less Christmas light, less cotton candy chemicals, less whatever science calls the shit makes me smile an hour wide for two weeks until there is nothing but now. There is nothing now, my lips, a tightrope, so good at their job- they never bow. This is my personal science. It doesn’t feel good so IContinue reading “This week, my body releases less-“
Author Archives: ampersandthenwhat
Maybe we don’t wear chain link but are still clad in defenses too heavy to hold.
This is how we human:
I. build homes of others until we realize how this does not serve us. II. construct shaky foundations born out of a lack of survival skills. III. forget to forgive ourselves for not learning the aforementioned survival skills sooner. IV. learn that roofs above our own heads come first. V. forgive and get on withContinue reading “This is how we human:”
Are you bored?
Do you wish you looked more like how you do in your dreams or how you did in your childhood visions of your full-grown self? Do you need someone to hear your thoughts and smile at them from time to time so that you know you’re a real boy? Boy, do I have something forContinue reading “Are you bored?”
There will be times where your gentle does not make sense to them.
Be soft anyways. When they don’t see you as Phoenix, when they just see you as ash, when your tears are floodgates you wish you would’ve learned how to operate ages ago and you can’t stop spitting “I’m sorry”s like sunflower seed shells. There will be entire decades that you apologize for yourself for aContinue reading “There will be times where your gentle does not make sense to them.”
So I heard that poets are attention seeking:
Of freaking course I’m attention seeking. I exist, don’t I? Sometimes I need reminders I exist, don’t I? Look, I’m not mirage nor magician but I sure am real great at disappearing. At moving in minimize- at speaking in silence, in cemetery because I long ago buried my voice every time my mother spoke overContinue reading “So I heard that poets are attention seeking: “
Premenstrual dysphoric disorder is a thing with limbs
that wakes worried and walks woeful rolls in after half a months absence then melts me millimeter by millimeter to my mattress to make sure I know just how flat I am. It tried to get me to stay home today to put my mouth on mute today It tells me this poem is bullshit,Continue reading “Premenstrual dysphoric disorder is a thing with limbs”
Congratulations!
You’ve won a some expenses paid trip to the land of adulthood- lifetime supply of responsibility, reflection and potential redemption included. peace of mind sold separately. sense of purpose and self sold separately. patience sold separately. most everything sold separately. some assembly required. (or a lot of assembly required) level of assembly required dependent onContinue reading “Congratulations!”
today i am grateful to have a skeleton
that feels brave enough to speak up to me when i am treating it unkindly and thankful that i am privileged enough to answer his call. today i am working through a thesis about building structures to support my students with heavy hands that feel hot gravel graced each time i click clack a letterContinue reading “today i am grateful to have a skeleton”
build as if your hands don’t shake
every time you pick up a pen like you could really wield something as weighty as war time depression as if the fact that we’ve been in war time for decades doesn’t matter to you build like you need somewhere to live like what good are my bones if I forget how strong they are?Continue reading “build as if your hands don’t shake”
& 