but the white raspberries are ripe

oh emily wilson translation of the iliad we’re really in it now

[ID: text excerpt with all text highlighted in yellow except for the last sentence, reading:

You already know the story. You will die. Everyone you love with also die. You will lose them forever. You will be sad and angry. You will weep. You will bargain. You will make demands. You will beg. You will pray. It will make no difference. Nothing you can do will bring them back. You know this. Your knowing changes nothing. This poem will make you understand this unfathomable truth again and again, as if for the very first time.

/end ID.]

Peachtober day 5: Fawn

[image description: a black and white watercolor painting with pen outlines, of several fawns with glowing blank white eyes. there are enough of them to fill the page, all looking forward at the viewer, and their legs and bodies fade into the black background. /end i.d.]

LUCILLE CLIFTON

[Image ID: A poem titled "poem on my fortieth birthday to my mother who died young." The poem reads:

"well i have almost come to the place where you fell

tripping over a wire at the forty-fourth lap

and i have decided to keep running,

head up, body attentive, fingers

aimed like darts at first prize, so

i might not even watch out for the thin thing

grabbing towards my ankles but

i'm trying for the long one mama,

running like hell and if i fall

i fall." End ID.]

— Hildegard von Bingen, from ‘Selected Writings’ (via wraith-lace)

i was a blur flinching at the word “lesbian” spat from my mothers mouth, 

10 years and a gender affirming surgery later i found my womanhood on your lips

[ ID: Digital sketched, pencilled colored lightly warm toned art. Two women in a room. One sits on a blue bed. She is tall, thin, light skinned, lightly curling long blonde haired, has stubble. Wears a choker, a necklace with interlocked Venus symbols, black bra with white ribbon, shorts. The other is short, lighter tan, very short cropped light strawberry blonde hair. Much of body is not shown in drawing, unclear what she wears or not.

Tall woman sits on a blue bed, one finger touching with the others hand reached out. In other hand she holds a syringe. Her face is partly covered by her hair, she bends down and smiles. The other is on the ground with one hand on knee and the other hand with a finger out touching the tall woman’s hand. She looks up and smiles at her.

Background is yellow. A poster or window is seen in the back. To the front a shelf top holds what looks like a medicine bottle- a 200mg vial of estradiol cypionate   and some kind of basket. 

They are both backlighted by yellow, maybe sunlight. end ID] 

Kiki Smith, Constellation, 1996

[IDs: three photos - two close ups and one wide shot - of an art installation that comprises of glass sculptures of animals and many pointed starbursts on sheets of dark blue fabric cut and arranged into a large circle over a wooden floor. The first image shows a detail shot of a glass scorpion and two glass bears resting on the dark blue fabric with stars strewn around them. They are also surrounded by little dark dots. In the second image sits a rabbit and what might be a small sheep, with some stars to their right, as well as clumps of the dark dots. The glass of these creatures is highlighted white with light, and shaded in the curves of the smooth glass with the blue background of the fabric. The third photo is from far back, showing the entire scene of various animals and stars arranged on the blue circle. /end IDs.]

the audre lorde questionnaire to oneself, intended as a creative writing exercise by Divya Victor, who asks to be credited

[ID: piece titled "The Audre Lorde Questionnaire to Oneself" which reads

"1. What are the words you do not have yet? [Or, "for what do you not have words, yet?"]

2. What do you need to say? [List as many words as necessary.]

3. "What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?" [List as many as necessary today. Then write a new list tomorrow. And the day after.]

4. If we have been "socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language, and definition", ask yourself: "What's the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?" [So, answer this today. And every day.]

Adapted from "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action," collected in The Cancer Journals."

/end ID]

from lineage, with one question by silas denver melvin, published in issue 2 of The Garlic Press

[ID: poem as credited above with opening lines reading

"where did you come from?

can i say leaving? can i tell you there was a pinhole of ink eating the light before i was even born? i come from the already dead, the stupid-drunk, from a hereditary crazy that needs to be walked like a great dane. can i say that?"

/end ID]

“Bruised Fruit / To The Core”

chronic pain has been kicking my ass lately so uh here’s something that came from that

prints available here !

(click image for optimal quality)

[Description from alt text: digital illustration of a person curled up on themselves. The person is surrounded by a yellow border/frame with 20 apples in various stages of rot and decay. The person is wearing compression gloves and a knee brace. The overall tone of the drawing is a pale yellow and orange. In the middle of the person are two apple seeds, suggesting the person is a rotting apple like in the frame /end ID]

[Text ID: I use my body to find love. I eat all the wrong foods. I believe what I see with my own two eyes. Fear eats me. I have to look for a job. I can sprint faster than sound. I burn forever, I have no end. /End ID]

Feeling One’s Oats - 26x32” acrylic on canvas. Sold.

[image description: a painting of a cowboy in a desert, wearing a voluminous pink dress and twirling around with a peaceful expression. the second image is a photo of the painting mounted on a wall with paint marks and paint-stained fabric around it. end description.]

wanted to do my photo project this semester on the notion of mobility aids being extensions of our bodies, the yarn was done by a friend

everybody look at these photos of Rodney Bell (a disabled Māori dancer) from the disability/queer studies book I’m currently reading, is this not sick as hell???

[ image one: a page from a book containing two black and white photos of Rodney Bell, a Maori man in a wheelchair. He has a large ta moko on his back that is visible in the second photo. The first photo shows him suspended upside from the ceiling with ropes; below this photo is the caption “Figure 10. Rodney Bell hangs from the ceiling. Still image from Sins Invalid Performance 2008. Courtesy of Sins Invalid.” The second photo shows Rodney facing away from the camera, is arms extended out to the side; below the photo is the caption “Figure 11. Rodney Bell performs ont he ground. Still image from Sins Invalid Performance 2008. Courtesy of Sins Invalid.”

image two: an excerpt from the book that reads “The dancer from above, Rodney Bell, is an indigenous performer, choreographer, and activist from the Ngati Maniapoto tribe in Aotearoa -- the unceded land that is commonly called New Zealand --”  / end id ]

[text ID: 'An Apology' by Robert Wood Lynn

I awoke. You weren't there but there were horses on the beach. I got up, made believe nothing hurt and my evidence was horses on the beach even though the beach horses were remarkably indifferent to the thrill of horses on the beach. I went about my day. I went for a run in the surf. The horses only sauntered, heads slung low as an apology. With my long hair flowing I felt like I was nailing the audition for the part of HORSE ON A BEACH while the actual horses were just kind of phoning it in. You used to say you worked the way mountains do, turned bluer the further you got from me until you disappeared completely. I went to tell you about the horses. You were right, you'd disappeared completely. I still wanted to. I wrote it down just in case.

/end ID]

To make a mend

[ID: Picture of a painting on a ripped canvas. The rip is quite large, more or less triangular in shape, and nearly half the canvas's size. The background is a sea green, and painted on it is two hands of a light skinned person. Their nails are painted black, and they are stitching up the rip in the canvas with a thick, red string. The string is real, holding together a small part of the lower part of the rip. They are holding the needle in their right hand, and tugging on the string with their left one. On bottom right is the artist's signature in red. End ID]

what are eldest siblings for if not telling you i stood up to our parents to live a happier life and so can you

[Image Description: Three screenshots of Ally (as Kristen) in Fantasy High: Junior Year.

1: Ally (as Kristen) says "I think you have a very courageous choice to make,"

2: (cont.) "and it's to decide if Mom and Dad"

3: (cont.) "know your life better than you do." End image description]

Denise Levertov, from Candles in Babylon: Poems; “A Child,” published c. 1982

[ID: A poem on a sheet of paper. It reads

‘In the field, a / dark thing.’ 'It was, oh, a / bush or something.’

'No no, a / dark thing, / something that could / look at me.’

'Was it like a bear? / Was it like a moose?’ 'No, it was a dark thing / keeping still to look at me.’

'Was it fierce? Was it foul? / Was it going to leap upon you?’ 'No, it was a shy thing, / keeping still to look at me.’

/end ID]