inkskinned

[inkskinned]

some of ur favorite quotes + a poem + good news i am restarting the secret series through commission - dm me for more info* *all prices are subject to change because i'm niceys :) i also do other more complicated things (tattoo designs, vows, etc) but just message me and we will figure it out :)

[inkskinned]

you tried everything. you tried relationship check-ins and using positive thinking. you tried modelling healthy coping strategies and printing out pages of cognitive behavioral therapy tricks. you tried relationship podcasts and audiobooks and posts on instagram. you tried steamrolling your own emotions and making yourself into a fractal of a person. you tried ripping out your own hair and you tried to feed from your own stomach. you tried setting boundaries - and when that failed, you tried to be okay with broken boundaries.

you tried explaining, over and over and over. you tried long-winded texts that delicately apologized and took accountability; you tried short and earnest apologies that directly confronted the issue. you tried letting them apologize first - and when that didn't work at all, you tried to delicately explain you needed their apology.

you tried, because you really thought they could change. sometimes, if you caught them in the right moment - they even seemed willing. they would nod and agree to try therapy (eventually) or try calming techniques (eventually) or try safe communication practices (eventually) or try -

and you feel like a fool, because you gave them so much grace about it, and that's how things got so bad for so long. you were being patient and kind and willing. you gave them time. you promised yourself that next week, they'd be better. next week, they'd be the partner you needed. next week, they'd be there for you. they'd finally see all the effort and love and trying! and as some kind of divine reward, why, they'd finally -

the whole time your boundaries shifted and swam. since you were being patient with them, you started taking barely-there token actions as being "enough." okay, they didn't really apologize, but even the use of the words "i'm sorry" was enough! okay, they didn't support you through grief, but afterwards they seemed guilty about that and offered to buy you sushi. wasn't that all good enough? isn't love about growth and bringing the other person up with you?

so when you finally broke about this and finally decided to run: well, you had expected to be ruined. you had cried in the shower picturing it. and instead. instead. you were suddenly, coldly, wildly - done.

[inkskinned]

endings can come like rolling thunder, all slow and agony. sometimes their shape is a lightning bolt - before/after, and your universe shattered. some endings feel like the soft brush of a fern; bittersweet and adult. other ends are spikes, a betrayal you never really unfeel - they drag you along, kicking and screaming, over the glass of their shape.

and sometimes, rarely, if you're lucky, an ending feels like a weight has been lifted. it feels like swan wings. it feels like a party. it feels like thank you, holy fuck, the pressure has released.

Ohhh I can't wait for my roommates poem on this

[inkskinned]

it became like a point system, i guess.

it wasn't that he never did anything romantic or wonderful. he would do these things for me on occasion almost ritualistically - after i'd exhibited about four or five different breakdowns. he would finally book tickets to the symphony. we would finally spend a weekend in the mountains, drinking wine and listening to audiobooks. we would finally go on some serious expedition somewhere - no longer than a week, but it was felt. and those things would be 500, 700, 9000 points.

(at the time, as you know, i hadn't realized yet that it was always things that pertained to his interests. we did not go to poetry slams, we went to long and weird contemporary music festivals. we did not go to my places or be with my people - it was his places, his people. as ashamed as i am to admit it now: when he did begrudgingly allow me to cart him to my things, it still somehow became a point in his favor. that i brough him to the beautiful, sacred place of Acadia National Park earned him the 500 points - for his patience. for his willingness. for his sanctimony.)

and then he would cash in on those points and do virtually nothing. meanwhile, i'd buy dinner or send a card or call first or send a loving text or bring him little gifts. and these were all small things. they were 100, 200 points. i'd do this stupid, feminine, evil little domestic labor: the socks off the floor or getting groceries or remembering to turn the lights off or putting the seat down or whatever. the small "oopsie" partner things that you are supposed to accept. and those were all valued very low, as if i was in some kind of emotional arcade game. they'd be 5, 10, sometimes (in particularly rough moments) up to 50 points, if i was very generous with my cleaning and/or emotional supporting and/or romantic effort.

but the whole time, like clockwork, he'd call in on the points. remember when we went to new hampshire? or babe i just planned a date for you last month. on one very sweet moment, i remember him saying, without irony - why would i plan your birthday. i got you what you wanted for christmas. i am born in july, on the first. it had been 7 entire months. i had sent him the gift i had wanted - on reflection, had i not wanted him to "claim points" on something he hadn't put effort into? or was i just scared i'd be confronted with that same knowledge we've all had when opening a lackluster, terrible gift - this is fucking nothing. he claimed the points anyway, and i let him.

i don't know why i allowed it. i'm a feminist. i was already actively writing about emotional labor, all of that. but when you are raised in a house that loves anger, your whole body becomes an echo. you can't hear your own pain over the ache of your history. maybe it's just that it did feel - through catholic guilt or though my past or through my own passive and stupid fawning nature - like it made sense. yes, he did take me on a date last month! so what if he said i looked like a sausage in that dress (fully knowing of my eating disorder)? he had taken me on the date, which was kind of him.

i keep remembering how confused he was each time, holding up these little points in front of me. other men do it too sometimes - the men who assume they've earned enough "friendship" points to fuck me - but he was just so earnest about it. he didn't need to support me or hold me or be kind to me - he had already been kind, at one point, and now that job was over.

and i would stand in that little arcade of our lives and see my own score, bright and blazing above me. millions of points ahead of him, somehow, just because i was constantly trying. and i'd try to point it out to him and i would feel sort of dumb and obvious doing it. who can say i do your laundry is equivalent to we went to disney. but there it was, and there we were: him asking to win the biggest prize. the bright green monkey. and me, begging him - i just need you to show up for me consistently.

[inkskinned]

IN THE NAME OF SONIC AMEN

[inkskinned]

you balance the catholic guilt & you still eat too many servings of pasta. you split the pomegranate but you think of the lord jesus and his guts spilled across your dining room table. yesterday was father's day and you went to church. your father is also a deacon. he wants you to marry a nice man one day, when the lesbianism wears off.

you are religiously traumatized, probably, but also the world is in absolute chaos. you feel guilty all the time about not being endlessly informed - about the mini breaks you take between in-person activism & volunteer work and doomscrolling through online news articles. you feel guilty you dropped a sweater on the ground. you feel guilty you cannot afford rent. you feel guilty, and you quite actually feel guilty that you feel guilty.

your father isn't a tall man, but he is good at being imposing. yesterday was hard. all father's day activities are. you watched him radicalize in the last 10 years, moving from a man who had some ignorant views to - whatever this is. he crowed at you that 250,000 people showed up to trump's military parade. you have seen the pictures and think that it's very unlikely there were more than 100k. but your father has no shame. your father just says the thing without checking it.

you have a conspiracy theory that, in some small part, the parade was also to rebrand june as military appreciation month. how often they have said why is there no veteran's month, even though there is. the white house's stance on pride this year was that they did not want to acknowledge something that "only affects 7% of the population." you don't know where they got that number, but it's guilt-free. it's just, like, out there. they get to just say things. you can't even fucking imagine.

you haven't grown up. you still wear the 2014 tumblr style shit sometimes. you are still on tumblr. you are still thinking about girls and "holy holy holy" and it always does feel magical and rebellious and incredible to kiss her. nothing is new about love until it is your love, and then it is impervious. and yet - still you feel stuck, and guilty, and the acid in your stomach refuses to settle. all the yearning and the stupid shit, and the fucking guilt.

you make a little poem in your notes app. you make your hands into a little prayerful steeple. your mother tells you that you make yourself crazy. you have a running joke with your friends that if you had no mental illnesses, you'd be unstoppable.

but when you kiss her, you feel it. when you buy groceries. when you forget to text back - you feel it. the little thing inside of you, always fucking chipping away at things.

[inkskinned]

she looks like an album cover . like ART. and i got emotional about it.

[inkskinned]

How come you're all about "feminism" until it's time to protest? We haven't seen you make a single fucking post about the LA riots and it's really disappointing.

Hi friends. This is your reminder not to reply to questions like this. You do not need to self-report your behavior. This is a guilt trip designed to make you violate your own Miranda rights.

Also, they are not riots (Freudian slip, fed?), they're peaceful protests and are a democratic right under the first amendment.

where to find your local protest donate to legal funds my local immigrant support network

be safe out there, i love you.

[inkskinned]

my arch nemesis cynthia is, of course, at the bank, because we both were sent like clockwork to pick up the checks of our husbands. she is wearing a lovely long green gown, which i know was on behalf of me, because, as my husband will tell you, our house abhors green and glamour. already the tellers look at each other under their little hats, for they love our tirades, i’m sure, although not more than i hate them. 

“oh, is that your knitting?” my arch nemesis cynthia peers her eyes at my hands. “is it some kind of… sock?” everyone knows she and i used to be close before we were married and our husbands, smartly so, have introduced us to the idea of true vengeance.

“it is a scarf,” i say. i want to tell her that when the time comes and the world gets cold it will go over my mouth and i will breathe warm air and it will fill my lungs and i will be able to run around with my love even in the dark night. “it is not,” i say, “over surprising that you should be caught unawares of a scarf,” i say, “as i’m sure enjoying winter festivities are too beneath the handsome qualities your husband prefers.” pompous ass.

the tellers pass each other eyes for now it has started and they are delighted.

my arch nemesis cynthia thrusts out her hand. a white bottle. “rat poison,” she says. “i would expect the whole town knows about your little problem.” stage whisper. “such a shame, my dear.” then she rustles her long green skirts - which i know she wore on behalf of me - and she shimmies herself out of the room like royalty. oh, she floats everywhere she goes, beautiful black hair behind her. the bottle in my palm is cold. i will devise how to get her back starting first thing tomorrow.

the week, as always, is a long week, for there is much to make and do and knit and be. my husband comes home and i love him for who he is; for he never comes home without checking the state of the house up and down. he is the kind who loves his home so completely and sets each room like a stage for a great band to come playing. i am too ashamed to tell him why so many of the rats go missing, only make him a stew the next morning to celebrate. his favorite, although not mine, i’m afraid. plenty left over.

my arch nemesis today - of course - in a green the color of rotting. a bruise is uncarefully covered on her cheekbone, so striking against all of her dainty. her husband would say it was for her ungraceful nature, and i know mine would agree. i strike first, already delighted by my master plan, shoving over our best picnic basket tied with a bow. “i made you and yours a stew,” i say, “for beneath all that you carry” all that horrible wealth of your husband  “it seems you’re getting rather skinny.” i can’t resist one last comment. “i am worried you’re about to waste to nothing.”

She plucks it out of my hand. “yes, if it weren’t for you and your husband’s dwindling wealth,” her sarcasm is biting, “i’m sure i will be nothing in, oh, 5 weeks time.” she arches a brow. “so long from now.”

“i am counting the days,” i tell her. her lips purse. the tellers behind me make a choked titter. perhaps, by their estimation, i have won this round quite completely. i go home to my husband smiling. he asks where i have been and i tell him i’ve been at the bank, but he checks anyway because i like to get up to tricks and he doesn’t like to fall for it. it is a good game we play. at night, when he is asleep, i am so in love that i must convince myself to pull the covers over my nose and practice breathing. how silly to wake him up for a young girl’s feelings. 

the first week of five: she gives me a solid, ugly ring that requires three knuckles to hold. “i feel so badly for your status, and i must remember to practice charity,” she says. “it such a small thing, but do be careful amongst all that thin pine furnishing of your house, which dents so easily.” my husband appears at the bank’s front door. just checking. so lovely to be picked up by him. at night, in a rage, i try it - beneath the table bends easily. i scuff out the scratch with walnut before my husband can see. i pull the covers over my face in bed and breathe.

the second week: i wear her ugly ring and give her more stew, this time hearty with meat. her dress is a meadow. my heart each time it sees her collapses on itself. she hands me clothes for my husband, since his wealth continues to go missing, and the charity of her heart is so loving. i am so ashamed i bury them far by the old tree, where all my shames go hiding. again, the covers. it, by now, helps me sleep. i have gotten so good at it that i can simply shimmy my shoulders to be perfectly toasty and buried.

the third week: she asks how comes my knitting. i tell her it’s nearly complete. she asks how comes my husband, whom she must know has been ill recently, and who is doing quite badly. i go home to him, shaking. even sick he is a good housekeeper, who comes home examining for dust and dinge so i do not fall behind on my chores. who checks to be sure i spoke to only him and no one more, for fear a man might snatch me. tell me, who else has a man so involved, in this day and age?

the fourth week she is envy green. i shove a whole heaping of stew at her, for now her husband has gotten it. i say it will return him to spirits, she laughs, a sudden, beautiful sound, even in the quiet of a bank. everyone stares. maybe it is the stress that is making her quite improper. i feel the same way. so much is happening and it always seems she knows. she says she heard he has left me nothing in the will, which everyone already knows. she says she doubts either of us can dig upwards from the hole we’re both in. i look at the bruise on her nose. i tell her to mind her own husband, and be careful where she goes.

the fifth week: so final. her, garishly lime green. and i in black, to pick up a check that hardly seems the effort. it will be enough to cover my husband’s funeral. she smiles at me and hands me a silver bottle. she says quietly: now that i am destitute, there is one thing for it all, and everyone would understand quite completely. it would be quiet, and quick, and complete.

it is the night of the new moon, so dark no man can see in it. i receive notice her husband has died, and i am sorry to say i find a terrible joy in it. the air has changed cold. i have left a note asking to be buried in my scarf, the last thing i have made on this earth. i go through each perfect room, but there is nothing else to take with me, for the house has always been his and his alone, and now aches to be gone of him. i would not serve as a good tender for it. having spent so many nights watched carefully, the silly girlish freedom i’d gain would surely set the house ablaze.

i follow her instructions. quick, quiet, complete.

the horrible rustling is what does it. like a million green skirts. and then it is dark, and i am in my own coffin, eerie with pine. my head hurts but i must be quick and quiet. they have listened and buried me with my scarf. i shimmy my shoulders just-so and get it over my face. bring my arms up, ugly ring heavy, and begin to hit as hard as i can, over and over, the thin wood of my husband’s favorite furniture, the cretin. it would be pine, of course - he left me no money to be buried in any nicer recourse.

the wood splits so horribly, and then it is very hard to breathe, harder than under the covers, and i have to remind myself to be patient and continue to dig upwards, while my throat closes and my heart beats so loudly and the whole thing is so heavy it is a universe. the shifting of gravedirt is loud, and loud, and i feel i will be turned into a worm, and i fear everyone has forgotten about me, or i have gotten the timing wrong, or i will really die down here in the dirt and the cold

but then her hand, and my hand, and we are both digging towards each other, and she lifts me so easily from the ground like a plucked turnip and holds me against her, us both panting and muddied. we can only stay like this for so long, here in my pauper grave, and then we are both running to the old tree where we met, and unburying a second thing; my lovely box of shame, and men’s clothes, and all of my husband’s dwindling fortune i have slowly been squirrelling away.

my love and angel cynthia, who has black hair like a curtain and a mind so fast i sometimes am in frank awe at it, who is, even now and dirty and raw: even now the only sun in my life.

like this, i a man in an almost-dawn, and us cleaned by the river, and her smiling so widely, and only a faint bruise on her, and our pasts behind us in ugly garish colors. and her delicate hand and beautiful nose and when i finally get to kiss her it feels like green feels; my favorite color, all warm and nature and sunny grace and grass and lying awake so filled with love it makes you shake.

i hold her, and she holds me, and our future is a love like a dream unburied.

[inkskinned]

i. there's this video of a guy dancing on his tiptoes. i will begrudgingly admit the song is kind of catchy actually. i don't think it's the worst song i've ever heard. he seems passionate about it. but it is embarrassing, how he's dancing.

ii. you know where this story is going, unfortunately, and so do i.

iii. three weeks ago i had to drag half a dead rabbit out of my dog's mouth. i was just recently discussing how cruel things feel lately. that the way the world is shifting feels mean. three days ago, a random woman rolled down her window to snap at me because she missed her turn. this is now routine.

iv. 11 years ago in october, i made a post about how we shouldn't make fun of people for doing brave, vulnerable things. it has over 400k notes. people - at the time - seemed to generally agree with me. we have all felt shy and insecure when we share an intimate part of ourselves. we have heard someone at a concert say "that's fucking embarrassing" and said to ourselves - oh, this person is unsafe to be vulnerable in front of. we have said i can't act like that in public. we have left our art and passion in the dark. i think there will never be enough graveyard space for the art we have killed because what if others shame me for it.

v. the thing i was bullied for in high school was because i was a "predatory lesbian." a popular girl i'd literally never spoken to just decided she didn't like me and announced i was "stalking" her. to this day i have no idea what motivated this - i think i was just shy and poor and awkward and ugly. the perfect target. what they don't really ever show in movies is how quickly it moves, how suddenly strange people in the hallways are attacking you about it. they also don't show you that the bullies get this strange ... glee out of it. like, it's fun for them. it's enrichment. everyone else is in on the joke. suck it up, kid.

vi. so far, from what i have seen, creators that stand up for the musician all seem to have the same story: when i asked why we're bullying a random guy, people actually got mad that i asked. i've had similar things happen to me when i ask for us to be less comfortable with our anonymous cruelty. when an internet stranger says "be kind, it saves lives" - people find it funny to say fuck you i hope everyone kills themselves. pages and pages of people saying the same bullshit. sitting in their little caves, eating their own humor. it's just genuinely exhausting. the natural endpoint of "cringe culture" is that even kindness is cringe-worthy.

vii. loneliness is an epidemic. but where are you going to make your community? call your representative. go back to bed about it.

viii. due to how i was raised, i am always confused by cruelty. i understand the american isolationist belief "i can do whatever i want" - sure. but why wouldn't you want to be kind? i have lived too many bad things. i cannot be the epicenter of someone else's bad dream.

ix. it's just that if we were going to bully someone relentlessly, why is it never the healthcare CEOs. why isn't it the fascists. why isn't it, like, someone who you could at least argue "deserves" it. why is it always just some guy in socks singing a pretty mid song? or a person that doesn't look like you, just, like existing.

x. it's just that i think people enjoy doing it. they want to do it because they get some kind of masturbatory release from it - like a shrug or a splinter, they all seem to say the same thing - come on, it's funny.

xi. the world is sometimes beautiful, and sometimes you make something. the world is sometimes terrible, and you are worried they won't accept what your hands can wring. you open the instagram comments and they're still saying all sorts of shit to just - like - a normal guy. and some part of you thinks: if that was me. good lord. if that was me i'd -

xii. somewhere there is a graveyard. someone is already burying their hopes and dreams.

[inkskinned]

i'm a little afraid to go to pride this year. many of us are, a little. sitting around our tapas and video games, the silence that hangs over the discord server. it feels different, we say.

we're privileged. the community that came before us laid the groundwork so i could be raised in a different world, and i will never forget their sacrifices and dedication. they gave us this: a pride that feels like community and celebration and joy. i remember the first few times i went to a queer event - i'd been raised so catholic. feeling safe like that, for the first time... it saved my life. i go to pride to celebrate that feeling - my people, laughing. out in the sun, the way we couldn't have been even 25 years ago. that feeling: no wonder we call it "pride."

who am i to be afraid anyway. there are parts of the world where people are doing much better work than i am. but it's just: i felt at home there, you know? and this year feels different. we are waiting on the dam to break. last year, at boston pride, there was a whole gaggle of sign-holders shouting about jesus. you walk around them and try not to let it get to you.

this year, i'm going to DC's pride with my girlfriend. google sends me concerns about if it's safe to exist in trump's america, if World Pride is a bigass target on all of us. every article uses the words "safety concerns" many, many times. three days ago i witnessed a shooting.

even straight people keep telling me - people are weird lately. sometimes we blame it on Covid and sometimes we blame it on the full moon. but i do remember a time before this, right. it's not just that people are more comfortable being rude. it's this strange, outwards violence. a comfort in being cruel.

it's a big hole to fall down anyway. it's not like they're going to do anything to make pride safe, not really. i don't want a police presence as the solution. and what if this is just fearmongering! what if this is just to get us to stop attending our own events! what if everything is actually fine, and i'm just freaked out by the stated intentions of our president!

and what if i'm just listening to things that are being said. what if i'm weighing the shape and size of this america accurately.

my mother calls me. she's been getting the articles too. i assure her i'll be careful, but i put the phone down and stare at it. i'm going to go to pride. other people made it safe for me, it is my duty and my honor to show up for my community. the only thing we've ever had was each other. it was always an act of bravery. being ourselves is brave.

but i am afraid. i lay out my outfit and i kiss my girlfriend. i cut my nails and clean up my undercut. i hold her hand and hang the sunset flag. the sound of this america feels different. like a volcano trembling. i will love her and i will love being queer and i will sing over the noise of it.

but ... still. in the back of my mind. that feeling, like something terrible has been shifted. like somewhere in the night - they remembered we're different.

[inkskinned]

i must not let the fatigue get me i must not let the inertia take me i must not lie down, i must keep fighting. oh giles corey, patron saint of more weight, protect me as i walk forward, endlessly. so many days now i wake and the exhaustion presses her hands on my shoulders. she asks me what more can you do? and i close my eyes to her. i have given up so much already. i must not kiss her. she dances so beautifully. she makes this bed into a promise. i must not lie down, love. i must get up. i must keep fighting.

[inkskinned]

i love my therapist but i hate being in therapy. 10 minutes before my appointment, i'm in a meeting with my boss - we discuss my artistic choices; my boss recommends i artistically choose less. 10 minutes after therapy, i wash my hair and think about everything that was said, and then i have to switch it off, like a lamp, and go back to work again.

i was on a walk the other day and someone had the perfect combination of his cologne and whatever-else. it was almost exactly his scent. i fucking hate that. after all these years, i remember that? i tell my therapist - i feel like a fucking wolf. try telling a middle-aged blonde lady. oh i scented him on the air. i'm 30, and i'm having a panic attack over something that would be a plotline in the omegaverse.

what they don't tell you about mental illness is that if you are lucky enough to survive it into adulthood; it becomes a weird slice of your life. because you do, eventually, have to build a life. i realized in a panic somewhere around 22 - oh. i don't know what i'm fucking doing, because i always assumed i'd just go ahead and die. i didn't die, and i'm grateful for that, and i'm very happy about that choice. but it does mean that i am an adult in an apartment, living with my conditions side-by-side like. oh, that's my roommate, adhd. ignore the glass, bytheway, that's ocd.

so you pick your stupid life up by the scruff of the neck and you're, like glad for it (so much laughter and light and friends you would have never thought possible, when you were in the worst of it). but it feels so strange to be dancing around these odd little microcosms, these patchwork moments of your symptoms. if you have a panic attack at night, you still need to wake up and walk the dog in the morning. if your depression is making everything boring, well, you don't have any sick days left, and a job's not really supposed to be that exciting anyway. your ocd tears out each individual leg hair, and then, an hour later, you sigh, patch up the bloody bits, and go get dinner with friends. and the life is kitten-quiet, mewling and pathetic, but it's also like - it's yours, so you're fond of it.

and it's like - you're real. so you still enjoy pushing the shopping cart really fast and then riding on the back of it down an empty aisle. and you're not, like, so sick anymore that when you accidentally drop a mug you burst into tears (except for the days you do that. which are bad). and no, you're not allowed around certain items anymore. oops! but you've learned to be good about brushing your teeth most days of the week. and you sometimes in the middle of the day you have a little freak-out about how fucking unfair it all is, how fucking hard, how other people can just do this without having to fucking hurt the whole time. and then you sigh and force yourself to sit down and fucking journal about it so you can tell the nice middle-aged blonde woman yeah i had a hard day but i practiced grounding. you still sometimes want to burst out of your own skin, but you force yourself to eat kind-of healthy and to take your vitamins. you let yourself chop off all your hair in the sink in a dramatic poetry of control and relief - and you also have developed good hobbies that help you move your body more frequently. you feel helplessly behind, lost in the shuffle - but you also practice gratitude, taking stock of what you have garnered. because you're trying. even if you're never gonna be normal, you have something... close enough.

and the little kitten of your life, this mangy, starlit tigercub, this thing you expected to rot so young: in your arms, it turns itself over, belly-up. exposing this new soft part, all the organs and guts. like it's saying i trust you now. you won't give me up.

[inkskinned]

i have chronic pain. i am neurodivergent. i understand - deeply - the allure of a "quick fix" like AI. i also just grew up in a different time. we have been warned about this.

15 entire years ago i heard about this. in my forensics class in high school, we watched a documentary about how AI-based "crime solving" software was inevitably biased against people of color.

my teacher stressed that AI is like a book: when someone writes it, some part of the author will remain within the result. the internet existed but not as loudly at that point - we didn't know that AI would be able to teach itself off already-biased Reddit threads. i googled it: yes, this bias is still happening. yes, it's just as bad if not worse.

i can't actually stop you. if you wanna use ChatGPT to slide through your classes, that's on you. it's your money and it's your time. you will spend none of it thinking, you will learn nothing, and, in college, you will piss away hundreds of thousands of dollars. you will stand at the podium having done nothing, accomplished nothing. a cold and bitter pyrrhic victory.

i'm not even sure students actually read the essays or summaries or emails they have ChatGPT pump out. i think it just flows over them and they use the first answer they get. my brother teaches engineering - he recently got fifty-three copies of almost-the-exact-same lab reports. no one had even changed the wording.

and yes: AI itself (as a concept and practice) isn't always evil. there's AI that can help detect cancer, for example. and yet: when i ask my students if they'd be okay with a doctor that learned from AI, many of them balk. it is one thing if they don't read their engineering textbook or if they don't write the critical-thinking essay. it's another when it starts to affect them. they know it's wrong for AI to broad-spectrum deny insurance claims, but they swear their use of AI is different.

there's a strange desire to sort of divorce real-world AI malpractice over "personal use". for example, is it moral to use AI to write your cover letters? cover letters are essentially only templates, and besides: AI is going to be reading your job app, so isn't it kind of fair?

i recently found out that people use AI as a romantic or sexual partner. it seems like teenagers particularly enjoy this connection, and this is one of those "sticky" moments as a teacher. honestly - you can roast me for this - but if it was an actually-safe AI, i think teenagers exploring their sexuality with a fake partner is amazing. it prevents them from making permanent mistakes, it can teach them about their bodies and their desires, and it can help their confidence. but the problem is that it's not safe. there isn't a well-educated, sensitive AI specifically to help teens explore their hormones. it's just internet-fed cycle. who knows what they're learning. who knows what misinformation they're getting.

the most common pushback i get involves therapy. none of us have access to the therapist of our dreams - it's expensive, elusive, and involves an annoying amount of insurance claims. someone once asked me: are you going to be mad when AI saves someone's life?

therapists are not just trained on the book, they're trained on patient management and helping you see things you don't see yourself. part of it will involve discomfort. i don't know that AI is ever going to be able to analyze the words you feed it and answer with a mind towards the "whole person" writing those words. but also - if it keeps/kept you alive, i'm not a purist. i've done terrible things to myself when i was at rock bottom. in an emergency, we kind of forgive the seatbelt for leaving bruises. it's just that chat shouldn't be your only form of self-care and recovery.

and i worry that the influence chat has is expanding. more and more i see people use chat for the smallest, most easily-navigated situations. and i can't like, make you worry about that in your own life. i often think about how easy it was for social media to take over all my time - how i can't have a tiktok because i spend hours on it. i don't want that to happen with chat. i want to enjoy thinking. i want to enjoy writing. i want to be here. i've already really been struggling to put the phone down. this feels like another way to get you to pick the phone up.

the other day, i was frustrated by a book i was reading. it's far in the series and is about a character i resent. i googled if i had to read it, or if it was one of those "in between" books that don't actually affect the plot (you know, one of those ".5" books). someone said something that really stuck with me - theoretically you're reading this series for enjoyment, so while you don't actually have to read it, one would assume you want to read it.

i am watching a generation of people learn they don't have to read the thing in their hand. and it is kind of a strange sort of doom that comes over me: i read because it's genuinely fun. i learn because even though it's hard, it feels good. i try because it makes me happy to try. and i'm watching a generation of people all lay down and say: but i don't want to try.

[inkskinned]

just completed an important but relatively uncomplicated task that's been hanging over my head for 2 weeks straight. i have been having actual nightmares and anxiety over this, worrying i will never get it done. it took me all of 30 minutes and was lightly annoying but not terrible. the relief i feel is physically palpable, like a sword has been removed from my sternum. and yet! in the nature of the human spirit! i will learn nothing from this experience!

[inkskinned]

you're not quite an emergency, is the thing. you're just having a bad spell. so what if you can't ever really catch your breath. can't ever really feel at ease. a buzzing, terrible feeling.

but emergencies are loud, and passionate, and hit the floor. you are not a lion or a hurricane, you just live in a pretty okay apartment and your back hurts. you wake up and drag yourself out of bed and banish what if i was dead thoughts like cobwebs. you pick out your clothes and try to stay active. you apply for jobs on the internet.

the anxiety is a wave, and the depression is a spiral. the other stuff keeps things "colorful." you mitigate your symptoms and take your meds when you have them and you try to hang out with friends. you go home and your head is full of riverwater. no matter how much you sleep, you still stay tired. you journal and practice gratitude and build from the bottom upwards. and still, the haunting.

you're not a 911 call or a shriek. you're just staring up at the ceiling and feeling the house settle into your bones. you feel you are playacting as a wolf when you're only a sheep. not quite dry and not quite drowning.

over and over, you slog through the creek.

[inkskinned]

BELATED happy National Poetry Month!

“I Know Crips Live Here” by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

“Prayer for Werewolves” by Stephanie Burt

“Tin Busket” by Jenny George

“Give Ear to My Words (Psalm 5)” by Ernesto Cardenal

“Penelope / Odysseus” by Alex Peery Clark @two-bees-poetry

“Achilles / Patroclus” by LJ Moore

“First They Came for the Jews” by Pastor Niemöller

“Two-Headed Calf” by Laura Gilpin

“she asked me if i believed in god and i told her that when i was four i almost drowned in a public pool and in my panic mistook a stranger for my father.” by @inkskinned

“all this living is catching up to me” by @hauntedomens

“The Hymn of Patroclus” by Penelope L. P.

“The first lines of emails I’ve received while quarantining” by Jessica Salfia

“Song for Baby-O, Unborn” by Diane di Prima

“Question” by May Swenson

“Young People” by Richie Hofmann

“The Bronze Arms” by Richie Hofmann

“The Trans Agenda is to Keep My F*cking Friends Alive” by Sol Rios

“For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper” by Joseph Fasano

“The Boy Scout Pledge” by Michael Glatze

“How to Watch Your Brother Die” by Michael Lassell

“We Have Enough Dead Friends” by Lena Oleanderson @lena-oleanderson