thymelines

[thymelines]

this is an experiment shaped like a poem shaped like a text - a string of simple words to convey meaning directly, bare bones, no embellishments, maybe a question mark at the end. I haven't written anything of substance in this language for quite a while. it doesn't feel fitting, but it's the main tool (remember this is an experiment) (this sentence meant to say foreign but maybe phone predictive keyboard knows better than I do).

I'm writing a book. I've written a book and reread it several times and the edits have shaped it into a whole, yet it's not quite there. I know there's a part missing. I can find the shape of it, the words placed in a correct order that fill it (remember this is a text) (pull back, delete phrases trying to hide what you really need to say).

this is an anchor point. it's a text shaped like an experiment shaped like a tool for a book in another language I have written, a book I am writing. this is a part of the book. an outside part of the book, sitting dead center inside it. a topological issue resolving itself as I put down words and delete them. again.

there. better.

(remember this is a)

(remember)

Please share an excerpt from a current project

[thymelines]

1. Thyme, they/she

2. Writing is art. Art is unbearable and the best thing in the world. It screams at you till you make it happen. Sometimes those screams are whispers but they're still there. Always there. You cannot imagine your life without them (good thing they're always there)

3. Anything and everything as long as it makes you feel things.

4. Sense of self from an outside point of view; viewing the world and everything in it as full of magic. Growth. Everyday miracles. Everything, everything connected.

5. I imagined entire worlds and lived in them through every medium I could get my hands on.

6. Writing my second book, slowly editing the first. Making sculptures, painting.

7. Writing: anywhere if the voice is persistent and the words need to happen now (train plane airport cafe middle of the street), mostly at home. Sculpting & painting at home that is also my studio.

8. I won't name any names, but if the opportunity was real, I'd make a list of every artist and writer who died not finishing their work, and ask them if they wanted to finish it, and have all the coffee while they do, because there can never be enough art.

Nosebleed Club Interview

Introduce yourself to your fellow writers / artists in the community (everyone can do this)! This can be a good way to discover other writers / artists as well. Please reblog with your responses

1. Name / Pronouns? 2. How would you describe your approach to writing / creating art? 3. Literature / art / films you’d recommend? 4. What are some themes / imageries you like to explore in your work? 5. What type of art did you make during your childhood? 6. What are you currently working on? 7. Where do you like to write / create art? 8. Which writers / artists (dead or alive) would you like to get coffee / brunch / dinner with?

[thymelines]

iv. he wakes up and it hits him like a wall to the face and there’s no other option but to flop back onto the bed. it’s way too early, barely december, he thinks as he watches his mom pick up the house phone and call the school, making up a convincing excuse of a seasonal flu. it’s not even a lie, not completely. it is seasonal: the town just got its first shipment of holly

(they always pick a town where holly doesn’t grow)

and there he is: in his bed, windows closed, trying not to throw up as the ceremonies from his life before spring up in memory, unbidden. he doesn’t want to remember, cannot not remember, shoves them back like he’s used to - and he is. he’s used to

(pushing past the trauma just like he pushes past the ever growing crackling force of miracles inside him)

lying in bed, breathing in through his nose, out through his mouth, deep and long and steady. these days he’s getting better at it. it was only a week in bed last year, he knows he will do better this time - it helps that nobody knows. nobody but his mom, but he convinced her and now she believes that his holy holly sensitivity will eventually go away. he remembers his favourite blanket. if I make it in four days, he thinks, I’m gonna try 

(it cannot be, it is a statistical impossibility that every living person on the planet gets affected, it’s a risk, but still, but still is it too much to ask for a friend)

something different. by the time he gets up on the fifth day, the boy from the house across the street is gone. there’s a new family moving in, and he doesn’t see him at school anymore.

it’s okay, he tells himself, wouldn’t have worked out. we’ll be gone come springtime anyway.

@nosebleedclub december prompt iv: holly

[thymelines]

iii. there’s a boy in his class /new class, new school, his dad’s job keeps them moving/. he doesn’t stand out or draw attention, doesn’t behave any different from yet another moody teenager /then again he’s probably the only one thinking of himself as yet another moody teenager, nobody actually thinks that of themselves, or so he heard/, and yet - and yet. 

he cannot explain it, cannot understand why his eyes jump to track this boy’s movement every time he crosses a hallway or sits across from him in class, worrying at the hem of his shirt. he doesn’t think anyone notices or pays any mind to either of them, two regular odd new kids that don’t know anyone around here, including each other.

he thinks they could be friends, possibly, probably would have things in common /would not have been drawn to him otherwise what would be the reason if not the obvious similarities in their shitty nomadic childhoods/, but he’s not sure how long they’re staying this time, so he doesn’t talk much and keeps to himself. 

it’s only when he finds himself outside again and freezing again in his worn out pyjamas at three in the morning, hiding behind the tool shed to avoid his father’s wrath, feels someone’s eyes on him and turns to find the boy from his class looking at him through the open window across the street, he realizes that they might have been friends all this time.

next thing he knows there’s a soft fleece blanket on his shoulders and a mug seeping warmth into his numb fingers, and the boy from his class closes his window with a wave.

he waves back.

the mug stays warm in his hands until he sneaks into his room and back into bed.

@nosebleedclub december prompt iii: warm beverage

[thymelines]

ii. he always has a joke at the ready. something over the top, not an explanation, but rather a misdirection, sleight of hand. jokes are not meant to be taken seriously. that’s why they work.

he always wishes he didn’t have to use them, but he always does. cannot help it. this. this thing inside of him, this thing that is him has a mind of its own, a mindles, all-consuming desire to be, so it pokes and prods and bursts out at every inopportune moment, like. like it’s doing it on purpose.

he slams it down, more often than not. twists the hem of his shirt in his fist until it stops pushing. but there’s always a joke at the ready. makes them see what he wants them to see. a clever trick, a ‘you’ll never guess my secret’. not a ‘miracles exist and I don’t know how to stop them’.

@nosebleedclub december prompt ii: messiah

[thymelines]

i. a million scattered things yet none of them stick to my fingers as I sift them through. they shine so bright, full of promise, glitter-gold magic obvious in their wake. should I tell you a story. oh, did you know that every story is a ghost story. this one has them, too. the ghost of the first day, slipping away after midnight, and another one. can you guess what it wants me to say. no, seriously. can you.

@nosebleedclub december prompt i: the first day

[thymelines]

waking up in the middle of the night disoriented floating through shades of shapes devoid of colour finding myself inside the mirrors in my hands as I wake up again this time this time absolutely certain the world I'm waking up in is real

Tell me about something that makes you feel electric

[thymelines]

I don't. I don't. never liked it, couldn't bring myself to love it - too much, suffocating & making me restless, worn out & strung up. as a kid I could escape into an old tub in the middle of our garden, shriek and splash and jump through icy hose water filled with tiny rainbows.

now, it catches up with me as soon as darkness settles over the city. don't, I don't, I don't know if it's always been like this. if it's something new, climate change, charge of heat trapped within tall buildings during the day & released when nobody's looking. it's just the city, maybe. I've lived here longer now than the small one I grew up in.

I'm reevaluating summer. loving it for what it is & not just because it means the only lengthy stretch of freedom I'm allowed out of the entire year. heat of the day hits the city closer to midnight & I don't have to like it to let it be.

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@nosebleedclub august prompt xvii. heat of the day

[thymelines]

everyone here keeps rotten fruit on window ledges outside their bedrooms. ha-ha, they say if you ask them, ha-ha. sound cracking, barely recognisable as laughter. you know, they say and avoid looking into your eyes. it's just the way it has been as long as anyone can remember. don't forget to let an apple go bad, put it in your window. no, you won't be bothered by the smell. yeah, it'll surprise you. yes, you get used to it. as long as it's there you don't have to worry. it's safe, just the way it should be.

you grew up here, they say. people greet you on the streets and tell you you have your mother's eyes and your father's smile and it's okay that you don't remember. it's soothing, in a way, being known by these strangers. being seen so readily and easily accepted.

you take the rotten fruit they give you, put them outside your bedroom window. it feels weird and you're half expecting someone to jump out of a nearby tree with a gotcha!

but they don't. in the kitchen, the kettle whistles. you don't remember putting it on but you go downstairs and make yourself tea anyway, just like your mother taught you. leave it to steep, there's pie in the fridge, pears and peaches, a neighbourly gift and briefly you wonder if rot has already found its way inside it. you should probably eat, but the air is too dry and too hot, so you run a cold bath and fall asleep in the water.

wake up to the memory itch in the back of your head, the edge of the tub pushing you out into moonlight. it's pretty, in a way wild things are. you catch the thought, turn it round in your mind, wondering where it came from. here, says the wind. here.

the bathroom window is too small but you crawl through anyway. your not sure why, it just feels right.

there are very few ways to trap a marsh witch, and you remember them all, now. this isn't one of them, so you gather the wind and the water around you, and they unravel the spell before your eyes, step by step. it requires precision and beauty, in a way dead things are. it was enough to stun you, not enough to hold you, and you wonder if the spell was meant just for you - briefly, until it clicks.

you walk through the town with your eyes closed, and you feel them. so many, it should be impossible, there are so many and you feel every one of them, snared in, powerful and helpless, and your blood sings their rage and their stolen memories, their time and their will.

soon, you tell them. soon.

precision. the time has to be right, and the moon is yet not full.

you climb back into your house the way you left it, the spell settles again and you let it touch you, let it tell you all the things it's meant to. you put all the false memories on like a second skin, slip into your bedroom, and wait for dawn.

it's easy and you like it, easy is the way it should be. you talk to people the spell tells you you know, play cat's cradle with it, now that you know it inside and out. easy. you look for strays and innocents, but the town doesn't have so many. every one of them is on a bus going elsewhere long before midnight.

the witching hour comes, bringing stillness and the full moon that makes your skin glow. finally. all the good people of this trap town are asleep, basking in their safety, rotten fruit on their windowsills. good people. you spit those words, filled with venom, and the wind catches them, tosses them back and forth. the wind, too, can get angry. it’s raking up a storm, circling every building, every tree - quietly, because you asked it to. 

the wind is fast. in the next breath and a half all the rotten fruit in the windows are gone. the wind rushes up in a spiral, plummets down, dumping them all at your feet. you pick up the threads of the spell, feel them stretch and quiver all the way through the town, all the way outside - to an old mill, to a circle of dead grass in a rye field, to a poisoned well. you hold the threads tight, weave them together, in and out and pull through, and repeat, and repeat. they had a very good weaver, these townspeople, all those centuries ago. good, but not good enough. you give the spell one final tug and feel it unravel, its threads dissolving in the moonlight.

the air is still, a breath held. moments stretch thin. you linger on the edge between moonlight and marshwater, razor-thin, double-check your own spellwork, take a step back and let go.

the town still looks the same, picture-pretty-white-picket-fences glowing under the moon. as you walk away, you feel the ancient ones awaken, not your blood, still your kin. they spread out as they reach for their memories, breathe in their freedom. 

the good townspeople, held still in their beds, are staring into the darkness with wide eyes, trembling. outside, there’s nothing. no other township or homestead for miles and miles. 

nobody to hear them scream.

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@nosebleedclub July prompt xi marsh witch

[thymelines]

staying awake past bedtime was the most freedom I could get, once. moving around my two bedroom childhood home, quiet in the dark, avoiding objects by touch, by memory rather than by sight felt liberating, somehow. listening to my mother's dreams, filling a glass with water, staring into the night just out of reach through a single-pane window, longing for home. I was home, longing for home, and it was the most painful feeling, the most

cherished one. I still have it, sometimes, though home feels a lot closer now. I go out in the wee hours of the morning, sit on benches, touch the quiet and the trees, find the shape of me. everything feels like a promise kept as I come back in and fall asleep after sunrise.

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@nosebleedclub August prompt list, i. after hours

[thymelines]

You have the prettiest name 🪷

thank you <3

[thymelines]

yeah well. I guess it's just an excuse to try and put this thing inside me into words. I mean this can't be considered poetry, really. it's a cry of outrage, a plea - I have no idea who I'm pleading with, honestly, don't know anything other than I am crying as I'm typing this up on my phone, still safe and comfortable in my tiny apartment, I mean

at least there's no threat of bombs falling onto my head, see - I happen to have been born on the other side, the one that does the bombing & calls it an act of liberation. the one that jails people who dare to say as much as a simple 3-letter word publicly. as if refusing to call it war would make it into something noble. a holy quest, its success certain and inevitable. a lie, a lie so blatant and obvious I still cannot believe there are actual real people who don't see right through it

but like. I'm staring at a court house photograph, where a sixty-year-old man sentenced to seven fucking years in prison for saying just that is holding up a sign that says "do you still need that war" & there's a wall of uniformed bodies in front of his tiny plexiglass cell, trying to block him out, faces turned away, mostly, but. not all of them. I look at one and I keep looking at them all and I just cannot comprehend, this is something I'm never gonna comprehend - this is, right here on the picture, a human being. a real person who keeps doing his job, not being bothered at all by the fact that his job is to detain and jail people for speaking.

and there are so many, not just him - there are so many of them here, the ones working for the system, wearing the uniform, wearing every uniform there is, beating and torturing and raping and murdering, and the ones cheering them on from the sidelines, just as eager for the blood and the violence and fuck!!!  

this whole damn country should come with a trigger warning, not just this not-poetry which doesn’t get any, anyway, too late for that - every day I look at these photographs, at bombed out cities and bodies in the streets and people detained at protests and the smug sadistic faces of those doing the bombing and the murdering and the beating and I feel so alien cannot breathe, a mermaid thrown out of water, an altogether different species of sentience treated like a fish, to be gutted and served at dinner in case I’m stupid enough to get caught

it’s not a question of stupidity. it’s not having access to open waters - or any waters, really, just a splash and a puddle on a rainy day, barely enough to gulp it down, save for later - and this thing, right here, this powerless rage, this inability to breathe, the incomprehensible horrors treated like acts of heroism make me question my own humanity, see

if this is what being human means, I don’t think I want any.

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@nosebleedclub july prompt list viii. mermaid

[thymelines]

soft. light, like a sunrise hours past, like a feather. in my dream I was learning how to fly. it was all about the correct way of breathing & surprisingly easy. slow, as I opened my eyes, found my name again, the world here at my fingertips, blue and green and shining.

How did it feel to wake up?

[thymelines]

bitter, she says. I remember she likes grapefruits. peels them with her teeth, nose scrunched, laughing. I should buy some, I think. it’s been a while.

aching, she says. a bruise, but not exactly one you can press on to feel more/ stop feeling it all the time. more like I don’t know if it gets better, ever. even if there’s no more reason behind it. still.

stubborn, she says. yeah, isn’t it. like. the only possible way. to exist out of spite, to become something/ yourself/ beautiful. to find meaning when everyone says it’s pointless.

growing, she says. points her finger at a row of tiny plants in the cracked pavement. I take a picture. golden hour backlight makes her skin glow.

hopeful, she says.

hopeful.

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@nosebleedclub july prompt ii. your summer in five words

[thymelines]

I can feel it rolling under my skin. itchy and sort of dry, snagging on the inside of me, pulling me out & out & into the warmth I had no idea I craved until half a breath ago, drawn in through clenched teeth & a smile left too long out in the open.

I let go.

let it catch me.

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i. to the sea from @nosebleedclub July prompt list

[thymelines]

mostly it's like this: I don't know what to tell you. I don't know if there's even a you - an idea, an abstract notion of another person reading this. I guess it shouldn't matter, but. still.

mostly it feels like. back out of this post and do not save the draft. anything I try to say feels fake anyway.

in another language I write almost every day. in another language my prose is strong and proud and angry. accusing and unafraid. that language got cancelled I hear. I keep writing anyway.

here I just don't know what to say. honestly. close and open and close a new entry every now and then - not that often, but. still.

keep coming back like I need this.

[thymelines]

and I find myself sitting here, 3 am, sunrise slowly turning yesterday into tomorrow. oh, you know what I mean. today I crushed strawberries in my tea, sunlight & the feeling of a storm slowly rolling somewhere just out of reach. feet off the floor, sugar & the hot breath of summer. I am nine again & the world slowly spinning around me, covered in white of poplar down going up, up, up.