Mississippi Organizing sharecroppers Kids will die in the streets of Chicago Organizing workers Kids will die in the orange groves of California Telling others to get together Whites and Filipinos, Negroes and Mexicans, All kinds of kids will die Who don’t believe in lies, and bribes, and contentment And a lousy peace.
Of course, the wise and the learned Who pen editorials in the papers, And the gentlemen with Dr. in front of their names White and black, Who make surveys and write books Will live on weaving words to smother the kids who die, And the sleazy courts, And the bribe-reaching police, And the blood-loving generals, And the money-loving preachers Will all raise their hands against the kids who die, Beating them with laws and clubs and bayonets and bullets To frighten the people — For the kids who die are like iron in the blood of the people — And the old and rich don’t want the people To taste the iron of the kids who die, Don’t want the people to get wise to their own power, To believe an Angelo Herndon, or even get together
Listen, kids who die — Maybe, now, there will be no monument for you Except in our hearts Maybe your bodies’ll be lost in a swamp Or a prison grave, or the potter’s field, Or the rivers where you’re drowned like Leibknecht But the day will come — You are sure yourselves that it is coming — When the marching feet of the masses Will raise for you a living monument of love, And joy, and laughter, And black hands and white hands clasped as one, And a song that reaches the sky — The song of the life triumphant Through the kids who die.
i keep thinking about how it feels as if we have developed ourselves an obsession with "healing" these days – and a friend said something that really stuck in my head – "if you're part of a community where you're always trying to heal, then that means that you always need to be sick". like i think that we're all taking this ideal of healing too far saying that everybody needs therapy all the time and resetting your gut biome or surrounding yourself with positive energy or whatever it is that you can come up with. you're always focusing on something that is "wrong" and that needs to be eliminated, after which everything will be okay again. it all sounds like just another way of maintaining an illusion of control over your life and i don't think it's doing us any good
The other day I came up with this extremely derpy idea and chuckled to myself, so now it's an extremely derpy comic