Tamino And Mitski Photographed By Ramy Moharam Fouad

I wanted the past to go away, I wanted to leave it, like another country; I wanted my life to close, and open like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song where it falls down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery; I wanted to hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know, whoever I was, I was alive for a little while.

Mary Oliver, "Dogfish" in New and Selected Poems

maybe if you had been made right, you would be better at being alone. if you'd assembled yourself out of the particulate, coagulating into amber and diamond - you'd be lovely and desirable. instead of pewter and hungry and anxious.

when she doesn't text you back, you should be normal about that. you should shrug and move on and get back to your beautiful life and your wonderful dog. when you wake up shaking, don't call her, don't beg for her attendance. if someone says i love you, aren't you supposed to feel warm and held and gentle. what is wrong with you that your first instinct is to reject: no, you don't, not really.

what is wrong with you. asking for help from your friends and loved ones is supposed to be a moment of connection and vulnerability. instead you spend hours preparing and weeks recovering. you've done all the reading and you know you are supposed to accept-love-as-it-is presented.

but still the internal questions, litany of the prey animal. do you still love me. am i still attractive. do you care about my interests. am i boring you. are you becoming distant. are you going to leave me. do you like me or are you just managing. am i telling you too much. am i bothering you. do you want me there. am i embarrassing you.

the problem is that your prayers have been right before. you loved someone and they hurt you and now the words sluice against the floorboards no matter how tightly you lock the door. you go to therapy and try to trust and try to be kind and try to assume the best. that everyone is honest and loyal. that you can be happy and alone and miss her but still feel easy, at-home.

it feels like waving a flag in front of a sinking ship. you hold up the scripture and research, preaching: i can do this. i am not going to let my insecurities and fears ruin another relationship.

all of the drowning passengers have your face. they try to say i told you so. i told you this is what ends up happening. their voices are swallowed by the water and the deep below.

i don't like what i'm becoming and a part of what i'm becoming antagonises the self-hatred that i use to regress

i love tradition i hate tradition i love tradition i hate tradition i love tradition i hate tradition i

My guilt will not purify me.

(Batgirl 2000 permanently altered my brain chemistry)

YOU relate to matt murdock because you have religious trauma. I relate to matt murdock because i have always had an intense feeling of shame for existing, have always felt like there was something wrong with my fundamental being, continuously disappoint my friends and family but cant seem to stop, have an extreme violent anger within me that i hate, and feel like i always need to be better. we are not the same

Jewelry by Moon and Serpent

“i want them to kiss” good for you! i want them tearing each other apart limb from limb just to feel something. i want them creating wounds and scars just to leave a permanent mark on the other. i want them poking and prodding mercilessly at each other’s most vulnerable secrets but keeping them nonetheless.

Nathaniel Orion G. K. / 11.21.24

oh my god. barbara literally named cass. she named cass after cassandra from greek mythology. and she named herself after the oracle of delphi. barbara basically named cass after herself!!

because the difference between cass and babs is that no one listens to cass. at first she didn’t even know how to tell anyone, and when she finally did know her mouth wouldn’t work anyway. and when she does learn to speak no one listens. she tries to tell bruce that she is happy being batgirl but bruce fires her anyway because barbara told bruce that cass isn’t.

barbara thinks she knows what cass needs, and she does, but she doesn’t know how to go through with it so the way it ends up happening only hurts cass more. both bruce and babs project onto cass so hard, trying to give cass what they needed when they were young and cassandra doesn’t have the insight or information or words to tell them what would help her. cass thought it herself- “batman just wants another weapon in his war against crime and oracle’s looking for someone to live out her own shattered dreams” (batgirl 2000 #46)

cassandra hadn’t met her own mother yet and didn’t even know what a mother-daughter relationship would look like, had never seen a mother interacting with a child expect for maybe briefly on the street or on tv. but still, she recognized barbara as a motherly figure. barbara is the one she comes to when she cries, the one who protects her and advocates for her, brings her on vacations, who takes care of her, barbara is the one who named her. barbara is the one who cass left a note to before planning to die.