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NEKO NO ONGAESHI / THE CAT RETURNS (2002), dir Hiroyuki Morita

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From My Father Once Told Me, Ben Konkol.

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Dandelions

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how fun!

this is jacks :>

Here's a fun idea: make your own Pawn!

What's a Pawn? Little guys I made up for my fantasy world-building project SeQuester. They're puppets powered by spirit-bound weapons.

How to make one: -Metal head -Puppet body -Spirit-bound weapon (doesn't have to be a sword) -Big cloak (optional) -Have fun!

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🦆💦💦💦

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⭒ ⋆ 🌻 yellow blinkies ⋆ฺ࿐🌼⁎˚

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jonny bolduc, “gut” 2015

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cat houses

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One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores, peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies. One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors, each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day: pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights, fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper— bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us, on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives— to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through, the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day: equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined, the “I have a dream” we keep dreaming, or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain the empty desks of twenty children marked absent today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light breathing color into stained glass windows, life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth onto the steps of our museums and park benches as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands as worn as my father’s cutting sugarcane so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains mingled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear it through the day’s gorgeous din of honking cabs, buses launching down avenues, the symphony of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways, the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling, or whispers across café tables, Hear: the doors we open for each other all day, saying: hello / shalom, buon giorno / howdy / namaste / or buenos días in the language my mother taught me—in every language spoken into one wind carrying our lives without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands: weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report for the boss on time, stitching another wound or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait, or the last floor on the Freedom Tower jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes tired from work: some days guessing at the weather of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother who knew how to give, or forgiving a father who couldn’t give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home, always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop and every window, of one country—all of us— facing the stars hope—a new constellation waiting for us to map it, waiting for us to name it—together

Richard Blanco

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Had an uncharacteristic moment of bravery this week and it led me stumbling into a bit of closure I hadn’t realized I needed.

The relief that flooded in...I’ve never felt anything like it. Not the biggest in breadth or impact, I have known greater waves, but how deep it went! Old, forgotten crevasses of the heart full of little parched corals. An ache I did not know was down there until the water came rushing in. A small thing, maybe, in the grand scheme of me, but with so much built up on top of it. Little mend in the foundation, a little more solid on my feet.

But we’ve dragged the spotlight down here, too, now haven’t we? Other small sorrows and disappointments I keep telling myself that I’m over, laid bare in the light.

The friend who ghosted you; the other who made unwanted passes ; the one who didn’t invite you to his wedding:

“I should have seen this coming, how could I be so stupid?” ; “Do I ever tell Denis?” ; “Have I ever once truly mattered to you?”

Thing is: You don’t believe in mediums anyway. The friendship is dead, let the ghost be.

And: It’s over, nothing bad happened. Nothing worth adding to his plate, anyway.

And: You will not add a single ounce more of sorrow to their life. You will not.

So – what now? How to make peace all on my own? Accept that this is ultimately a him thing? Trust that the day will come where I can be open about what happened? Allow this bitter note to be the swan song of your 20’s, focus on building something better in the next decade?

It’s all rather easier said than done.

My wounded pride wants me to thrive, and for him to see it. I want to be better, bigger and triumphant. They say the best revenge is living well—but is that not just another way of wanting him? Have we not merely Indiana Jones’d his friendship for his regret as the object of our longing? More flowers for a ghost that will not haunt us? Sure, these ones have thorns, but that was hardly the problem, now was it?

It kills you for him to not know. Something burns in your stomach and you can’t tell who it’s burning for. Is this just a need to feel seen or are you worried it’s wrong to keep secrets like these at this point? Or are you just mad that this guy is getting off scott free for being a creep?

What even is this relationship anymore? You were important to them, once. At least we sure thought so. Then again, looking back, maybe you were always just a good second fiddle. How many times did they call you some variation of “sidekick,” after all? Is that why it feels like a betrayal, living well? That revenge I was talking about, only I never meant to serve them a plate. Somewhere on the way we got our cues turned around, my every step upstage an act of treason, catwalk casting a funny light on our friendship.

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the lantern merchant's beloved

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S c e n e r y ✧ Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon ep 41