#Creative Nonfiction

[melsdreamweaving]

In a world where dreams were once of homes,

Jobs were paid in rent,

Not loans.

No more the promise of a place to call your own,

Instead...

You live with family,

And it’s all you've known.

A shift so quiet,

Yet loud and clear,

Where owning land was once so dear.

But now,

With rents that climb so high,

The dream of owning starts to die.

Work you do,

Hours you spend,

No longer enough to meet the end.

So you return to familiar faces,

Find comfort in shared,

Smaller spaces.

The world we knew,

Now turned around,

Where house-buying jobs no longer abound.

Rent-paying jobs,

Then living with kin,

As the struggle for a home begins again.

-"The Shifting Dream"

[rissareee]

the vibes of my substack in memes … you’re welcome <3

[rain-rainynights-side]

everywhere i look, the world is fading into black and white as dystopian ideals become my reality. i knew i'd be a fool to believe a utopia is possible in a world that basks in blood and gore and glory. but i used to think things could only get better and history wouldn't repeat itself. it turns out i was a bigger fool than i thought

[cachien]

When I went to the Getty Villa in LA, I had a moment of such profound connection to the artifacts that it rekindled my love of archaeology. It was one of those moments I knew and understood why it's so important to dig up dead people's garbage.

The Getty Villa had a huge Mesopotamian exhibit with absolutely incredible artifacts. Gargantuan Cuneiform tablets, intricate coffins, incredible statues. I marveled at all of it, recalling all my ancient world history courses from college, soaking in every descriptive sign like a sponge.

And then I reached a display case of gold bangles and dangly earrings.

And I started crying. I'm still crying now thinking back on it and it's been almost three years.

I barely even read the sign; I was so caught up in the jewelry. I could see it in my head. I could see the women sitting around a table, their bangles clanking. I could see a husband walking through his front door and presenting his wife with a gorgeous pair of earrings. I could see her showing them off later to her girlfriends, humble-bragging about how sweet and affectionate her husband was. I could see little girls trying on their mother's jewelry, boys sliding the bangles to hang loose on their arms.

All the artifacts before that point were for the rich, and I knew that. High-society literature and the burial norms of the priests in their high temples and the kings upon their thrones. But jewelry- jewelry was universal. From the wives of the highest ranking men to the daughters of the poorest, jewelry could have belonged to any of them. Passed down through generations, peddled on the streets, purchased through labor and barter if not coins, gifted and polished and worn till it lost all gleam.

And it was like suddenly these were no longer artifacts in a museum. I wasn't standing in a crowded Los Angeles museum hall. I was tracing the contours of someone's favorite bracelet, of earrings that once belonged to someone long forgotten. I could feel these women reaching forward through time, their sun-browned hands missing the weight of their bracelets, their laughter echoing in my ears, the light in their eyes shining in my mind. I ached for them. I was them.

It was the most profoundly human moment I've ever had in a museum. The depth of connection by having this everyday, perfectly ordinary group of items in among the boons of kings and emperors is what I look back on the most about that day, what I remember when people ask why archaeology matters.

I don't really know what my point is to this, but it felt important to share. I hope everyone who frequents museums and libraries and academia someday finds that item that offers connection to people who lived 7,000 years before and 7,000 miles away. In the clink of a bangle, we are the same.

[the-jackalope-coffee-co]

hey everyone, I'm developing a possible thesis based around the birth and success of My Chemical Romance. I would appreciate if you could reblog this, fill out some answers, and help me develop this project. My inbox is open if there's anything you want to expand on, or if there's questions you think should be involved in part two.

Thank you!!

[liondrakes]

What is a guardian without divinity? Fallen, cast out, able to fly yet can no longer ascend. What is there for him to guard when he is bound to earth and sky, not the planes which he once knew?

He slithers through bustling streets. He quickly studies each stranger who, unbeknownst to them, brush past his charred wings. He neither pities nor envies them. Rather, he admires the walks of life he encounters. Every plant, every insect, every man, all worth second after second of his attention. He watches their behaviors, learns their stories, and oversees civilization as it stands.

People become his purpose. Whether it is his love for them, or for the complexities of the earth, he knows now that divinity was never needed. He is grateful for not only sensing but forging bonds with the people below. To see their world, to hear their music, to taste their delicacies, to hug a friend or kiss a lover, all worth the pain of banishment.

Guardianship doesn’t end at the fall.

It is only the beginning.

[longreads]

Sticking the Landing: On Kickers

In our excerpt of episode 430 of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, host Brendan O’Meara talks to author Louisa Thomas about kickers and entry points into stories. 

Sometimes it’s more like I have an idea, and I need to think about, well, what’s the lede? And that becomes the way into it, and then how does it develop? I don’t write an outline. I usually write a few notes. I have a document full of research or ideas or thoughts or interviews if I’ve done interviews, and then I just start writing.

For a profile, I block it out a little bit more. I still don’t have an outline, but I have beats I want to hit, and a general sense of structure. What’s sort of unusual is that I do a lot of the planning and even pre-writing in my head.

Read the full excerpt.

[be-listen-we-are-in-loud]

I Hope My Little Sister Doesn't Remember Me

An Excerpt from an up-and-coming anthology "Intimacy in Institutions: Stories of Autonomy, Connection, and Rebellion"

CW: ableism, institutionalization, seclusion

---

. . .

---

Her name was Kylie, and she was five years old. Her favorite color was probably pink, but it could just as easily have been green. She liked glitter glue and playing foosball on the hard cement outside and scribbling with markers way beyond the lines in every coloring book on the ward. She ate new foods with a pinched expression like she expected the staff to feed her old socks, and she cheered like they'd just said she got to go home for real every time the kitchen served her favorites. She was the sweetest five-year-old I'd ever met, and she reminded me of myself every time I saw her squeal giddily and bounce back and forth on her toes. She reminded me of myself every time I listened to her scream herself hoarse in seclusion, too.

The thing about seclusion is that it's supposed to be a last resort. This is news to me, and it definitely would have been news to Kylie, since seclusion more or less became the staff's go-to timeout spot for Kylie, probably because of how much she fucking hated it in there. This institution had one of the better seclusion rooms. It was bigger than most and the floors and walls were actually a little bit padded, but it was still just a big closet they liked to lock misbehaving children inside.

Kylie was locked in seclusion a lot. Even though I was barely thirteen at the time, I remember thinking that the staff were cruel for doing things the way they did. Even the nice staff, even the staff I liked, always seemed to screw up when it came to Kylie.

From what I could tell, Kylie was actually a pretty easy case. She was five years old, rocked on her heels, had anger issues related to loud noises, bright lights, and sudden shifts in routines, and she did what she was told nearly all of the time. There was only one rule the staff were supposed to follow to support Kylie and--despite the fact that telling her five minutes before an activity changed that the activity was going to change seems pretty simple--there were zero rules the staff actually followed to support Kylie.

I tried to get involved sometimes, to calm Kylie down before she could be dragged kicking and screaming into seclusion. I felt like I was taking the role of big sister, sorting out the problems before the rest of our terrifying family could descend on her like a pack of angry wolves. It didn't work, didn't keep them from prying her fingers off the legs of the foosball table and lifting her into the air, dragging her inside the seclusion room and slamming the door behind her.

"Don't get involved," a staff member with a kind face said to me after, "It's not your job, and we're trained in de-escalation."

I remember thinking that if that was the work of someone trained in de-escalation, I was terrified to find out what happened to five-year-old girls who stomped their feet and said, "No, I don't wanna go inside!" in the real world.

Kylie spent her sixth birthday in the institution. She was supposed to go on a home visit, but too many visits to seclusion dropped her levels--the staff's favorite game to play with us--to low for her to leave. She spent a few hours with her parents in a side room, probably just the same as I had spent and would go on to spend my thirteenth and fourteenth birthdays respectively inside of the acute ward at that same institution. Her parents brought in special birthday food and played games with her until their time was up and they had to go home without her.

There were three, maybe four of us, in the institution then. In an effort to distract her, the staff let us sit around the television and watch her favorite Studio Ghibli film. I can still remember the way she'd excitedly cry, over and over, "Haku! Haku! Haku!" every time the dragon's face appeared on screen. The way the word spilled out in an excited mess and the way her eyes seemed to sparkle were dug deeper into my memory each and every time I've thought of her for the last seven years.

At the time of writing this, Kylie should be about fourteen years old. She's the same age as my younger brother, something I probably realized at the time but forgot quickly. It's only now that I'm doing the math again that I realize she'll be starting her first year of high school soon, or finishing the last year of middle school, assuming she's not a part of the statistic that says youths who are discharged from an institution face a suicide rate that is "more than 30 times the general population rate for as long as 5 to 10 years thereafter." (Fontanella et al, 2020)

Assuming the best of things, Kylie's a teenager now, with hobbies and interests and hopefully a halfway decent support network. She's probably got a favorite subject in school, and passions she dives into intensely. She's probably got a handful of close friends and a dozen acquaintances, and her time in the institution is probably as distant of a memory as her baby blanket.

Probably.

Hopefully.

I wonder if she's seen Spirited Away again since that day. I wonder if it triggered something in her brain when she did, if she remembered cheering for Haku on her birthday with tear tracks still drying on her face as she sat on a couch only a few yards away from the padded room. I wonder if she remembers the staff who failed her again and again and again. I wonder if she remembers the coloring books and the glitter glue and the foosball table. I wonder if she remembers the girl who tried desperately to be her big sister when no one else would.

More than anything, though, I wonder if she remembers seclusion. For her sake, I hope she doesn't.

---

. . .

---

Citation:

Fontanella CA, Warner LA, Steelesmith DL, Brock G, Bridge JA, Campo JV. Association of Timely Outpatient Mental Health Services for Youths After Psychiatric Hospitalization With Risk of Death by Suicide. JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3(8):e2012887. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.12887

[rissareee]

hi people in my phone!!! i wrote about procrastination and abandonment and a really good movie!

it’s been a while since the writing bug has hit this hard and i’m really excited so share some of the things i’ve been working on in the past few weeks!

please check it out & maybe subscribe (it’s free 🫨)

[garlandedspirits]

love it when I read 18th century chinese collections about the supernatural and the author just slaps some of the most timeless and profound sentences ever written in my face

[rain-rainynights-side]

reasons why i miss you

there was something in me, from the beginning, that told me i could trust you

when i dared to open up and let you in, you jumped right in

you could talk on and on about nothing in particular

you made me feel like i mattered, even when everything in my head told me otherwise

you saw me and stayed with me whenever the nightfall would cascade

you were boisterous yet grounded

that we, for whatever reason, just clicked

you taught me the importance of taking care of yourself

i can still repeat your self-care reminders to this day

in the rare times you were down, i was there for you, and you made sure to tell me you appreciated it

you always gave the warmest hugs

you are one of the only people i feel truly safe with

how you could get me to smile with just you being there

how easy it was for me to feel like i could be myself around you

even with months apart, it would feel like nothing changed whenever we saw each other

despite having your number in my phone, you are far from me

and i don’t know when, or if, we’ll talk again

when i thought we were going to make it to forever

that our friendship was the closest i felt to a golden love

and i don’t know if, or when, i’ll feel that kind of love again

[peachcitt]

we're sitting under the stars on my best friend's balcony,

and everyone but us have gone in for the night. I've just told you, hazy and drunk, that my astrology app feeds me bullshit every day, and sometimes I'm weak enough to believe it. But most of the time it's bullshit.

I don't know why I told you - to you, the stars are lifeblood, or at least a personality gauge based on spinning planets and hair size. "Leos are known for their big hair," you'd said, maybe only a few hours prior. I can't remember why I chose that bone to pick - I think I've reached a barrel-scraping desperation where I feel the need to assert, over and over again, that 'I defy you, stars!' even though it would be much easier to say that mercury in retrograde may be causing my acute depression.

You pull up your astrology app. We're friends on there, and I think I remember checking our compatibility and feeling drawn to the sex & love section, but that would be ridiculous. There's something in the bullshit my astrology app fed to me that I read out loud in drunken amusement that resonated with who I am in your eyes, sitting in front of you under the stars. Your app tells you that you might experience a big change when the sun comes up, that you'll have to reach for it with both hands, and I see your eyes flick over to me.

There's a defense mechanism that locks in, underneath my skin, that acts as a human deterrent. I look at my best friend and there is something primal and soft that begs to lean my body against her and touch her with a casual intimate care. But when she laced her fingers with mine, pushing up against my stiff palm like digging through stone, I had to look away. She knelt down by her puppy and took my hand in hers, pressing my knuckles to her forehead to show her puppy that I am safe, that I can be trusted, but the little creature watched me like a sentinel behind my best friend's back, wary and right.

I think I told you it might be bullshit; I can only remember myself contrary in the string lights. You insisted that it could be true. "What if everything changes," you said, "what if it's right and today" - we were far past midnight - "and today the-"

"The world ends?" I finished for you.

I don't think that's what you wanted to hear, the careless laughing way I said it. I stared at the back of my best friend's house today, hours after you left, and I thought about fate. I bent over backwards and stared up at the stars, framed by the staircase up to the porch we sat. The world didn't end, nor did it change substantially, and I'll admit I didn't want either. I want to stay the same forever, but the goddamn stars keep moving.

I've played this game before, and I've been the one to lose every time. I'd like to say I'm a good sport, but there's only so many hits you can take before it starts getting personal, and I'm afraid my jagged edges are sharpening in preparation. I can't let you be another meteorite I strain every muscle to push to the top of the hill only to fall back in the same bloody crater. You have to understand; where you see fate in the stars, glinting just for you, all I can see is apocalypse.

(28 August 2023, 3:26 am)

[pairedaeza]

I came to associate Berlin with a particular shade of pink: fuchsia sunsets, the ripple of cherry through white ice cream. Spring in the city was coloured with flirtation, like bubble gum or confetti. Clouds of blossoms covered the trees.

Jessica J. Lee, from Dispersals: On Plants, Borders and Belonging

[asyawrites]

I live in the bathroom.

Yes, where the tiles crack and water is held.

That one.

My bathroom is a small rectangle, enough to fit all five of my bodies if they were cloned. The floor is blue and so are the walls. The ceiling is white.

In the upper right corner sits a tub, which holds the water, but you don't go in it. Beside it is the toilet seat. And further to its right is a rack for all the things that belong there: toothbrushes, toothpaste, sanitary pads, more sanitary pads, plastic bags for the pads after use, empty bottles of shampoo and soap which we oddly kept untouched, and a bunch of other questionable trash our eyes gloss over.

The door, wood on one side and an iron cover on the other, creaked like it belonged in a horror movie where the main character stupidly buys the haunted house anyway—despite all the signs.

Doesn't sound pretty, but I'm used to it. In fact, the bathroom is probably the space I'm most familiar with. Every little detail sticks in my head like a parasite.

And although tight and nevertheless unrecommended, it's my favorite room.

Because outside is a whole orchestra.

Violins and flutes talk harmoniously while the piano goes in between. Cellos try to converse with the trombones. The harp plays by itself while secretly attracting everyone's ears. And last but not least, the others who come once in a while to announce their presence. Even if you run miles away from them, you'd feel like you've been doing it on the treadmill—making it in vain.

They're loud.

They're everywhere.

Everywhere but the bathroom.

Inside is a liminal space—where only my thoughts and I reside. No distractions, no commands, no questions, and definitely no noise. The only company, which I think is the most tolerable, is the water. Trust me, there's no better listener than this element, especially when you've been used in that role. All. The. Time.

It doesn't shout or ask a bazillion questions, nor does it push you to answer. It understands my role—and replaced it with its own.

Maybe it's selfish to think this way.

Maybe it never wanted the role to begin with.

But ironically: like the water, we can't complain.

In the bathroom, time stops. My only connection to it is through my hands—by abusing the element. I'd stroke its surface with my fingers and plunge them deep over and over again, until the tips age on their own, leaving the rest of me frozen.

The more I ponder my very existence in that place, the more I realized that I'm capable of ruin: without the shame, without the guilt, and with no one to judge but my own reflection.

So while the world outside continues to stir in its own endless melody, I let myself be captured by the four walls. Each side familiar, each side knows me. And knowing that when the sky collapses, mine won't even move.

So yes, I live in the bathroom.

There's no other way to say it. I just am. Maybe you are too... maybe.