“I Belong To Oceania - Or, At Least, I Am Rooted In A Fertile Portion Of It - And It Nourishes My Spirit,

“No wonder I am mesmerized by your tongues’ small fires glowing with desire.”

— M.J. Iuppa, from “Marigolds,” Amethyst Review (2022)

Fertile Memory (Michel Khleifi, 1980)

my mom was murdered last week leaving me without permanent housing, work, and my personal items. please boost this fund to support me in completing her end of life services:

gofundme.com

In loving memory of Khalilah S. Elam, organized by Akeila Elam

Khalilah Elam was murdered in her home on September 2nd, 2022. She left behind a nex… Akeila Elam needs your support for In loving memory o

“I have grown weary of talking about life as if it is deserved, or earned, or gifted, or wasted. I’m going to be honest about my scorecard and just say that the math on me being here and the people who have kept me here doesn’t add up when weighed against the person I’ve been and the person I can still be sometimes. But isn’t that the entire point of gratitude? To have a relentless understanding of all the ways you could have vanished, but haven’t? The possibilities for my exits have been endless, and so the gratitude for my staying must be equally endless.”

— Hanif Abdurraqib, from “On Times I Have Forced Myself Not to Dance,” in A Little Devil in America

Tony Hoagland, from “Peaceful Transition”, What Narcissism Means to Me

Moss PNGs.

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the next kiss i kiss will leave us feelin richer

Sunday Evening by JoeLius DuBois Porter

“What’s difficult about being from Hawaii is that everyone has a postcard view of your home. Hawaii lives vividly in people’s minds as nothing more than a weeklong vacation – a space of escape, fantasy and paradise. But Hawaii is much more than a tropical destination or a pretty movie backdrop — just as Aloha is way more than a greeting. The ongoing appropriation and commercialization of all things Hawaiian only makes it clearer as to why it is inappropriate for those with no ties to Hawaii, its language, culture and people to invoke the Hawaiian language. This is uniquely true for aloha – a term that has been bastardized and diminished with its continual use. Most who invoke the term aloha do not know its true meaning. Aloha actually comes from two Hawaiian words: Alo – which means the front of a person, the part of our bodies that we share and take in people. And Ha, which is our breath. When we are in each other’s presence with the front of our bodies, we are exchanging the breath of life. That’s Aloha.”

— Janet Mock (via wattaabunkamamuti)