violas-notebook

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2. girl names

we were named for queens

she shaped golden ages

i was divorced beheaded survived

we appear in old books

she a saint and i a shrew

between print and stone

our shadows knit together

obscuring who is in whose

Poetry Month Prompts

1. as good as you'll get 2. girl names 3. lacrosse 4. swan 5. house with a name 6. one year after the accident 7. profiteroles 8. potholes 9. vivisection 10. adult revenge 11. "safe" place 12. road sign 13. glam 14. oyster mushroom 15. mother's footsteps 16. what life was like 17. almond milk 18. lagomorph 19. physical therapy 20. birthday flowers 21. book of miracles 22. ferment 23. brick 24. routine 25. days spent waiting 26. infirmary 27. hallucinogen 28. supper club 29. deviant 30. age

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these past few months have felt a lot like climbing slowly out of a pit into sunshine 

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2. glade

golden branches drag

margins of the pond mar the 

surface of old songs

5. collegiate

loud quiet clicking

alone in a crowded sea  

peaceful empty glass 

7. secret art

the way we talked was

like a romance in itself 

and i let it go

19. underwater

i would lay here for

a lifetime till i am smooth 

like river pebbles

22. ashore

rough hands wet shirt sharp

scrape of a rock, a branch, a

reconnect, a heave

28. jackrabbit

the way we jumped and

slid on those yellow leaves, i

can never return

Poetry Month Prompts

1. Violets 2. Glade 3. Untie 4. Lightning-struck 5. Collegiate 6. Rowing 7. Secret art 8. Labrador 9. Decades before 10. Orion 11. Cleanup site 12. Ripped bag 13. Neanderthal 14. Spring lamb 15. Adventure time  16. Rival team 17. Martian 18. Face like an angel 19. Underwater 20. Hiding place 21. Estate sale 22. Ashore 23. Fountain pen 24. Western 25. Berry pie 26. Various 27. Hazel 28. Jackrabbit 29. Whale-watching 30. High school accident

[violas-notebook]

hey, it’s been a while. i sort of forgot this blog exists, but i’m gonna try and revitalize it a little. :3

[violas-notebook]

1. cat, 21, she/her

2. my characters have wills of their own, i’m just the person who puts them down on paper. i love that my own writing often surprises me.

3. jane austen and the brontës were really formative for me, but so was the mountain of fanfiction i read as a teenager— so i recommend reading literally anything, as long as you’re having fun with it

4. self-discovery, love and loss, wake-up calls and difficult truths, nature/forests, eyes, water, fire, weighted silences, memory, transformation

5. i saw myself as a visual artist as a kid, not a writer— though i did write, too. i drew and painted constantly; i had visions of worlds and characters i wanted to make come alive. around 13-14 was when i realized i could do that more effectively with words. i didn’t look back.

6. i’m currently writing an original story— it’s an apocalyptic mystery set in the 80s, which is a huge step out of my comfort zone (i normally write historical fiction). i also write the occasional fic at ifearnocolors on ao3! check me out if you like intense character study oneshots for fandoms you’ve probably never heard of before.

7. on google docs on my laptop in my college’s library (in the big fancy room for serious studying, of course)… or in my bed at midnight after a long shower with a candle lit on the windowsill beside me

8. oscar wilde, obviously!

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?

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prompt: false god

appalachian judgment. a meeting under the overpass. greenery that engulfed an abandoned neighborhood. the religion your stepfather introduced your whole family to. white goat on the rooftop. varsity football crimes, no repercussions. what the children think they saw.

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2. remember me 

kneel in winter’s eye

pouring out into the dirt 

pieces of chipped glass

10. smell of snow

light of passing trains

draw the cold into the bones

waiting and waiting 14. undress

chalky fabric draped

thin over eyelids i am 

a paper machine  18. problem child

stalling car pinpoint 

blackness outside i swallow

emotionless tears  24. third floor 

selfish closing of

eyes erasing the real i

fade conveniently

28. the trade 

knife-scraped clouds take my

hand and curl it open i

will not cannot stay

January Prompts

1. decade 2. remember me 3. the harm 4. black jeans 5. kindling 6. wolf moon 7. grandparent 8. deadly bacteria 9. pyromania 10. smell of snow 11. bravery 12. faint galaxy 13. cut your hair 14. undress 15. hand glass 16. tea leaves 17. deerskin 18. problem child 19. Texan 20. young hearts 21. drawbridge 22. bunny 23. sands of time 24. third floor 25. cottonwood 26. spirit host 27. trap 28. the trade 29. dreaded funeral 30. out for blood 31. the thing you carry everywhere

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i love how once in a blue moon i have an anxiety response to some relatively minor interpersonal drama that massively escalates the whole thing, makes me look insane, and compounds even more on itself when i try to backtrack and fix things/apologize 

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something that i think is so, so important is to tell yourself that you’re actually a good person and there’s nothing wrong with you in any way, that you’re doing your best and that’s all that matters, that the only opinion of yourself that holds any weight is yours and if you love and care about yourself then you are worthy and special but most of all okay, you’re okay, you’re normal and fine, lovable, even, and you’re allowed to keep existing in peace 

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i love myself. 

more than anything in the world, i know this to be true. 

i love myself so much that, like a doting parent, 

i want me to be happy, 

                 to be healthy, 

                 to succeed, 

                 to survive. 

sometimes i forget that these wishes for myself are only wishes, 

that they won’t come true just because i want them to. 

the universe has to ordain them, not me. 

so, powerless, 

i worry 

(that the worst will happen if i cannot ensure the best). 

i have named this thing in me anxiety. 

it is borne of love but it hurts me, the awful paradox, 

and so, i let go 

                            loosen up 

                            have faith

                            breathe 

trust that i’m trying, trust that i deserve what i can give 

and float wherever the tide takes me 

and be okay 

despite it all

in the end. 

[violas-notebook]

onscreen nostalgia

pucker

singing into the wind

grandparents’ basement 

the summer i was 19

oak tree

romeo and juliet

thrift shop

bedsheets

photo of a stranger 

holes in the screen

dew between bare toes 

Word Association Activity

Everyone do this please! I’ve listed twelve words/concepts below, please reblog this post with either a word or short phrase you associate with each listed word/concept. Alternatively, you can use these as prompts for art or writing. Thanks!

1. COLLEGE FOOTBALL:

2. GRAPEFRUIT:

3. SEA:

4. ANTLERS:

5. DISASTROUS:

6. NYMPH:

7. FRESHMAN:

8. LACE:

9. SMOOTHEN:

10. FAMILY DEATH:

11. RACCOON:

12. MEADOW:

[violas-notebook]

an essay into the void, i guess

i’ve been getting back into this fandom lately, and it’s brought back some memories of this person i used to be friends with. the first time i was in the fandom, i was in it with them and we had a story/au we worked on together, and so the fandom and our friendship are intertwined in my mind in a way. but we don’t talk anymore, and i’m pretty sure they hate me, or at least, they did the last time i checked. 

it’s been a long time since i last talked to them. i’ve accepted that we both made big mistakes w how our friendship ended, and i wish it hadn’t, but i’m ok not having them in my life anymore. i’ve realized that i’m happy with my life as it is. but lately i’ve had things on my mind that i’d thought i’d made peace with a long time ago. 

we had this big fight like six months after our friendship ended that was also the last time i meaningfully spoke to them. they contacted me to air their grievances at me, and i was very upset bc i didn’t want to rehash things and they didn’t give me the choice. they said a lot of hurtful things, and honestly, most of it was valid. the general gist was that they felt i’d been dumping my mental health issues on them and it was negatively impacting their own mental health. it was true, and hearing it was hard. they’d never told me at the time, even though i’d tried asking them if they were okay. but there’s one thing in particular that they said to me that day that, for some reason, i can’t let go of. 

they told me that they felt i’d used them for various things in our friendship. they said, you were using me as a therapist, as a person to vent to, etc. and then they said, you were just using me for your story ideas. 

when we were friends, we had so many story ideas together. but they weren’t my story ideas, they were ours. i was the writer, so i was the one who would bring some of them to life in fic/short story format, but the ideas were theirs just as much as they were mine. we’d brainstorm for hours over text and on long walks together, bouncing ideas off of each other till we came up with something amazing, and then i would turn it into written words. this, to me, was one of the most special aspects of our friendship. i loved the connection we had, and i thought it was just as fun for them as it was for me. but i guess i was wrong. 

it hurts me so, so much - probably more than anything else about the entire situation, if i’m being honest - to think that for the whole time that i was friends with this person, they felt our story-creating sessions as a burden imposed on them by me, and resented me for using them as some kind of vessel for ideas. and they didn’t even tell me, but just let me go on thinking we were both having a blast. 

with distance and time from that conversation, which was almost a year ago now, i know that there’s a chance they said that out of anger. our final interaction got heated, and i know we were both upset. that’s what i’d like to believe. but i don’t know that for sure. i will never know that for sure, because truth be told, i don’t think we’ll ever speak again. they’ve made it clear that they don’t want me in their life ever again, and while my feelings on the matter are more complicated, if our falling-out taught me one thing, it taught me that sometimes it’s best to just leave things be. 

but it does haunt me. both what they said, and the urge to text them back up and ask: did you really mean it? 

i’m not even sure what i’d say after that, which is a big part of why i don’t know if i’ll ever do it. i think, first and foremost, that i’d want to apologize to them. but would they appreciate the apology, or see it as selfish: just a way for me to assuage my own guilt? would they be angry at me for reaching out? would they even respond? it’s hard not to fall down a rabbit hole of guesswork. after all, i can’t say i really even know this person anymore. 

i’ve thought a lot more than i’d like to admit about what might happen if i did reach back out. i even briefly contemplated doing it this summer, before deciding that it wasn’t worth it: even the thought of doing so was making me anxious, and i was happy with my life without them in it, so there didn’t seem to be much of a benefit. but there’s always this tiny crumb of wishful thinking in the back of my mind. the idea that maybe one day we could meet again, both of us older and wiser than we had been when we’d both hurt each other, and  we could forgive each other. part ways with understanding and compassion. hug it out. you know.   

i’ve spent more than a year now telling myself that i don’t want to be friends with this person ever again. most of this is because i know that it’s really not up to me. they’ve decided that they don’t want to be friends with me ever again, and i can’t change their mind. i’ve told myself: i don’t even miss them. my life already feels complete without them in it. they treated me just as poorly as i treated them, barging back into my life months later to shout at me for wronging them when instead of telling me at the time, they distanced themself and started picking fights till our friendship fell apart on its own. 

but in my heart of hearts, i know i don’t hate them. i know if they came to me and asked me to make amends and be friends again, i’d say yes. and i’d say, you know, those stories were always yours too. 

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v. siren song

draw disappearing

circles in the loamy pond

a type of message

vii. fire in the night

revenge lives in her

chipped smile red tongue rubies

strewn in yellow grass

xvi. green sky

her arms flung wide the

jetty seethed and sang danger

and a coming storm 

xx. rattlesnake

follow close don’t lose

the way when vision blurs you’re

sinking muddy down

xxviii. go to her 

candle smearing rain

behind glass and the book on

the dresser's screaming

August Prompts

i. after hours ii. i’ve been thinking iii. real-life monster iv. barbed wire fence v. siren song vi. deep field vii. fire in the night viii. unmatched ix. saltwater skin x. abandoned vineyard xi. deadliest xii. the perseids xiii. boy names xiv. derecho xv. feast xvi. cattails xvii. heat of the day xviii. green sky xix. sleeve xx. rattlesnake xxi. flash flood xxii. still tender xxiii. book of _________ xxiv. swallowtail xxv. neck bite xxvi. white house  xxvii. cellist xxviii. go to her xxix. places we’ve never been xxx. in the shadow of the mountain xxxi. killed

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i. to the sea

salt splinters glisten

where my nails carved grooves in the

sponge of my palms

viii. mermaid

rays slice the whitecaps   

beady silt rolls into space

the language of teeth

x. three swords

red moon dark dead trees

tell me where you hid my bones

i am in stasis

xiv. stone

fine grit speckles my 

kneebeds while i’m bolstering 

waiting for the rain

xxxi. the chase

kicking sand into

the mirage of that old dream

at last tide sliding

July Prompts

i. to the sea ii. your summer in five words iii. funeral suit iv. medieval v. blinded vi. cottonmouth vii. work of fiction viii. mermaid ix. unpleasant x. three swords xi. marsh witch xii. gulls xiii. the hem of your dress xiv. damnation xv. vermillion xvi. arrow xvii. county fair xviii. what is fair? xix. contentious xx. stone xxi. monet xxii. notoriety xxiii. jupiter xxiv. café xxv. it hurts xxvi. flowers we killed xxvii. blood curdling xxviii. pilgrim xxix. scraped knee xxx. cornfield xxxi. the chase

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art angels by grimes really is such a spectacular album <3

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it’s a genre it’s an art form it’s an aesthetic it’s a personality it’s an era it’s a gender.... it’s Romeo + Juliet (1996) dir. Baz Luhrmann starring Leonardo DiCaprio 

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finally, i do.

Do you like who you are?