#araceli cage

[devilzukin7]

I... 😳 uhm...

Art by Nach880 ♥

Characters:

Johnny Cage (Mortal Kombat)

Araceli Cage (my OC)

Mortal Kombat (c) Netherrealm Studios / WB / Midway before

[ionlypostmymeemocs]

Oh okay...

My friends...

May I name my plants in Window Garden after you guys cause I think you all are cool?

This is so weird isn't it....?

@r4mz0 @night-ambit @f3rrii @porkchopseven @wormdumpster @moderndaymadscientist @lavrusha @6-pinkorganz-9 @noko444 @joking-hazard @inkytrinket-irii @prostopolinahehe @damientheartist @unearthlore @lillypuppetchild @yourubersawcrit @slovo-kvnnt @pyro-thon @valenli @literally-a-waffle-fry @cage-cat-yt @hithisartexists @angelwithakritzkrieg @tele-arac-angelist @randomthingsthatidointhedaytime

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

The word "carceral" comes from two Middle English words carcer and arace, meaning "cage" or "prison."

[tamiveldura]

World: An Act Of Piracy, at some point near the start of book 3. Books 1 and 2 are... Well the series page is here- but it looks like I don't have book one up on my own store?? So obviously I'll fix that on Monday. Sheesh. I'm a real author, I swear. (Blood In The Water is available on all ebook stores ((except mine apparently)) and Ruin & Will is book 2, also everywhere)

Spoilers for books 1 and 2, which isn't fair to anyone, I'm know, I'm sorry. I haven't written book 3 yet, so having a scene come to me like this is great. It'll be here if you want to go read the others first.

Warnings: minor blood, blood fixation, possession (sort of?)

Paging: @flashfictionfridayofficial

Araceli flew down the steps of her pirate ship, her coat billowing behind her like a cape in her haste. Her booted feet were sure on the polished wood and she glided one gloved hand down the rail, her eyes already skipping through the hammocks and belongings of her crew to find the one individual she sought.

With the ship in port, most of the crew were ashore, their time spent spending their ill-gotten gains in every tavern and shop willing to take coin from a black person and former slave. The few remaining were the last to have papers written up declaring their freedom and would likely be ashore by morning themselves.

Which left the crewdeck sparsely populated with only Talita, Saana, and a few other women clustered together over their sewing when Araceli descended upon them in a rush.

"Talita," Araceli announced with all the force in her deep voice. "I'm in love."

The proclamation made every single woman sit upright and stare. Araceli wasn't a woman that fell in love. She was a hardened pirate. A black, heavyset woman who had killed men and would kill men again. She sailed with ex-slaves and their ship was one of three in a fleet alongside two other captains with reputations as terrible as her own.

Araceli was, in short, panicking.

Talita blinked at her. The woman sat with a drape of leather over her knees and both hands full of needle and thread. Saana had a mouthful of stripped lace she was yanking out of a pair of breeches. Two additional women, Daian and Lenna, Araceli didn't know well, and her declaration had stuttered their conversation to an alarmed halt.

Araceli put one hand on the hilt of her knife at her belt and squeezed like that would help stabilize her.

Her heart was racing, and not from the run back here to the boat. It fluttered in her chest like a trapped locust, bouncing around the cage of her ribs and trying to chew through the tendons. She felt clammy and her palms were damp. It was hard to swallow. She kept gulping her air and couldn't seem to calm down enough to take a full breath.

She had taken one look at the governor's daughter as she descended the marble stairs of her plantation home, her green and ivory dress trailing down her arms, the delicate slippers on her feet, the smile on her broad lips, and all thoughts in Araceli's brain had simply ceased to be.

The flash of that memory now left Araceli lightheaded. She was going to pass out.

Talita cursed softly. A sharp tang of blood in the air whipped Araceli's head around without her permission. Something moved under her skin that wasn't a fluttering heart. She breathed deep and sure through her nose, saturating that coppery smell across the back of her tongue.

Talita stuck her finger in her mouth and sucked on the pinprick. With an apologetic glance she stabbed the needle into a pin cushion seated on the barrel next to her.

Deep inside Araceli's body, suffused inside her blood like a possessing demon, Gahlil sniffed at the air and purred with pleasure.

Araceli wrenched her eyes away from Talita's finger and stared at the wooden beams that made up the backing of the floor of her top deck. She analyzed the overlapping planks and scrutinized their nail pattern. Anything to keep her mind off the subject of-and therefore Ghalil's attention away from-the blood.

The spirit was not interested in shipwright nail patterns and since Araceli wasn't elbow-deep in a knife fight, she found it easier than usual to resist Ghalil's desires.

The movement under her skin settled. She let her eyes come back down.

Both Daian and Lenna had moved from their seats to stand subtly behind Talita and Saana. Saana had taken a step forward, her lacing and work left behind on the shared barrel acting as a table top. Her hands were open and she reached vaguely toward Araceli, as if she was ready to tackle her. Araceli felt a stab of pride in her Quartermaster. Talita remained in place, pressing her thumb to the pricked finger.

Araceli cleared her throat. "Not quite the solution I was looking for, but effective. I'm not in any position to be wooing someone." She took a cleansing breath and blew it out hard. Her heart was already breaking. "Thank you for the reminder."

She turned on her heel.

Talita called after her but Araceli didn't look back.

[dishtothedeath]

Don't you run and hide from the truth, you decide // Fergus // Trial 4.7 // ATTN: Sunny

Fergus has been driven to a corner, well and truly. No matter what, he can’t back his way out of it anymore. Either his back hits the wall or he will run into open flames, it no longer matters matters what he does.  His chest feels like a cage with a live animal inside it, and it's clawing, terrified of the heat that encroaches, begging for Fergus to open his mouth and let it escape.

But he can’t.

He didn’t escape in time and now that chance has passed him by.

“The reason I’m confessin’ is because none of that matters anymore, we aren’t getting the fuck outta here! The plan failed! I didn't want to go through with that no more! As soon as it was Alfie who took that drink, it – it wasn’t supposed to go like that! It shouldn’t have! It’s – it’s unfair – it wasn’t supposed to – I didn’t even–!

He looks incredulous, and then just plain angry, and his teeth are bare in a snarl, one most of all aimed at Sunny and Charybdis, but also answering Riley.

“Fuckin’ – who would I have escaped with?! What sorta god damn quiz is this?! Just –”

But there’s only so long a dog can lash out at everyone.

It’s now two votes for Araceli and two for himself.

Fergus seems to lose all steam at the realisation and bows his head, like waiting for the executioner’s axe to fall.

“...” “... I was hopin’ I could’ve given my spot to Masaji. Get Masaji and Araceli out. It – it never said anythin’ about dead bein’ excluded, so I was hopin’ that… maybe… I wouldn’t be able to choose between them. So better to take myself outta the equation. It was a gamble from the start if I could pick two people to leave instead of myself, but, well... It didn't pay off anyways, so that hardly matters anymore.”

He finally looks up, and he looks at Sunny dead straight in the eye, not allowing for the younger man to escape his stare.

“... Sunny.”

“Please just vote for me. I know ye hate me, so, just, fuck it, ye know.” “I’ll do whatever ye want me to.”

His expression is serious, but also frightened. This is a man pleading not for his life, but the life of others.

[shirtoid]

Bloody Bunch by arace

[luthienne]

Hello!!! I just found your blog and I love it so much!!! I love that you have such a wonderful library of poetry and literature 💕 poetry is the best way to connect our heart into concrete terms and can help us through the worst of it all. I love the whole feel of your blog!! You are a gift 💕 I’ve seen a few people ask for some poems, and if I may, I’d like to request for a few from your vast collection on how love never really dies. I recently went through a really peaceful break up and I’ve been trying to cope with that fact that I’m not angry at him and that I’m never not going to love him. I need some poetry for my aching heart. Thank you if you are able to, love! I hope you have a lovely day 💕

— John Berger, Will it be a Likeness? from The Shape of a Pocket

— John Cage to Merce Cunningham, June 29 1943

— Adonis, Selected Poems; “Beginnings of the Body, Ends of the Sea” (tr. Khaled Mattawa)

“But whatever, whenever, however this ends / I want you to know right now, / I love you forever.”

— Andrea Gibson, from The Madness Vase; “How It Ends”

— Mary Oliver, from “Mysteries, yes”

“someone I love is praying in another language / I don’t know all the words but I know / what it means—”

— Linnette Reeman, from “The New Jersey Devil Considers Parallels,” The New Jersey Devil Washes the Blood Off (and other vignettes) (L'Éphémère Review micro-chapbook, 2018)

— Nikki Giovanni, from an interview with Cynthia Adina Kirkwood for Los Angeles Times, Dec 4, 1985

— Aracelis Girmay, “I Am Not Ready To Die Yet”

[maybuds]

On Kindness

after Nazim Hikmet, for & after Rassan

At the Detroit Metro Airport with the turtle-hours to spare between now & my flight, there is such a thing as the kindness of the conveyor belt who lends me its slow, strange mollusk foot as I stand quiet, exhausted, having been alone in my bed for days now, sleeping in hotels, having spent months, now, without seeing the faces of my family, somehow its slow & quiet carrying of the load reminds me of the kindness of donkeys & this kindness returns me to myself. It reminds me of the kindness of other things I love like the kindness of sisters who send mail, wherever you are, &, speaking of mail, there is the special kindness of the mail lady who says, "Hi, baby" to everyone, at first I thought it was just me, but now I know she says "Hi, baby" to everyone. That is kindness. Too, there is the kindness of windows, & of dogs. & then there was that extraordinary Sunday back at the house, I heard a woman screaming about how she was lonely & so lonely she didn’t know what she’d do, maybe kill herself, she said, over & over like a parrot in a cage, a parrot whose human parent only taught it that one sentence. I looked out the window & saw her from behind, the way she flung her arms like she was desperate & being killed or eaten by an invisible predator, like a tiger or a lion, in the chest. & her voice seemed fogged out with methadone, I don’t know, something, & I walked away from the window & sat, angry with her for screaming, & sad, & not long after, I heard her saying, What’d you say? What’d you say to me? & a man’s voice, low, I could not tell if it was kind. & she said, I’ll kill myself, I’m so lonely. & did I tell you, yet, that it was Mother’s Day? Flowers & mothers, flowers & mothers all day long. & the woman saying, I’m so lonely. I could kill myself. & then quiet. & the man’s voice saying, It’s okay. It’s okay. I love you, it’s okay.

& this made me get up, put my face, again, to the window to see my landlord’s nephew outside, just hugging her so, as if it were his mother, I mean, as if he belonged to her, & then, again, quiet, I left the window but sat in the silence of the house, hidden by shutters, & was amazed. When the front door of the brownstone opened up & let the tall nephew in with his sad & cougar eyes, handsome & tall in his Carolina-Brooklyn swagger, I heard him start to climb the stairs above me, & my own hand opened up my own front door, & though it was none of my business I asked him, Do you know that women out there? & do you know what happened next? He said, No. The nephew said no, he didn’t know the woman out there. & he told me Happy Mother’s Day as he climbed the rest of the stairs. & I can’t stop seeing them hugging on the street, under trees, it was spring, but cold, & sometimes in the memory his head is touching hers & sometimes in the memory his eyes are closed, & sometimes she is holding him & singing to him I love you. It’s okay. I mean to tell you that everywhere I go I hear us singing to each other. This way. I mean to tell you that I have witnessed such great kindness as this, in this, my true life, you must believe me. I mean, on a Sunday, when nobody was supposed to be watching. Nobody at all. I saw this happen, the two of them hugging, when nobody was supposed to be watching, but not a secret either, public as the street, not for glory & not for a joke, the landlord’s nephew ready to stand there for the woman like a brother or a sister or a husband or son, or none of these at all, but a stranger, a stranger, who like her, is an earthling. Perhaps this thing I am calling kindness is more simple than kindness, rather, recognition of the neighbor & the blue, shared earth & the common circumstance of being here: what remains living of the last two million, impossible years…

Aracelis Girmay

[growintowings]

“Wilted Wildflower” by Araceli M. Ream

 📷: Tomasz Wagner

[catadromously]

I am absolutely fascinated by your tags for posts; they make me want to go back to doing fun tags. Were your tags inspired by anything, or are they just phrases you like? (Also, I absolutely adore your science comics, they are so, so lovely, especially the salmon one)

yes. yesssssss - my time has come.

most of them i got out of writing and music i like a whole bunch. here:

i’m just gonna go through the Official List as it appears in my about

while it passes your purpose remains (architecture and interiors) - from Monument Valley II, a video game about responsibility, creativity, legacy, and buildings

making music of decline (autumn) - from November for Beginners by Rita Dove

delicate cages (bodies and hands) from Taking the Hands by Robert Bly

end organs (cool flesh forms) - end organs are the structures on nerve endings that allow us to sense touch

here’s anyhow one decent thing (dog tag) - from Man and Dog by Siegfried Sassoon

long as amber of ember glows (fire) -  from the song Would That I by Hozier

it was filled with water sounds & pebbles (freshwater) - from luam/asa-luam by Aracelis Girmay

city of apples (fruit) - from I Watch Her Eat the Apple by Natalia Diaz

each one a word spoken (linguistics) - from the short story The Author of the Acacia Seeds by Ursula K. Le Guin

wakened into song (music) - from the Silmarillion (where the world is made out of music)

return home (ocean tag) - just me

on the seashore of worlds (spaaaaaaace!) - from On the Seashore by Rabindranath Tagore (which is not about space, but that phrase makes me feel things about space)

familiar; unbidden (forests) - from Song for the Rainy Season by Elizabeth Bishop

everything's growing in our garden (abundance) - from the song Garden Song by Phoebe Bridgers

tales of sol iii (people’s stories) - just me (sol iii = Earth :D )

canines for a reason (consumption & carnivores) - from that one comic by grendelmenz

dreams of drowning (consumption but it's water this time) - just me

but instead of sounds we use things (creation) - from the episode Beta in Steven Universe, where an alien accidentally invents art and describes it to a human thusly: 

“Oh no, this was all very intentional. You see, I have this idea: What if we made music, but instead of sounds, we use things?”

still spinning (cycles & spirals) - from the song Untitled God Song by Haley Heynderickx

inherit the earth (fungi, decay) - from Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath

the carpet on my cheek feels like a forest (domestic & mundane) - from the song Sloom by Of Monsters and Men

all my friends are funeral singers (death & funerary culture) - from the song Funeral Singers, by Califone but more famously covered by Sylvan Esso

every place i’ve ever lived is full of ghosts (haunted/connected across time things) - from the song Offering by Loone

love as a fresnel lens (nostos) - from the song Pando by Squalloscope

house theory (houses being bodies being houses) - just me

come into the water (swimming!! yay!!!) - from the eponymous song by Mitski

teapots can't talk (mechanical sympathy) - from What Did by Shel Silverstein

veil of great surprises (awe & wonder) from the song The Only Thing by Sufjan Stevens

running down the hills to you (love) - from the song Home With You by FKA Twigs

then praise the way they change (metamorphosis) - from the song This Too Shall Pass by Danny Schmidt

monstrous existence (monsters) - from the video game Night in the Woods (said by what is potentially god maybe)

do re microcosmos (people in their ordinary lives, archival photo) - just me. based on a poster i misread in middle school i think?

telepathic desert (long distance signalling) - from the eponymous song by Diane Cluck

texō (narrative) - etymology. root of text and textile!

five branches make the hand (trees being people being trees) - just me

oh maker tell me did you know (transhumanism, voidpunk) - from the song Oh Maker by Janelle Monae (which is about robots but i think it fits)

honeyed hearts (warmth) - from Daisy Time by Marjorie Pickthall

and there you have it! but be warned: this system shifts, expands, and mutates like the dreadful tentacular entity it is.

[rated-a-for-awesome]

On Kindness by Aracelis Girmay

At the Detroit Metro Airport with the turtle-hours to spare between now & my flight, there is such a thing as the kindness of the conveyor belt who lends me its slow, strange mollusk foot as I stand quiet, exhausted, having been alone in my bed for days now, sleeping in hotels, having spent months, now, without seeing the faces of my family, somehow its slow & quiet carrying of the load reminds me of the kindness of donkeys, & this kindness returns me to myself. It reminds me of the kindness of other things I love like the kindness of sisters who send mail, wherever you are, &, speaking of mail, there is the special kindness of the mail lady who says, “Hi, baby” to everyone, at first I thought it was just to me, but now I know she says “Hi, baby” to everyone. That is kindness. Too, there is the kindness of windows, & of dogs. & then there was that extraordinary Sunday back at the house, I heard a woman screaming about how she was lonely & so lonely she didn’t know what she’d do, maybe kill herself, she said, over & over like a parrot in a cage, a parrot whose human parent only taught it that one sentence. I looked out the window & saw her from behind, the way she flung her arms like she was desperate & being killed or eaten by an invisible predator, like a tiger or a lion, in the chest. & her voice seemed fogged out with methadone, I don’t know, something, & I walked away from the window & sat, angry with her for screaming, & sad, & not long after, I heard her saying, What’d you say? What’d you say to me? & a man’s voice, low, I could not tell if it was kind. & she said, I’ll kill myself, I’m so lonely. & did I tell you, yet, that it was Mother’s Day? Flowers & mothers, flowers & mothers all day long. & the woman saying, I’m so lonely. I could kill myself.

& then quiet. & the man’s voice saying, it’s okay. It’s okay. I love you, it’s okay.

& this made me get up, put my face, again, to the window to see my landlord’s nephew outside, just hugging her so, as if it were his mother, I mean, as if he belonged to her, & then, again, quiet, I left the window but sat in the silence of the house, hidden by shutters, & was amazed. When the front door of the brownstone opened up & let the tall nephew in with his sad & cougar eyes, handsome & tall in his Carolina-Brooklyn swagger, I heard him start to climb the stairs above me, & my own hand opened up my own front door, & though it was none of my business I asked him, Do you know that woman out there? & do you know what happened next? He said, No. The nephew said no, he didn’t know the woman out there. & he told me Happy Mother’s Day as he climbed the rest of the stairs. & I can’t stop seeing them hugging on the street, under trees, it was spring, but cold, & sometimes in the memory his head is touching hers & sometimes in the memory his eyes are closed, & sometimes she is holding him & singing to him I love you. It’s okay. I mean to tell you that everywhere I go I hear us singing to each other. This way. I mean to tell you that I have witnessed such great kindnesses as this, in this, my true life, you must believe me. I mean, on a Sunday, when nobody was supposed to be watching. Nobody at all. I saw this happen, the two of them hugging, when nobody was supposed to be watching, but not a secret either, public as the street, not for glory & not for a joke, the landlord’s nephew ready to stand there for the woman like a brother or a sister or a husband or son, or none of those at all, but a stranger, a stranger who, like her, is an earthling. Perhaps this thing I am calling kindness is more simple than kindness, rather, recognition of the neighbor & the blue, shared earth & the common circumstance of being here: what remains living of the last two million, impossible years…

[devilzukin7]

"Johnny, would you still love me if I were a white cockroach that smelled like pee?"

"No"

"Ok thank you"

*cuddles each other*

Characters:

Johnny Cage (Mortal Kombat)

Araceli Cage (my OC)

Mortal Kombat (c) Netherrealm Studios / WB / Midway before

[ionlypostmymeemocs]

I love you guys.

@alephnol @pyro-thon @6-pinkorganz-9 @unearthlore @cage-cat-yt @joking-hazard @literally-a-waffle-fry @slovo-kvnnt @jh-renner @prostopolinahehe @wormdumpster @tele-arac-angelist @tavishwanker @randomthingsthatidointhedaytime @medic-from-team-defense-fort-2 @alpacacare

[viviae]

Day 1 - Hometowns

@arcana-echoes​ 

Celica Nightingale

Celica was technically born on the roads leading from Hesperia to Vesuvia so her exact location of birth is a big question mark. However she was raised in Vesuvia where her parents owned the magic shop originally. Once her parents were killed her aunt Cerys soon took care of raising her and the magic shop where they struggled to make ends meet due to Cerys being nowhere as talented as Celica’s mother Araceli. Growing up skirting the line of poverty made Celica resent Vesuvia but she didn’t know about any other places and Cerys was pretty strict about her leaving in fear of her still being a target.

Eventually when Sidereus comes to train her and hopefully have her become the heiress of their family she starts to get overwhelmed by the idea of going to Hesperia since it’s so alien from Vesuvia. Paired with Nefeli also starting to pay for all their living expenses, when she is forced to remain in Vesuvia she gets a fonder appreciation for the city.

Sidereus Nightingale

Sidereus was raised within the capital city of Hesperia, Aletheia. A grand port city of towering manors and the tombs for the dead plagued under a darkened sky that remains in a permanent state of being a dust bowl. Hesperia was plunged into darkness due to pride of overeager magicians and because of this it’s quite inhospitable, but the people have adapted to survive.

Sidereus felt a call to travel when he was young and due to such he doesn’t have a strong connection to his home. Even as a kid he begged to leave the city any chance he could and for his aunt Araceli to take him with him. Eventually when he became a Master of Curses he was able to fulfill his need for travel and he very rarely returns to Hesperia unless for work or family reasons.

Nefeli Nightingale

Like Sidereus Nefeli was born and raised within the capital city of Hesperia, Aletheia. Nefeli was much more active in the city however as a renowned poet and playwright she was a local celebrity. As well as being in a relationship with two Princes of Hesperia Asmadeus & Venari* she was well known within the city. However she frequently felt like a bird in a gilded cage as she constantly under her mother’s scrutinizing eye and so it made her fame come with a price of constantly being criticized. She was also only allowed to leave the city under the company of her partners and their necessary servants and personal guards which was compressing and stifling. 

*Hesperian Princes are NOT related. It’s an elected position that is open to any high born individual no matter gender that is merely called a Prince out of tradition.

[olreid]

aracelis girmay / john cage, from a july 22, 1944 letter to merce cunningham / blue lily, lily blue

[shoulderpadfoot]

On Kindness

by Aracelis Girmay

after Nazim Hikmet, for & after Rassan

At the Detroit Metro Airport with the turtle-hours to spare between now & my flight, there is such a thing as the kindness of the conveyor belt who lends me its slow, strange mollusk foot as I stand quiet, exhausted, having been alone in my bed for days now, sleeping in hotels, having spent months, now, without seeing the faces of my family, somehow its slow & quiet carrying of the load reminds me of the kindness of donkeys & this kindness returns me to myself. It reminds me of the kindness of other things I love like the kindness of sisters who send mail, wherever you are, &, speaking of mail, there is the special kindness of the mail lady who says, "Hi, baby" to everyone, at first I thought it was just me, but now I know she says "Hi, baby" to everyone. That is kindness. Too, there is the kindness of windows, & of dogs. & then there was that extraordinary Sunday back at the house, I heard a woman screaming about how she was lonely & so lonely she didn’t know what she’d do, maybe kill herself, she said, over & over like a parrot in a cage, a parrot whose human parent only taught it that one sentence. I looked out the window & saw her from behind, the way she flung her arms like she was desperate & being killed or eaten by an invisible predator, like a tiger or a lion, in the chest. & her voice seemed fogged out with methadone, I don’t know, something, & I walked away from the window & sat, angry with her for screaming, & sad, & not long after, I heard her saying, What’d you say? What’d you say to me? & a man’s voice, low, I could not tell if it was kind. & she said, I’ll kill myself, I’m so lonely. & did I tell you, yet, that it was Mother’s Day? Flowers & mothers, flowers & mothers all day long. & the woman saying, I’m so lonely. I could kill myself. & then quiet. & the man’s voice saying, It’s okay. It’s okay. I love you, it’s okay.

& this made me get up, put my face, again, to the window to see my landlord’s nephew outside, just hugging her so, as if it were his mother, I mean, as if he belonged to her, & then, again, quiet, I left the window but sat in the silence of the house, hidden by shutters, & was amazed. When the front door of the brownstone opened up & let the tall nephew in with his sad & cougar eyes, handsome & tall in his Carolina-Brooklyn swagger, I heard him start to climb the stairs above me, & my own hand opened up my own front door, & though it was none of my business I asked him, Do you know that woman out there? & do you know what happened next? He said, No. The nephew said no, he didn’t know the woman out there. & he told me Happy Mother’s Day as he climbed the rest of the stairs. & I can’t stop seeing them hugging on the street, under trees, it was spring, but cold, & sometimes in the memory his head is touching hers & sometimes in the memory his eyes are closed, & sometimes she is holding him & singing to him I love you. It’s okay. I mean to tell you that everywhere I go I hear us singing to each other. This way. I mean to tell you that I have witnessed such great kindness as this, in this, my true life, you must believe me. I mean, on a Sunday, when nobody was supposed to be watching. Nobody at all. I saw this happen, the two of them hugging, when nobody was supposed to be watching, but not a secret either, public as the street, not for glory & not for a joke, the landlord’s nephew ready to stand there for the woman like a brother or a sister or a husband or son, or none of these at all, but a stranger, a stranger, who like her, is an earthling. Perhaps this thing I am calling kindness is more simple than kindness, rather, recognition of the neighbor & the blue, shared earth & the common circumstance of being here: what remains living of the last two million, impossible years…

“On Kindness", from KINGDOM ANIMALIA by Aracelis Girmay. Copyright © 2011 by Aracelis Girmay. 

Listen to Tracy K Smith read this true jewel on “The Slowdown” HERE.