Vultures Are Holy Creatures.

Life finds a way, even in the cracks of concrete.

me. me when a poem says something ive felt before

i have a soft secret wish that conspires against me in the sleepy hours of late afternoon when my big dog sighs into my shoulder and nuzzles under my arm while we both procrastinate his walk a little longer just until we are done being on the couch together, curled up

i need to believe that if he could choose, he would stay looped indelicately, his legs a cascade in the air rolling his back on the only floor i can afford him instead of the romantic impossible wild

there are moments where his ears perk up at a rabbit and he watches their white tail tuck into a bush, like a wink. i don't know what dogs dream about but i hope to god

if he is dreaming about being a wolf he is not disappointed when he wakes up to blunted teeth

Joy Sullivan, from Instructions for Traveling West: Poems; “Instructions for Traveling West”

idk who needs to hear this rn but suffering is not noble. take the tylenol

If you follow Selmers to the poetry society meeting in Night In The Woods, this is her poem. I loved it and the themes of the game, and wanted to use it as practice to see if i can control the way readers ‘hear’ the words through images.

in internet posts it is easy to cut them out of your life. they are hurting you! they aren't listening to you!

they held your hair back. they lent you lipstick. they held your hand at the train station and got you home safe. they rounded on your bully, got loud, said get fucked, spitting-mad in your defense.

they also cut the hair off again. told you that you should really think twice before wearing something like that. took you for granted. took your insecurities and threw them in your face again.

you know logically it should be easy. all the internet advice comments always read it will feel better. like an equation - if a person is rotten, you just remove them. you pull the tooth that's hurting.

but it was never a big flare-up moment. you don't live in a sitcom. they never tried to take your boyfriend or steal from your apartment. they showed up to birthdays and they wrote songs about you and bring you water without you asking. once you found out they carry an emergency inhaler for you, even though you haven't had an asthma attack in years - just in case.

where is the line? people fuck up. sometimes they fuck up badly. sometimes people have raw personalities, like a powerline, and being around them is dangerous. addicting. sometimes they can't help themselves, but you know they're trying. sometimes they are just rough-around-the-edges. sometimes they don't even realize how they sounded when they said that. sometimes it's just - you've both loved each other for so long now, the way this thing hurts goes back to the root.

and that's the fucked up part. you have pushed your fingers against the sweetheart of memory. things these days are electric, tense, harrowing. they didn't used to be. there were a lot of good days in there. sometimes you want to just close your eyes and say can this be over yet? do we still need to be fighting?

doing that would give up any chance you get of getting an apology, but you don't always know that you need an apology, you love them. once they flaked on your birthday party. once they told you to get over it, people are always dying. they also let you crash on their couch for a week after the breakup, handfeeding you when you were so sad you couldn't eat. they are judgmental about everything, occasionally react to banal statements with an attitude that is weird and fiery. they also love you like a lighthouse sometimes, so strong they cut the storm like lightning.

but the problem is that you might be storm. you might be the thing that needs breaking. what if you are two forces who are desperately, horribly drawn to each other, shaped by the other person's passions, and good for each other and bad in equal measure.

what if you're both just people, and you're no saint neither.

just cut them off! swallowing the saltwater, you catch yourself in the mirror. you've been shaking more than usual. there's an ache in you that is oblique, loud, impossible to soothe. is this what it looks like? when life is "easier"?

your mouth will always have a hole, is the thing, if you remove the tooth.

just because someone can articulate their point better doesn’t make them right, it makes them articulated.