I Don’t WANT To Live In A Society I Want To Live In A Bookstore Cafe

“A Simple Thesis Poem”

Why did the chicken cross the road?

The age old question

To make a better life for zirself?

Did zir walk or perhaps run away from the flames that were on the other side?

We never talk about what zir found on the other side, thoroughly

Did this chicken find a message in a bottle telling them it will all be okay?

Or a worn down album from Sting and The Police?

Zir may stop to pick up the classic vinyl if zir found it laying on the busted sidewalk to listen to the poetry in their lyrics

The chicken makes it across the road

To pick up the record

To realize there is no record player to properly enjoy their poetry

Finding an old Gatorade bottle

The flavor Fierce Grape

Maybe purchased at Trader Joes

The Mecca of grocery stores

Thoughts of childhood soccer games

Slightly dramatic

And traumatic running through their brain waves

Zirs thirst no longer quenched

Remembering to be kind to the earth that continues to hold zirself up day and night

Throwing it away in the waste basket adjacent to where they found that fiercely delicious poetry created by the Police

That does not sting

Zir notices a couple holding hands

Within one block their hand lock changes several times

Are they trying to find comfort in how they show affection?

Can they not comfortably hold hands because their love has become less delicious?

Did their love get too close to the sun like Icarus’s wings?

Will their love melt back into each other or into other’s hearts?

We will never know the answers to all these questions

We will never know why the chicken truly crossed the road

What we do know is this

Zir chicken struts across the road to pen poetry for zirself

Zir chooses to share their poetry with everyone else

In time

On zir terms

Not to impress

Or be cohesive

Simply to get through another day

Deciphering messages found in other’s poetry and empty Gatorade bottles…(Panku)

© Elizabeth Sophia Strauss

“You need to spend time crawling alone through shadows to truly appreciate what it is to stand in the sun.”

— Shaun Hick

"You can romanticize me all you wish, but the devil wrapped in silk is still the devil."

A Word to my Lovers

The longer you run from it the more it will hurt when it catches you....!

And trust me it will catch YOU.....

👀🔥✨❗❕❗❕

In honor of International Womens Day, here is a thread of women of color, queer women of color and trans women of color who deserve to be celebrated today for their accomplishments:

Up first: Sylvia Rivera who is a Latina trans activist, helped create STAR with Marsha P Johnson. She was a founding member of the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance. She is a pioneer of trans rights!! ❤️

Bisexual Mexican artist Frida Kahlo spoke out about being disabled after a bus accident. Her self-portraits comment on the female form and utilize traditional Mexican themes and colors!

Kara Walker is a Black artist who creates these very powerful silhouettes highlighting race and scenerios of our past in slavery. She creates many other works as well, but those are my personal favorite. I’ve seen them in person!

Katherine Johnson who is represented in the movie “Hidden Figures”, calculated the precise trajectories that would let Apollo 11 land on the moon in 1969. She was a very talented mathematician. In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Malala Yousafzai is a prominent figure in our world. Every day she fights to ensure all girls receive 12 years of free, safe, quality education. She is also the youngest Nobel Prize recipient. Even after the gunman incident, her voice never stayed quiet.

Rosa Parks of course. She was a leader in the local NAACP and the civil rights movement, iconically refused to give up her seat. Her willingness to disobey the rule helped to spark the Montgomery boycott and other efforts to end segregation in America.

Marsha P. (“Pay it No Mind”) Johnson was another pioneer in the trans movement. She helped created STAR with Sylvia Rivera. She was a drag queen, sex worker, and while her gender identity remains questioned in discourse, a lot of trans people claim her as one of their own.

Cecilia Chung, an Asian trans woman living with HIV, has spent her life fighting to end discrimination, stigma and violence across marginalized communities first as the former chair of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and on the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.

Of course Michelle Obama!! She has focused on social issues like education and healthy living. She was deeply committed to the well-being of our nation and to the future of its people, especially its children.

One more: Patsy Takemoto Mink devoted her life to advocating for gender equality and educational reform. She is the first woman of color and the first Asian-American woman elected to the House of Representatives. Title IX owes its existence largely to her efforts. So thank you to all of these amazing, intelligent, passionate, beautiful, inspiring women throughout history who are fucking badass. I just had to shed some appreciation to them for changing the world and resonating with me to continue follow in my great aunt’s activism for people of color.

Happy International Women’s Day to ALL my sisters and I’m with you in solidarity and power!

Manifesting Money

Remember that money is a tool. It can be used to build many feelings such as confidence, gratitude, and joy. But it's not the source of these things. You are.

Money is like a toothbrush. You use the toothbrush to brush your teeth so they can be healthy which results in what you're actually looking for, a confidence boost.

Notice how both money and a toothbrush are used to get a result but they aren't the focus nor the end goal.

When manifesting money, focus on why you have it. It'll be easier to feel abundant this way.

Personally, I use my riches to invest in my lifestyle, the people and things that I love, and my career. Thinking about the impact my wealth has on my life provides me with a much fuller experience of abundance than simply thinking about a number in my bank account does.

[Notice how I speak of my wealth in the present tense.]

Create beautiful things,

A

Greek Gods as Incorrect Quotes Pt 4

Artemis: I'm gonna need a human skull but you can't ask why.  Athena: Only if you also don't ask why.  Athena: *pulls four pristine human skulls out of their bag*  Artemis: ...  Artemis, grabbing a skull: This one will do.

Dionysus: I'm going the fight the next person who insults Ariadne.  Ariadne: I hate myself.  Dionysus: Alright, square up.

Hermes: Hey, can we stay in your dorm tonight?  Hephaestus: Why?  Dionysus: Ares fiddled with an ouija board and cursed ours.  Hermes: Apollo doesn't know how to banish spirits, so he just threw salt at them and yell "DOES THIS LOOK LIKE A HOTEL TO YOU?!"

Aphrodite: If looking good was a crime, you’d be a law abiding citizen. 

Zeus, handing out popsicles: Which flavor do you want?  Hermes: Blue flavor!  Zeus: Uh, you mean Blue Raspberry?  Hermes: Blue flavor! Blue flavor!  Zeus: Blue is not a flavor!  Hermes: BLUE FLAVOR!

Apollo: A butterfly! Hey, little guy, gal or nonbinary pal!  Aphrodite: Can a butterfly be nonbinary?  Apollo: I mean, maybe? I don't judge.  Dionysus, staring dreamily out of the window: Ah, have you ever imagine having butterfly wings? Then-  Artemis: Then it would be inconvenient as f*ck. Your wings would smack every doorframe and your clothes would have to have holes in the back.  Ares: Also, your wing's paper thin, so even a six year old aimed a NERF gun at it would... Yeah...  Hermes: *sips coffee* According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way that a-  Dionysus: No, nononono. You f*ckers have already shattered my dream, you don't get the f*cking privilege to make that reference.  Athena: Also, it's about a butterfly, not a bee... Why would you make that reference?  Apollo: You clearly have not lived with him long enough.

Artemis: Theater kids are just choir kids who joined forces with the band and strings kids. 

Ares: The moon looks beautiful, doesn’t it?  Hephaestus, looking at Ares: Yeah… but do you know what’s more beautiful?  Ares and Hephaestus in unison: *sighs* Aphrodite

Hera: Hephaestus! What did I tell you about lying?  Hephaestus, looking down: ...That it only works on Zeus.

Ares: My life is a little too much panic and not enough disco.  Hermes: My life is a little too much fall and not enough boy.  Apollo: My life is a little too much chemical and not enough romance.  Dionysus: My life is a little too much imagination and not nearly enough dragons. Athena: Why? Just why?

Apollo: Do you take constructive criticism?  Hermes: No, only cash or credit.

Apollo: What situation is not instantly improved by the addition of fishnets, I ask you.  Artemis: Being a fish.  Apollo: Well, sh*t.

Dionysus: Forgive me Father, for I have sinny-sin-sinned.

feeling like a broken parle g biscuit sitting at the bottom of cup of chai rn

“I had always been in love with him…He had been my almost, my might have been, and I did not want to leave him.”

— Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones

I can read a 500 page book or 100k word fanfiction in one sitting, but the moment I have to do a required reading for uni I suddenly don't know how to read