#josh alex baker

[typewriter-worries]

i want to live on his tongue, build a home of gospel

Absolute Solitude: Selected Poems, Dulce María Loynaz, tr. by James O’Connor ( @feral-ballad ) | Farewell, Arthur Hacker | Death Wish, Josh Alex Baker | L’Amore, la Morte e Il Sogno, Roberto Ferri | The Torn-Up Road, Richard Siken | The Fall (detail), Alan Stephens Foster | The 17-Year-Old & the Gay Bar, Danez Smith | Scene of Deluge (detail), Joseph-Désiré Court

[angstkater]

1. Richard Siken, Crush // 2. De Nooit Moede, Smeekbeden // 3. Ron Hicks, Spending More time // 4. (question found on Quora) // 5. Josh Alex Baker, Death Wish // 6. William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

[malaisequotes]

“Firm as ice, given over to the power of his touch. Left to melt into a nothingness that I no longer recognize. Love is a death wish, paid in blood.  Just for you.”

Death Wish by Josh Alex Baker

[blackberryjam]

josh alex baker, death wish

[poemmedicine]

Death Wish

Josh Alex Baker

After a stanza from Pat Parker’s “For Willyce”

I ask when is the last time you returned yourself to yourself. I am a hypocrite to make you answer what I cannot. Love is a death wish between two men bold enough to believe in it. To love you is to fade daily. To leave you is to die sooner. When I was a boy, I would try to see how long I could hold my breath. With- holding would become a weapon one day. Each theft, my pride and possession. Every stroke of midnight brings its own lost slipper. Full of beg, I wait for a prince longing to give my breath back to me. Heretic tongue, I will never admit what he means to me. Will say he was simply a game I could not pass up. Love is a death wish between you and the you you’re becoming. I will never admit to him that his love feels like a tease from God. A gift I only deserve as prelude to punishment. Love is a bluff  between goodbye and forever. You give yourself to the gamble, to the breathlessness that is a hammer on your chest. I will never admit what his love is to me. Could you blame me? Firm as ice, given over to the power of his touch. Left to melt into a nothingness that I no longer recognize. Love is a death wish, paid in blood.  Just for you.

[edwardian-girl-next-door]

Josh Alex Baker, "Death Wish" via poetryfoundation.org

[ciarareads]

lines from my favourite poems, part 2 (of many)

high windows (philip larkin) // in her abscence i created her image (mahmoud darwish) // if i were another (mahmoud darwish) // aphasia (chris abani) // the new religion (chris abani) // eden (ina rousseau) // interent support group (chelsea b. desautels) // death wish (josh alex baker) // filling spice jars as your wife (kai coggin) // tanaga: for phillippine-american lovers (sofia m. starnes)

[all images have alt text]

here's part I

[themthistles]

Come hold me, please.

Two Countries, Naomi Shihab Nye // Girls That Never Die, Safia Elhillo // The Act of Counting, Nathalie Handal // So We Must Meet Apart, Jennifer S. Cheng // C.T.Salazar // Death Wish, Josh Alex Baker // Hands, Ben Mulvey // Promises of Gold, José Olivarez // On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong // Daily, Naomi Shihab Nye // Gardens, Mary Oliver // Daredevil, Fiona Apple // I Will, Mitski // C.T.Salazar

[stealthystealthy]

I'm sorry but c!tntduo is so

and also

and they

and then

and at the end

.

thank you for comming to my ted talk

You Are Jeff, Richard Siken | Scheherazade, Richard Siken | Little Beast, Richard Siken | Death Wish, Josh Alex Baker | I Had A Dream About You, Richard Siken

[gerri-roman]

"I do think she aches a little bit for him but she'd never admit it." — J. Smith Cameron

Hunting 2.03 Retired Janitors of Idaho 3.05 Honeymoon States 4.04 Tailgate Party 4.07 Church and State 4.09 Josh Alex Baker, "Death Wish"

[typewriter-worries]

It's world poetry day so here are some of my favorite poems:

Failing and Flying by Jack Gilbert

What the Living Do by Marie Howe

Night Walk by Franz Wright

Crossword by Lloyd Schwartz

The Great Fires by Jack Gilbert

Love Train by Tomás Q. Morín

Divorced Fathers and Pizza Crusts by Mark Halliday

Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo

in another string of the multiverse, perhaps by Michaella Batten

acknowledgments by Danez Smith

Death Wish by Josh Alex Baker

San Francisco by Richard Brautigan

How to Watch Your Brother Die by Michael Lassell

You Are the Penultimate Love of My Life by Rebecca Hazelton

On Political(ized) Life by Kanika Lawton

All the Dead Boys Look Like Me by Christopher Soto

It Was the Animals by Natalie Diaz

In Time by W.S. Merwin

It Is Maybe Time to Admit That Michael Jordan Definitely Pushed Off by Hanif Abdurraqib

Dear Life by Maya C. Popa

I Could Touch It by Ellen Bass

To The Young Who Want To Die by Gwendolyn Brooks

Accident Report in the Tall, Tall Weeds by Ada Limón

[jessaerys]

the word father rotted in my mouth: i. tom stoppard, rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead. ii. nurnehpetsnur iii. anne carson, plainwater: essays and poetry iv. see notes. v. see notes. vi. genesis 4:9 vii. anaïs nin, winter of artifice viii. see notes. ix. slider.xxxxxxxx x. josh alex baker, death wish. xi. see notes. xii. eric larocca, things have gotten worse since we last spoke xiii. death note, c-kira one-shot. xiv. leah horlick, for your own good, xv. death note manga, L's death, mello's death. xvi. ocean vuong, someday i'll love, xvii. woyaocharlie xviii. death note short stories, a-kira one-shot. xix. anna belle kaufman, cold solace.

notes under the cut.

*iv. artist notoriously hard to track, there's several images on pinterest that are clearly the same style, tried with all of them and they all seem to come from a long deleted 2008 photobucket folder.

v. & viii. the oldest source seems to be long-deleted posts from this blog, which were re-posts.

xi. this is the only source i can find but i don't think it leads to the artist ): please hmu if you have any leads about all of these.

part of the mine and the bestie’s delusional headcanon that near and mello (& matt) did have somewhat of a mentor/mentee relationship with L (fuck them other kids….) whom although genuinely fond of them was a willing participant in the amoral watari industrial complex (did he care to be succeeded? did he find it amusing or an interesting long term project? were the tests and mindfuckery and hot/cold unpredictable behavior and purposeful sowing of a rivalry between them the only model of family and mentorship he knew and was capable of? did he ever really love them? will they ever know? etc etc etc.)

i’m handwaving away the “we only talked to L once” story as skillfully edited by near because 1. he loves to lie and 2. his complicated relationship with L and subsequent grief AND resentment is still wrapped in seventeen thousand layers of emotional repression and who wants to get into that. 3. also makes mello’s comments in LABB about not caring if near is hurt that he knows more about L than near does way funnier. sibling behavior

anyway the both of them have a brotherfatherhero complex the size of TEXAS but thankfully they can sublimate that in the bedroom through creative kinky means. i know the usual "don't ship them!" rethoric is that they're foster brothers but unfortunately that just makes them a billion times more compelling. to me

[malaisequotes]

“Love is a bluff between goodbye and forever. You give yourself to the gamble, to the breathlessness that is a hammer on your chest. I will never admit what his love is to me. Could you blame me?”

Death Wish by Josh Alex Baker

[slimepuppied]

bug hunter , try my best / succession s2 script / josh alex baker , death wish / joni mitchell , a case of you / bug hunter , dear mccraken / hanif kureishi , intimacy

[piratetheon]

Dream & the Corinthian

The Dogs I Have Kissed by Trista Mateer / Persephone Writes a Poem by Karese Burrows / Speeches for Dr Frankenstein by Margaret Atwood / To the Desert by Benjamin Alire Saenz / A Journal of Love: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin, 1931-1932 / Years by Sylvia Plath / The Love of the Wolf by Hélène Cixous / Speeches for Dr Frankenstein by Margaret Atwood / Slaughterhouse by Yves Olade / Anecdote of the Pig by Tory Adkisson / An Oresteia translated by Anne Carson / The Last Days of Judas Iscariot by Stephen Adly Guirgis / Death Wish by Josh Alex Baker.

[just-wublrful]

a conversation between a man condemned and his devotee

Litany of Things Which are Crossed Out, Richard Siken | Uriel, Yves Olade | Heart Berries, Terese Marie Mailhot | When Rome Falls, Yves Olade | Neon, Yves Olade | @sandarafreedompark | Death Wish, Josh Alex Baker | Beloved, Yves Olade | Confessional, Sue Zhao | Straw for the Fire, Theodore Roethke | A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway | Blossoms, The Amazing Devil

(ID under the cut)

[ID: A collection of quotes from various sources. 

1. Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your party. / Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I came to your party / and seduced you / and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing.

2. We met out the back of the bar, and you smiled, all knives. Said, You don’t know me yet, but you will. We’re going to be so dangerous, babe, I can feel it. Found out biblically wasn’t the only way to know someone when I prised open your chest, looking for burning.

3. I wanted to know what I looked like to you. A sin committed and a prayer answered, you said.

4. I say, I promise I won’t do anything awful, / and he says, you are something awful, / but I’m keeping you anyway. / does that make me your bad thing? your wild / thing? something worth hunting across the county? / you want to kill me more than anyone else. / That’s what love is, baby.

5. It’d be the good kind of fire. More purgatory, less witch hunt. / I could try burn all this shame out of me. / It’d work as well as you think it would, / meaning, not at all.

6. I’m scared of the love I have for you. Because I know it will ruin me. And I also know that I will let it.

7. I will never admit what he means to / me. Will say / he was simply a game I / could not pass up. Love / is a death wish between you / and the you you’re / becoming. I will never admit to / him that his love feels like a tease / from God. A gift I / only deserve as prelude to punishment. Love / is a bluff  between goodbye and forever. You

8. & vicious. & lovely. So when God asks / me about love, I respond with cruelty. I know / no other answer / I know no other question. I’m

9. And when one of us had finished confessing, we’d fall into the others orbit. And the other could always be relied upon to keep us there. / So when we asked the question in out own convoluted way, (will you love me anyway?)

10. It’s your privilege to find me incomprehensible. I gave you my minutes; let them remain ours. I hope I haunt you.

11.  "Hell," I said, "I love you enough now. What do you want to do? Ruin me?" / "Yes. I want to ruin you." / "Good," I said. "That's what I want too.”

12.  And I pick up the phone, dial your number and wait / And shine like my petals once shone / And just as it's ringing, I whisper aloud to my saint / "Oh, we, we're gonna get on"

End ID.]