A Short Comic I Made About My Experiences As A Seasonal Worker, And The Way Places Change You.

Late nights and Would you rathers

this is a poem

Birdflash & Protective Damian Commission

Not poetry, but needs to be said.

Here is what my mother told me when I was young: the world is harsh. It is unforgiving and it has teeth. Take no shit.

Here is what I have learned from the world: it is wounded and the humans scattered throughout it are rarely the rats of Rat Park, they are the tired, trembling experiments in need of more kindness, not less. Do no harm.

Here's what I have learned from the world: humans are good. They are soft, and gentle, and they are wounded, all of them. When humans were young and wild, they looked at the snarling beasts that came to their fires, the ones with sharp teeth in their long muzzles, and they saw soft fur and the welcome-home wag of a tail.

Here is what I have seen: Given an opportunity, humans will choose creation and love. They will create art, and music, and community. They will tell each other stories, sing each other songs, help each other heal. Even without safety, even when it wounds them, they will love. They will love each other - their family, their friends, their mates - and they will love the world.

Here is what I have seen: there is hope. Sometimes it is ugly and twisted and burns, but humans will hold onto it with both hands and their entire heart. They will share it with one another. They will use it to tame beasts with fur and teeth as well as the ones that live inside of themselves. They will create because of it; they will say I hope this makes someone smile, I hope this makes someone cry. I hope this saves someone. And it will.

Here is what I know to be true: evidence of a healed broken bone from thousands of years ago reminds us that what makes us human isn't our wounds, but how we care for one another through them.

Here is what my mother told me: the world will gnash its sharp teeth at me. It will try to wound me.

Here is what I know to be true: I am human, and humans heal one another and can turn sharp teeth into wagging tails.

Oh, my knight in shining armour,

Why won't you leave me alone?

I find a great sense of humour

In the seat of your throne.

I would like to be left

In my great tower;

Don't justify your theft

To give yourself power.

_ E.C.N

Only thing I will add: you do not have to be okay with it. You can continue to be disgusted by what you see in fandom spaces, that is okay. Most people have those things. What is not okay, is being a bully about it. Blocking doesn't mean you hate them, merely that you don't want to see their stuff. Block, filter out, ignore, whatever works. Just - don't be a dick :)

It could be coincidence, or destiny, or some neurological memory of an espresso cup. I choose to believe all of the above, that beautiful coincidences are part of fate, and my life has shaped my hands that have shaped the cup.

-my poem

Anyone know the artist? For clarity, the painter, not the writer.

We suffer from an incurable malady: Hope.

— Mahmoud Darwish