toplesscorvid

[toplesscorvid]

im in the valley and the valley is badlands red. it claims hues of blood to murky sunset purples, sung in tall formations washed smooth by wind and water. the sun and open prairie give way to unrelenting distance, to coyotes and the small bones they tracked for miles, to diving falcons and quieter marsh hawks.

im in the valley and im not alone in the valley. the horse i ride is made of bone, having lost the strip of white on his nose and the chestnut of his coat to the predicted decay of eternity. he is mine the way a childhood home is refound post-condemnation. like the horse, i am storied. my boots clung to their leather in strips. i cling to my living death in turns, meeting it from underneath the brim of a black cowboy hat.

the horse was not born in the red silt valley but he came here for the great aunt whod painted him following the great uncle whod dreamt him. due to the circumstance it was impossible to say who knew the horse first, but he always liked her best. she had painted him in startling color, setting him dancing against the clay and telling the dust how to gather around his graceless hooves.

i ride without a saddle because there had been no saddle in the painting. the horse was now made of gnarled yellow bone but the shine of his hooves remained. on family name we ride montana to saskatchewan and back, followed only by shifting season and the brayed callings of unknown foxes.

i refuse. this is my notorious feature. i refuse in grand gestures, the only pause i take before the no from dramatic heart or spiteful inclination. it became easier to deny, seeing no one. still it was not like saying nothing, contextualised by the brutality of how id used to scream it.

the prairies are littered with other riders, dotted like landmark. they light fires and pop aspirin in the backgrounds. they are bloody-knuckled or long-haired, blue-bearded or guitar-equipped. i consider them in epithets. there is the One Who Doesn’t like Me, and that is A Beautiful Skeleton Horse as Far as Skeleton Horses Go Anyway. we are all a facet of narrative, or the truth, refusing to go. we harbour an ecosystem. if we werent meant to be, we are now and this is not different from meaning to be.

in wyoming a man rides alongside me. his pale horse startled, impaired only by thick leather held at either side of her deer-like head. he sent her veering onto our course when night fell, frightened by the coydogs bay. he had not spoken, holding steady in movements of the hip and the line of his upturned jaw. his horse cleared the land and his body followed, camera-ready.

it was surprisingly easy to look at him and his golden-age-of-hollywood face. the individually defined eyelashes and the soulful hazel eyes. the earring he wore was my earring and the belt buckle he wore was my belt buckle. his jaw cut like the blade he used to gut the crows hung from his mahogany western saddle. dust did not rise from his horses careful steps.

thered been time since id last seen him, though he did not recognise me or the horse. his rifle gleamed angrily from his back but he did not reach for it yet. the spurs shone in light of the crescent moon but had not yet found my sides. i was suspended in his disbelief, i realised. the horse held worse opinions.

i had become something in-between, but it is dangerous to think of beings in terms of becomings. i struggle with not just the importance but the emotional integrity of deciding between explanation and unapology. who does the word suit? with the pause for the asking of a question, who does it answer? i want to say why the horse hated the man while i didnt hate the man personally. it was as much about the man as it wasnt about the man. it was as much about the horse as it wasnt about the horse. it was always about who painted the horse and it was always about the jewelry we mutually shared, the rest perspective.

the rest caught on where in the triangle you were standing.

i rode with him to keep the wyoming coydogs held at shadow length. i rode because the man did not ride away. i rode because he decided to spear his pale horse to follow, leaving me to regret how she turned her head when spurred onward.

we rode until the sun again appeared as sudden and violent as a crosshair, illuminating the gold on his man-with-no-name head. when wed met years previous id wished to be desensitized to the bird-ish line of my shoulders. i am not. some ill fate befell the riverbed we stood over. id not been there to define its pain, now able only to acknowledge its existence. he sunk into high-plains-drifter relaxation, comfortable here.

“what are you?” he asked with finality, sly as if hed already decided. his smirk-sneer-victory twisted his face beyond recognition. it would now be hopeless to view him another way. the cameras struggled to find an angle from which the sunlight did not drown him, writing him out.

“im gay,” i replied.

[toplesscorvid]

punkys-dilemma60 submitted:

The money Gaud

[toplesscorvid]

Everyday he waits for his owner.

[toplesscorvid]

a signed version of the fixed chart, for reposting

[toplesscorvid]

i wish tops were real

[toplesscorvid]

:D

[toplesscorvid]

i don’t really give a shit about this tumblr being removed from the app store thing but above all i am really glad this is happening now and not in 2011 so i don’t have to scroll past some “PSA: TUMBLR HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM THE APP STORE!” “oh HELL NO!!! Dr who fandom grab your tardises!!!” “*50 gif reaction images of the supernatural guy looking pissed off” type of shit

[toplesscorvid]

wig though today this butch femme couple came in n we had the cutest conversation n the butch ran back in afterwards to buy a big bunch of flowers I was like r u in trouble lmao n she was like yeah I ate all the cheesecake last night

[toplesscorvid]

i don’t mean to sound fake deep but the reason 2018 felt so long was because we’re being fed what’s trending at such a rapid rate that we literally can’t remember half of the shit that even happened anymore. “Black Panther came out in February!” Marvel releases so many movies a year that we completely forget about the last movie as soon as a new one comes out and it repeats in a vicious cycle. “Tide Pods/Ugandan Knuckles was in January!” The life span of memes have been rapidly declining for years and it’s gotten to the point where the average lifespan of a meme is about 2 weeks and then the next thing gets popular and then that lasts for 2 weeks and it just keeps going. We’re literally losing our sense of time because of our rapid consumption of media and pop culture.

[toplesscorvid]

there’s something endlessly hilarious to me about the phrase “hotly debated” in an academic context. like i just picture a bunch of nerds at podiums & one’s like “of course there was a paleolithic bear cult in Northern Eurasia” and another one just looks him in the eye and says “i’l kill you in real life, kevin”

[toplesscorvid]

clap your hands if you’re BISEXUAL and A LITTLE BIT OF A DUMBASS

[toplesscorvid]

GAY LOVE IS THE MARK OF GENIUS

[toplesscorvid]

Fun fact: if you’re disrespectful of the kids in the cast of stranger things Jim Hopper appears outta nowhere and punches you in the face

[toplesscorvid]

Listen. Read. Educate yourselves. If you are unaware, fix that. Do not be complicit in the societal and legal oppression of transgender Americans.

[toplesscorvid]

get someone that stays obsessed with you, not just in the beginning.

[toplesscorvid]

2018 is finally ending and we get good shit like Deltarune, smash bros and live-action Pokemon movie with Ryan Reynolds as pikachu

2019 is gonna be a good year

[toplesscorvid]

everyone sharing their twitters and other social media in case of this website experiencing an all-out collapse. not me. use the information you’ve learned about me to track me down. piece together the cryptic clues i have left throughout my blog over the years in preparation of this day to decipher the location of our future meeting. i’ll be waiting