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Lau

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i have a longing that's killing me.

mahmoud darwish, memory for forgetfulness

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[text ID: Poetry outlasts everything. It's a primeval spirit. It's probably the first speech. It comes with speech. It's what children do, when they play with their first words. And it comes from nowhere, and it always goes on. And there's no way to lose it, but people don't know how to find it. People think they don't know how to read it, and that they don't have any need for it. Maybe they don't have any need for it. I don't know. The world has poetry inside it anyway. end ID]

Alice Notley

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a whole bunch of gazan mutual aid projects and nonprofits. if the decision of which individual fundraiser to give to feels too daunting, or if you just want to help as many people as possible in one go, these are great initiatives to support.

care for gaza - focuses on providing food and essential supplies. donate here or here.

connecting humanity - securing internet access via donations of virtual sim cards (esims). if you can't afford a whole plan yourself, crips for esims is a communal pool that will use your donation to purchase and maintain esims

gaza soup kitchen - provides food, medical care, and classes for children. also has a gofundme

glia gaza medical support initiative - provides medical care through field clinics and tents at hospitals. donations can also be sent through their website.

ele elna elak - provides clean water, food, clothing, and shelter. they also have a gofundme

life for gaza - raising money for the gaza municipality to repair water and waste management infrastructure

taawon - partners with local civil organizations to provide food, water, medical care, shelter, and basic supplies

the sameer project - running various initiatives providing tents, medical care, and necessities. they have their own encampment project focused on sheltering families with children, sick and disabled members, or members in need of perinatal care

islamic relief worldwide's gaza emergency appeal - provides food, water, hygiene kits, medical supplies, and psychological support

baitulmaal - provides a variety of necessities, including food, water, shelter, and medical supplies

gaza mutual aid fund - distributes food, hygiene products, water, and other essential supplies, including financial support. run by @/el-shab-hussein's amazing friend Mona. updates can be found on her instagram.

hygiene kits for gaza - provides hygiene supplies including menstrual products, wipes, and toothbrushes/toothpaste

anera - provides a variety of necessities, including food, water, hygiene supplies, medicine, blankets and mattresses, and psychological care

palestine children's relief fund - provides supplies and support with a focus on children. also has an initiative for lebanon

dahnoun mutual aid - provides water, food, tents, baby supplies, financial support, and other necessities. updates can be found through their instagram

certainly this is not an exhaustive list, so please feel free to add on other projects or organizations that i didn't include. and as always, please take the time to donate if you can and share. it truly makes all the difference.

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The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when life and shame and sorrow occlude our own light from our view, but there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back. In our best moments, we are that person for another.

-James Baldwin

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"I still feel that poetry is not medicine — it's an X-ray. It helps you see the wound and understand it. We all feel alienated because of this continuous violence in the world. We feel alone, but we feel also together. So we resort to poetry as a possibility for survival. However, to say I survived is not so final as to say, for example, I'm alive. We wake up to find that the war survived with us."

Dunya Mikhail, Revisiting Iraq Through The Eyes Of An Exiled Poet

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Im gonna be so real can yall actually talk about ways we can support trans women in the UK instead of giving all the attention to fucking JKR. I already know that Harry Poter sucks, I wanna know how to actually HELP people. Something something you have to love the oppressed more than you hate the oppressor

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national poetry month, day 5

I’ll give you a body that won’t die I’ll give you a body that won’t die, god whispered in an ear, 643 AD, some year like that. In a cave or a hut nowhere— comma—middle of. And isn’t that deep down anyplace? said god. A body that wouldn’t or couldn’t. I mean, said god, you’ll die of course. But no dust to dust, never to rot. The saint turned such a thought, and turned it: not a harbor grateful for ships, not standing on deck as land comes into sight. Every gift is a curse, god shrugged. Or the reverse. They’ll keep digging you up. Amazement like a stain will spread. We walked by on the trail, figuring sparrow or finch—what is that trilling? There’ll be a cult, said god. Earth will heave up reason. —Marianne Boruch

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trying to return the sun by Heather Christle

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"To Be Asked for a Kiss"

Jericho Brown, "To Be Asked for a Kiss"

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LAST WEEK IN NOVEMBER

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holdfast by Robin Beth Schaer

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if you're feeling powerless right now—and god knows I am—here's a reminder you can donate to the National Network of Abortion Funds, the Trans Law Center, Gaza Soup Kitchen, the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, and hundreds of other charities that will work to mitigate the damage that has been and will continue to be inflicted

life continues. we still have the capacity to do good, important work. that matters

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[text ID: How Some of It Happened

My brother was afraid, his whole life, of going blind, so deeply / that he would turn the dinner knives away from looking at him // he said, as they lay on the kitchen table. / He would throw a sweatshirt over those knobs that lock the car door // from the inside, and, once, he dismantled a chandelier in the middle / of the night when everyone was sleeping. // We found the pile of sharp and shining crystals in the upstairs hall. / So you understand, it was terrible // when they clamped his one eye open and put a needle in through his cheek / and held it there for a full moment before they drew it slowly out, // once a week for many weeks. He learned to lean into it, / to settle down he said, and still the eye closed, ulcerated, / breaking up green in his head the other eye, still blue // and wide open, looked and looked at the clock. // After our father died, my brother promised me he wouldn't. He shook / my hand on a train going home one Christmas and gave me five years, // as clearly as he promised he'd be home for breakfast when I watched him / walk into that New York City autumn night. By nine, I promise // and he was, he did come back. And five years later he gave me five years more. / So much for the brave pride of premonition, // the worry that won't let it happen. / You know, he said, I always knew I would die young. And then I got sober, // and I thought, ok, I'm not. I'm going to see thirty and live to be an old man. / And now it turns out that I am going to die. // Isn't that funny? / One day it happens: what you have feared all your life, // the unendurably specific, the exact thing. No matter what you say or do. / This is what my brother said: Here, sit closer to the bed / so I can see you.

end ID]

Marie Howe, How Some of It Happened

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11 + 17 for the writing ask game :]?

(11) is there is anything intangible or inanimate in [project] which qualifies as a character in its own right? (ex: a specific theme, setting, etc)

yes!!!!!! the city the main cast belongs to, both in the sense that L is literally the city embodied and personified and in the sense that as-a-setting it plays a tangible enough role to qualify. the city is the focal point of the WIP.

(17) do you have a specific structure or method of plotting for [project]? what does your drafting process look like?

um. haha imagine plotting. no really imagine it. a lot of this wip lives in disconnected documents and on paper, it's very messy and has been rooted in my head since 2021 and the premise adapts constantly. there are constants in the character dynamics (-> counting the city, there) but few others.

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18 and 19 for the ask game 🌻💛🌟

writing ask game

hiii laulau ty for the ask

(18) pick 1-5 songs which you believe define either [project] or [character (relationship)] and elaborate on why with attached lyric selections. (optionally: link a playlist)

this was so hard to pick but no place because what is this wip about if not complicated relationships with your home and city; i just threw out the love of my dreams because it's one of the S songs of all time (and integral to this wip is still and always the concept of. loyalties larger than personal, smaller loves, and being ultimately so tangled and hurt about it), doing better because it's an S/M song in the same way that this is, angels for being an S/T song (semi-platonically married partners whose vibes are mainly 1. weird devotion and weird power dynamics 2. trusting only each other ever); carry that weight because it should be illegal that i don't have an amv of S set to that song Right Now

shoutout to speak now by taylor swift btw. will not be elaborating on that statement. anyway have a 13 hour playlist— any complex personal emotions are for S, the hashtag girlboss songs are for both M and T because they are the same character in different fonts, the breakup songs are for S/M and the vengeance/vendetta/etc songs are for M, anything resembling normal love songs implying happy endings are for S/T

(19) what text/message have you sent about [project] which is most unhinged or incomprehensible out of context?

important further note that i call this project hatefuckingwip in my head (-> significant to me, but S is not having sex with either M or T this entire project.)

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writing ask game

🌻 — prompts

(1) share an excerpt you're proud of, and elaborate on why.

(2) share an excerpt of [character pairing] interacting, either selected from the work or written now.

(3) pick a branching universe you would enjoy writing from the canon of [project]— a character makes a different choice, the dice roll a different number, etc. describe what it would look like and/or write 100+ words in this universe.

(4) pick an alternate setting you would want to put either the main cast of your work or [specific characters] in— zombie apocalypse, medieval fantasy, regency era, office hijinks, etc. describe what it would look like and/or write 100+ words in this universe.

(5) describe what [project] would look like if it were bad. (alternatively: list out what hypothetical horrible interpretations of the work would look like. fake socmedia discourse emulator optional but encouraged.)

(6) describe the premise/plot of [project] from the perspective of each main cast member.

(7) if you were writing an individual project based on each main cast member in [project], what would they look like? what genre would each main cast member do best in?

🌺 — questions

(8) what are your favorite character dynamics from [project]? elaborate on why. what scenarios not followed through with in-story would you want to put each dynamic in most? (ex: truthserum-ed and locked in a room; roadtripping; coffeeshop au; etc)

(9) who are your favorite characters from [project]? what do you want most from them as characters: to have them heal and be content/happy, or to run them under a cheese grater? how does this compare to what they undergo in the story?

(10) which characters do you personally dislike most from [project]? elaborate on why, bonus points for how impassioned your answer is.

(11) is there is anything intangible or inanimate in [project] which qualifies as a character in its own right? (ex: a specific theme, setting, etc)

(12) which scene/plot beat is your favorite? elaborate on why.

(13) which aspects of worldbuilding are your favorites? (if not applicable: which parts of the setting interest you most?)

(14) what are the focal points of [project]? what does it revolve around emotionally?

(15) in what ways are you challenging yourself with [project], and is there anything specific you want to come out of the work having improved skills in? on the other hand, which aspects are fully in your comfort zone?

(16) what sparked [project]? what was the original premise or jumping-off point, and do you have any records of the first notes from its creation?

(17) do you have a specific structure or method of plotting for [project]? what does your drafting process look like?

(18) pick 1-5 songs which you believe define either [project] or [character (relationship)] and elaborate on why with attached lyric selections. (optionally: link a playlist)

(19) what text/message have you sent about [project] which is most unhinged or incomprehensible out of context?

(20) do you think there's anything about [project] which is predictable from your previous works/interests, or to anyone who knows you well enough? if the work was written by someone else, what would a recommendation designed to personally bait you look like?