Posted A Month Ago On My Patreon And Ko-fi, Original Text Post By @inkskinned Can Be Found Here 💗

May you never lose joy in writing

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

I want to write you an escape.

A pocket of happy time and space.

Where you're okay.

In the mountains, in a tree, in a nothing of muted pastels.

Just somewhere where you can sing,

and your fingers don't sting from strumming.

And our lungs can go on for forever.

I can write up that sort of escape with ink and paper and imagination.

The clouds would be puffy, and grass would be wet beneath our bare feet.

The longing and worry and confusion of yesterday would slip through our fingers.

We’d watch the drops puddle and tumble and fall through the cracks out of existence.

We would stay and it falls away.

And the rain blows and the wind smiles and the leaves sing.

Nothing makes any sense, but we are safe.

Yet that place, it's not...real.

The world collapses around us and I am left with ink on paper that I can't see clearly.

Your eyes are downcast and clouded.

You can’t see my words.

I don’t know how to cocoon you in that existence.

But then you take my hand and we run away.

And we make our own escape of flesh and blood and brick.

We joke in puddles of blankets and you play your ukulele.

And yet we have to leave for the bathroom.

The conversation is jolted and a little awkward at times.

Your fingers grow tired, and strings get off key, but we are here.

We made it.

And it's just the sort of escape we needed.

Bottlecap Press

Chan Says & Other Songs, by Caleb Nichols

Poetry, chapbook, 56 pages, from Bottlecap Features. At the intersection of land/sea, sexuality/gender, and fairy tale/reality CHAN SAYS & O

From Caleb Nichols' chapbook, Chan Says & Other Songs, a companion piece to Caleb's Kill Rock Stars EP of the same name!

thinking of jesus at the gay bar again………

if we could read minds I still don't think we'd understand them.

Bottlecap Press

It's Always This Beautiful, I Just Can't Always See It, by Codi Barbini

Prose poetry, chapbook, 36 pages, from Bottlecap Features. In It’s Always This Beautiful, I Just Can’t Always See It, gratitude becomes a me

From Codi Barbini's chapbook, It's Always This Beautiful, I Just Can't Always See It, available from Bottlecap Press!

a lil poem i wrote while procrastinating my schoolwork

i hate it when i cant even write a poem about something because its too obvious. like in the airbnb i was at i guess it used to be a kids room cause you could see the imprint of one little glow in the dark star that had been missed and painted over in landlord white. like that's a poem already what's the point

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.