#1,336
#1,336
I’m not creating as much as I’d like.
Because I’m trying to predict my future mistakes.
My inner critic believes themself to be prophetic
“You’ve written about this person too many times,
Who in the world would want to keep a sculpture of a dumb cat?
If I were to attempt some editing,
Not a line would be worth keeping.”
If I’m not going to make anything,
I might as well smack myself upside the head.
Death of the author is meant to be metaphorical.
Just because it’s put out into the world doesn’t mean it’s meant to be published.
I could be completely wrong.
But it shuts my inner critic up when I think this,
So maybe it’s worth something.
Maybe when Van Gogh painted “Starry Night” he wasn’t thinking about anything.
Just taking in the view from his asylum and his paintbrush.
More Posts from Bustlingblankverse and Others
my favorite poems from my chapbook published last year, Specimen Poems
consider purchasing today to support a trans artist today on TDOV - this chapbook is written in the style of scientific specimen labels and illustrated in the style above. this little book means the world to me :)
#80 I wish poetry came easily.
Bright words that could naturally sweep through me.
Like intoxicating and wonder filled seas.
Of lavender, teal and parsnip creme
Trickle from page from pen, from pen to me.
I wish the dam was never closed.
Inspiration endless but an eb and flow,
Not brilliant wet flashes then dry lonely stones.
Then the dam’s tight as a dish and I am alone.
Left to smack at cement and wait in the cold
For the stones to split apart and invite me to explore the sea.
But I fumble and stumble, push pen forward on.
I keep writing haiku, couplet or song,
With remaining words, mediocre and oblong as can be.
And I feel new stream beds forming beneath me.
A lot of people ask me what my biggest fear is, or what scares me most. And I know they expect an answer like heights, or closed spaces, or people dressed like animals, but how do I tell them that when I was 17 I took a class called Relationships For Life and I learned that most people fall out of love for the same reasons they fell in it. That their lover’s once endearing stubbornness has now become refusal to compromise and their one track mind is now immaturity and their bad habits that you once adored is now money down the drain. Their spontaneity becomes reckless and irresponsible and their feet up on your dash is no longer sexy, just another distraction in your busy life. Nothing saddens and scares me like the thought that I can become ugly to someone who once thought all the stars were in my eyes.
When someone you love offers a bid for connection, you say yes every time. When someone sends you an article, a video, a funny post, it’s a bid for connection. They are trying to connect with you. When someone shares details about their day, their life, their thoughts, or their feelings with you, that is a bid for connection. They want to connect with you on a deeper level. They are trying to pull you into their world. If you love them, you say yes every time. Yes, even if the article they send is not particularly interesting to you. Yes, even if it means listening to them ramble about a game you don’t care about and think is stupid. Yes yes yes. And let’s hope they always say yes to your bids, too.
i hate how you get desensitized to the cool stuff in your WIP if you've been writing it for a long time so when you read back over it you're like "this isn't as cool as i thought :(" but it still is! you just read it too many times
From amelia nason's chapbook, poems i shouldn't have written, available from Bottlecap Press!
“Keep fighting.
“I know you’re bruised and battered and bloody. I know you’ve been fighting for too long. I know you’re hopeless and broken and so, so tired. But you have to keep fighting. If you don’t, there’s nobody left. All this, everything you were fighting for in the first place, it’s all gone. You’re the only one left, and I’m sorry that you have to do this. I know how much you want to just surrender to that awful, bone-deep exhaustion that’s making it hard to even breathe, let alone move. But if you don’t keep fighting, you’ll die, and everyone else will die with you.
“Get up. You can’t surrender. You can’t yield.
“Get up. You can’t lose hope. Remember their faces, the ones that you’re fighting for. Remember the things you’re protecting. Remember everything you have to loose.
“Get up. Grab your weapon. You’re not dying like this.
“If we go down, we go down swinging, remember? That’s what you always said. You have to stay determined. You were always so stubborn, so where’s all that stubbornness now? Find it. You have to find it.
“If you have to die, you’re dying on your feet. You’re taking them all down with you.
“If you’re going to hell, then you’re going to fight it every step of the way. Yell and struggle and make it as hard for them as possible. Kill the goddamn devil if you have to.
“Get up. You’re not done here.
“Get up.
“…
“…Please.
“Please, get up.
“I’m begging you. Get up. Keep fighting. Please.
“You can’t die like this.”
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.
fireflies honestly make me cry a little. out of gratitude and wonder. thank goodness we live in a world with bioluminescence. thank goodness we live in a world where it can fly.
