#im not good at poetry

[rayliee]

You're so loud, and you talk so much .. , she says.

I want to be remembered, I responded. I do not wish the attention, never have.

Listen; My words are just my colors, I paused.

My stories, my experience, is my artwork.

[inkskinned]

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

[orpheuslament]

Ritual Is Journey, Chris Abani

[time-woods]

Home is where the heart is! <3

In a house that is a Home, 

Where no one is alone, 

You may not share a wall with your neighbor, 

But they’re always willing to do you a favor,

Don’t be afraid when you’re in need, 

Just give your neighbor a ring, 

They’ll pick up the phone, 

and simply say... 

‘Hello?’

[reallybadblackoutpoems]

go to sleep (2011) - helen walsh

"slutting myself out for the fnaf movie"

[cemeterything]

1. you've bitten every hand that has ever reached for you because pain is all you've ever known them to be capable of, and it's a lesson you won't suffer twice

2. they were warned not to stick their fingers through the bars of your cage, but not only did they not listen, they went and opened it up with their clever, gentle hands that not even your sharp teeth and terrible claws could deter from showing you what kindness could feel like, and crossed over the threshold to stand inside/on your side/by your side/all of the above

3. the difference between setting something free and setting something loose is a matter of definition

4. the definition of a monster depends entirely on where you're standing

[sadmages]

Durge thoughts

[sentientsky]

“i could fix him”, “i could make him worse”. yeah, well, I could meet him at the genesis of the universe, where the spaces between matter first gain sentience, and spark and spit their way into being—where the cradle of stars first take on a definitive kind of gravity and heat. I could be the engineer of creation. I could ask a question. I could stand across from him on a battlefield, trembling and reeking of ichor. I could hit the ground retching, all the bones in my body turning brackish and oil-slicked. I could lurch my way into a new world, a recalibration of reality in which I only know kindness as a set of snapping jaws, as a thing to flinch away from. I could meet him in the garden, then, when the air's all hyacinth and dripping gold. And I could ache. Oh, how I could ache. I could follow him through every wretched moment of history. I could trail after him like a hollow-eyed dog. I could hide my irises, could hide the brutal bloodiness of an all-too-human heart. I could hold the gun as I pretend not to pray, as I taste bile and will my hands to steadiness. I could trust him. And I could ache. I could bite my tongue, cypher the words in my mouth, gnash them between jagged teeth. I could swallow my heart. I could go slower. I could meet him at the end of the world, when hope claws its way up my throat, hungry and keening like a treacherous thing.

I could kiss him with six thousand years of want lodged and breaking in the mausoleum of my chest. I could hand him the blade; I could let him twist the knife. I could be forgiven. And still I could ache.

[hitokas-gf]

happy new year. wishing you all good vibes <3

t. s. eliot / joyce liao / holly warburton / mary oliver / albert camus / richard siken / louise erdrich / wendy cope / keaton st. james / holly warburton

[actual-changeling]

do you think crowley ever stopped time simply to look at aziraphale's face for a little while longer? to commit it to memory because it's all he has?

do you think it was perfectly harmless, like those handful of stolen minutes that one evening in the bookshop when he had taken off his vest and laughed with enough joy to make the room glow? or one early morning in the park when the sunlight hit his cheekbones just so and crowley wanted the world to be nothing but golden and blue angel for a little bit longer?

do you think it became more desperate after the apocalypse-that-wasn't? time stopped out of fear, to check a room again and again, to frantically try and remember every freckle and lock of hair just in case something was going to happen to him, to them?

(just in case just in case just in case)

do you think at one point, drunk and half-stuck in his nightmares, crowley sat on the bookshop's floor in the middle of the night after having stopped time the second he snapped awake in his flat? aziraphale was completely unaware of his presence and curled up in his armchair with a good book, but crowley pressed his knees to his chest and looked at him without blinking for what might have been hours as well as days.

time frozen at his bidding, listening to the voice of the being who had once been the starmaker, and when he allowed it to keep moving (back in bed, awake, staring at the ceiling) the world exhaled a breath no one knew it had been holding.

do you think he stopped it right after the kiss?

it was instinct, he hadn't meant to, but crowley knew exactly which words were about to leave his mouth, and every cell in his body had rebelled. his heart had already been broken, yes, but when he sank to the floor in a familiar spot and looked up at him, he could pretend everything was fine.

just for a little bit. he deserves that much, right?

crowley took off his glasses and rested his chin on his arms, knees drawn up against his chest like they are wont to be, and tried to imagine what his life was going to be like once he pressed play.

do you think he was tempted to simply let it be? to freeze everything for as long as he could manage and die and turn to dust once all his power had run out?

i love you he said like so many times before, always into frozen silence. three words, every single time, nothing else.

i love you.

crowley knew he had to let it- him go eventually, but where's the harm in living in the moment for a little while longer? so he sat and watched, unmoving and unblinking, and wished he could turn back time instead of stopping it.

then again, (i love you, he whispers, right before he let's him go), he wasn't sure if he would want to reverse any of this. it was worth it, all of it, even if it ended like this.

crowley never liked tragedies—maybe because he knew he had been living in one all along.

[folie-a-deux]

A compilation of my favorite hannigram quotes, related lines or conversations throughout the series.

— Uhm... Just because?

S01E01: Apéritif

Hannibal: "God forbid we become friendly."

Will: "I don't find you that interesting."

Hannibal: "You will."

S01E04: Oeuf

Hannibal: "Feeling paternal, Will?"

Will: "Aren't you?"

Hannibal: "Yes."

S01E09: Trou Normand

Hannibal (to Will): "Who knows Abigail better than you and I? All the burden she bears. We are her fathers now. We have to serve her better than Garrett Jacob Hobbs."

S02E01: Kaiseki

Hannibal: "I miss him."

Bedelia: "You are obsessed with Will Graham."

Hannibal: "I am intrigued."

Bedelia: "Obsessively."

S02E09: Shiizakana

Hannibal (to Will): "No one can be fully aware of another human being unless we love them. By that love we see potential in our beloved. Through that love, we allow our beloved to see their potential. Expressing that love, our beloved’s potential comes true. I love you, Will."

S02E10: Naka-Choko

Hannibal: "Stay with me."

Will: "Where else would I go?"

–/–

Alana: "It's just hard to know where you are with each other."

Will: "We know where we are with each other. Shouldn't that be enough?"

S02E12: Tome-wan

Will (to Hannibal): "You're right. We are just alike. You're as alone as I am. And we're both alone without each other."

–/–

Will (to Hannibal): "I bond with Abigail, you take her away. I bond with barely more than the idea of a child, you take it away. You saw to it that I alienated Alana, alienated Jack. You don't want me to have anything in my life that isn't you."

-/-

Hannibal: "Achilles lamenting the death of Patroclus. Whenever he's mentioned in the Iliad, Patroclus seems to be defined by his empathy."

Will: "He became Achilles on the field of war. He died for him there, wearing his armor."

Hannibal: "He did. Hiding and revealing identity is a constant theme throughout the Greek epics."

Will: "As are battle-tested friendships."

Hannibal: "Achilles wished all Greeks would die, so that he and Patroclus could conquer Troy alone. Took divine intervention to bring them down."

S02E13: Mizumono

Hannibal: "We could disappear now. Tonight. Feed your dogs, leave a note for Alana, and never see her or Jack again. Almost polite."

Will: "Then this would be our last supper."

Hannibal: "Of this life. I served lamb."

Will: "Sacrificial."

Hannibal: "I don't need a sacrifice, do you?"

–/–

Will: "You were supposed to leave."

Hannibal: "We couldn't leave without you."

...

Hannibal: "Time did reverse. The teacup that I shattered did come together. A place was made for Abigail in your world... You understand? A place was made for all of us, together. I wanted to surprise you. And you... you wanted to surprise me. I let you know me. See me. I gave you a rare gift. But you didn't want it."

Will: "Didn't I?"

...

Hannibal: "Do you believe you could change me, the way I've changed you?"

Will: "I already did."

Hannibal: "Fate and circumstance has returned us to this moment— when the teacup shatters. I forgive you, Will. Will you forgive me?"

S03E02: Primavera

Will: "A valentine written on a broken man."

–/–

Will: "I do feel closer to Hannibal here. God only knows where I'd be without him."

Abigail: "What did you see?"

Will: "He left us his broken heart."

Abigail: "How did he know we were here?"

Will: "He didn't. But he knew we'd come."

Abigail: "He misses us."

S03E03: Secondo

Hannibal: "He said he forgave me."

...

Bedelia: "Betrayal and forgiveness are best seen as something akin to falling in love."

Hannibal: "You cannot control with respect to whom you fall in love."

–/–

Chiyoh: "How do you know Hannibal?"

Will: "One could argue intimately."

Chiyoh: "'Nakama'? It's a Japanese word for very close friends."

Will: "Yes, we were 'nakama'."

–/–

Chiyoh: "Why are you looking for him after he left you with a smile?"

Will: "I've never known myself as well as I know myself when I'm with him."

–/–

Jack: “Will Graham understands Hannibal. He accepts him. Now, who among us doesn’t want understanding and acceptance?”

–/-

Bedelia: “What your sister made you feel was beyond your conscious ability to control or predict."

Hannibal: "Or negotiate."

Bedelia: "I would suggest what Will Graham makes you feel is not dissimilar. A force of mind and circumstance.”

Hannibal: “Love. He pays you a visit or he doesn't.”

S03E04: Aperitivo

Jack: "You remember when you decided to call Hannibal?"

Will: "I wasn't decided when I called him. I just called him. I deliberated while the phone rang. I decided when I heard his voice."

Jack: "You told him we knew."

Will: "I told him to leave. 'Cause I wanted him to run."

Jack: "Why?"

Will: "Because... because he was my friend. And because I wanted to run away with him."

–/–

Dr. Chilton: "Will Graham is alive because Hannibal Lecter likes him that way."

Jack: "Maybe it's one of those friendships that ends after the disemboweling."

Dr. Chilton: "I would argue, with these two, that's tantamount to flirtation."

S03E06: Dolce

Jack: "Hannibal will slip away. Will you slip away with him?"

Will: "Part of me will always want to."

–/–

Hannibal: "If I saw you everyday, forever, Will, I would remember this time."

Will: "Strange seeing you here in front of me. Been staring at afterimages of you in places you haven't been in years."

...

Will: "I wanted to understand you... before I laid eyes on you again. I needed it to be... clear. What I was seeing."

Hannibal: "Where does the difference between the past and the future come from?"

Will: "Mine?"... "Before you and after you."

...

Will: "You and I... have begun to blur."

Hannibal: "Isn't that how you found me?"

Will: "Every crime of yours, feels like one I'm guilty of. Not just Abigail's murder, every murder. Stretching backward and forward in time."

Hannibal: "Freeing yourself from me and me freeing myself from you. They're the same."

Will: "We're conjoined. I'm curious whether either of us can survive separation."

–/–

Hannibal: "I would've liked to show you Florence, Will."

S03E07: Digestivo

Hannibal: "Do we talk about teacups and time, and the rules of the disorder?"

Will: "The teacup's broken. It's never gonna gather itself back together again."

Hannibal: "Not even in your mind?"... "Your memory palace is building, it's full of new things. It shares some rooms with my own. I've discovered you there, victorious."

Will: "When it comes to you and me, there can be no decisive victory."

Hannibal: "We are a zero-sum game?"

Will: "I miss my dogs. I'm not going to miss you. I'm not going to find you. I'm not going to look for you. I don't want to know where you are or what you do. I don't want to think about you anymore."

Hannibal: "You delight in wickedness and then berate yourself for the delight."

Will: "You delight. I tolerate... I don't have your appetite."

Will: "Goodbye, Hannibal."

–/–

Hannibal (to Will): "I want you to know exactly where I am, or where you can always find me."

S03E09: ...and the Woman Clothed with the Sun

Hannibal: "Is there a child in your life, Will? I gave you a child, if you recall."

–/–

Will: "You called us "murder husbands.""

Freddie Lounds: "You did run off to Europe together."

S03E10: ...and the Woman Clothed in Sun

Bedelia: "Have you been to see him?"

Will: "Yes."

Bedelia: "You haven't learned your lesson have you? Or did you just miss him that much?"

–/–

Bedelia (to Will): "My relationship with Hannibal isn't as passionate as yours. You are here visiting an old flame. Is your wife aware how intimately you and Hannibal know each other?"

S03E11: ...and the Beast from the Sea

Will (to Hannibal): "I'm not fortune's fool. I'm yours."

S03E12: The Number of the Beast is 666

Will: "Is Hannibal... in love with me?"

Bedelia: "Could he daily feel a stab of hunger for you and find nourishment at the very sight of you?... Yes. But do you ache for him?"

S03E13: The Wrath of the Lamb

Hannibal: "When life becomes maddeningly polite, think about me. Think about me, Will. Don't worry about me."

–/–

Will: "I knew you wanted me to know exactly where I could find you when I needed to."

Hannibal: "And you did."

Will: "I need you Hannibal." ... "Please."

–/–

Will: "It really does look black in the moonlight."

Hannibal: "See? This is all I ever wanted for you, Will. For both of us."

Will: "It's beautiful."

[ecc-poetry]

BALANCE THE PARTY

social justice barbarian Never met a nazi they wouldn't punch. Never met a cop they wouldn't call a nazi. Treats the soft animal of their body like a lance to the heart of a tyrant. Their anger is a gift from God– it transubstantiates.

social justice necromancer Reads her history. Says their names. Goes through cemeteries leaving flowers, grave-borrowing tactics. Coaxes the spirits from their beds to let them dance; we realize we have always been beautiful.

social justice rogue Unplucks the landlord's tapestries at night. She covers her face, she code-names, wipes the prints from her hand after shaking. She's a lot. A blade in the dark that daylight can't soften. She hums a mantra called mission; it's all the warning you'll get.

social justice bard Makes his sincerity a lute and plucks fingers raw upon it. Has brass knuckles on the inside of his throat. Knows what to say to soothe the scared guy sleeping rough, to make the officer laugh instead of shove.

social justice druid Gives you grace and space to grow. Makes a weird balm to calm your hurts. Turns into a panther once a day dispensing courage; turns into a dove once a day dispensing peace. Serves the world from the half-empty vessel in their heart.

social justice warlock Sold her soul to do DEI for a Fortune 500 company. Walks each day through thicketed razors, carving footholds in a hill of glass. The job takes its pint of blood so slowly, it is possible to believe she doesn't feel it.

social justice paladin Always knows the words. Is afraid of what will happen if they forget them. It's not an excuse, but it is sandpaper, truths nailed into the shoebeds. They're implacable from the outside. They can't believe I would love them without their fury.

social justice cleric The people tell her, "Your mouth ruined our movement. You suffer in silence all the time–what's one more?" She believes in a love whose demands cut friends and enemies alike. She cleanses, sad surgeon. She is martyred twice. From the ground where her tears fall, a perfect flower grows.

social justice warforged Has a fuckin' truck!!! He rolls up to mutual aid and the people rejoice at his truck. He is become a mover of things, a Christ-bearer: mattresses and gasoline, the girl who needs a ride across the state. She says bless you, bless your truck, and his heart swells. He never knew he could be so needed.

social justice giant crab Strength +1. Intelligence -5. She is a crab. She has 13 hit points and claws for hands– but she can breathe water and air. She knows what the surface looks like from underneath. She carries wisdom in her crab body that the arc of the universe will always bend to rediscover. Don't you get it? That we all have gifts to give?

-elisa chavez

[fella-lovin-fella]

losing my mind over this, actually.

[forkpigeon3146]

sorry i cant just "be casual" it's either you get paragraphs about my devotion to our friendship and every little thing i love about you or you get nothing

[thebrainrotsreal]

EVIL MARK, EVIL MARK, EVIL MARK!!! I want to be coherent about this season but please picture me foaming at the mouth and running on the walls. S2 being what if Mark's just like his Dad? Insanity. I love this show. Anyways, AU where an Evil!Mark tries to make Our!Mark worse, and Our!Mark tries to make the other better. Something something confronting your idea of the worst version of oneself. Plus, tweaked black and yellow costume because I saw it and immediately went murder hornet lookin' ass and knew I had to draw it. Evil ass Mark. Horrible. I think he should be dragged kicking and screaming into redemption.

[reallybadblackoutpoems]

traits and stories of the welsh peasantry (1849) - anne beale

"all hallows' een"