To You, Everything
Blackberry hair
a raven nestled
inside your tired eyes
lips like butterflies
in bloom
butterflies don’t bloom
but those in my chest do
watching you
from a field of flowers
sunflowers at your breast
beating beside a candied heart
that I wish I have given to you
I wish I had given you
Everything
Ringo has thoughts about humans…
I’ve decided to make another character in my world.
Read more: Anna Hakala
My general concept was Cyrene’s tall cousin who turns into a mermaid. I really like her mounds of fluffy pink hair and I envision her mermaid form to have bioluminescent lights all over. She gets a mermaid thigh tattoo and her color scheme is pink and black. I want to make her seem more approachable than Cyrene. I’ll continue to workshop her design and how similar/apart it should be from Cyrene.
That’s like people who put their socks over their pants. Ugh.
That’s horrendous!
Intramural Building, 3:30PM, 1/13/2025
the voice you are reading this with is not mine or yours, but a narrator present to your thoughts. first-person omniscience? an enzyme, breaking and rebuilding, a tornado of yarn tangling the threads separating memory from fiction. they are both the same, in a way; there is no way to prove the past, just as there is no way to prove your presence. your finger slips against the needle and you curse softly, a soap bubble of a word, floating out of your mouth and into the air.
Apparently her nickname at church was church slut. Yeah. I guess we’re just leaving it out there.
Palmer Commons, 5:00PM, 12/2/2024
ecstasy is paired with dread like a fine wine to a steak: one enhances the flavor of the other. you are frying shallots and mincing the skins, turning them into an autumn leafpile on the cutting board. i don’t ask what you plan to do with it–with what? the skins, the oil, the knife? a square of butter falls into the pan and begins to bubble in protest, a witch burned at the stake for predicting the future. a final chemical farewell–just like the scent of grass, a scream without sound–as you turn around and pour the scraps down the sink. my stomach drops with the oil, with a hiss. paired with dread, indeed.
What the [-] is wrong with you? You’re showing all of Ann Arbor my ass! Pull my draws up!
Blake Transit Center, 4:30PM, 1/27/2025
another theory: for each idea we nurture, ten more sink their roots in the soft flesh of the brain. antheia’s snakes, long and green and suffocating everything in sight. that’s not right. you’re confusing jack and the beanstalk with king midas. and wasn’t it medusa with the snakes? i wave you off. the vines tighten further. delirium is a delicious taste because it convinces you that nothing is impossible. everything, and everything still–don’t you see? the beginning is the end of the beginning. the stardust twinkles in your eyes, just to prove a point.
Text: (on TV): “TOMORROW: -30º”
“Oh Wow!!”
“Its so cold this week! That means a snow day!!”
“…”
“kinda cold today, huh guys?”
I personally can’t relate to this comic strip at all! Not even one bit!! But seriously though, I hope everyone is warm and bundled up right now. I think we’ve gotten through the worst of it, but still, please stay warm. Not all of us have fur!
I’ve reached a newfound love for sunrises. I’m now starting my days in the darkness of 7am, and in these too early mornings I find myself witness to the magic of the sun warming the world as it rises the horizons. Yes, I love sunsets as much as the next person, but there’s something about the sun rising and waking tired eyes that feels like a hug after a night spent too alone.
As a professional workaholic, I spend my sunrises and sunsets in the Stamps print studio most days. My lifelong growing love for printmaking has only grown tenfold this past year during my printmaking classes, and in its wake my love for the print studio has blossomed as well. Although I come home bruised, stained with ink, and the sorest I’ve ever been every time after working in the print studio, I’ve never been happier. The print studio has become some what of long lost home in my time here in Ann Arbor. It’s where you go to find someone willing to laugh with you and gossip after a long day working. You’re able to find secrets tucked away in the donated artwork pinned across the walls, lasting memories of those who came before. There’s a peace that exists in the studio when no one is there, and you can feel it right before you walk it. The air is stagnant with the smell of ink and linseed oil, and the metal of the presses sit still and cold until you will them awake for the next step of work. The dust of litho stones are settled into corners never touched by brooms and the crinkle of newsprint stay silent until a breeze shakes them to life. There’s a certain special kind of life breathed into the studio when you step in and see an assortment of people you never would’ve met if it wasn’t for this shared love and you start to create alongside them. There’s a special connection made through printmaking and I find it to be most tangible in the life of the studio. From late nights to early mornings, from spilt ink to perfectly polished plates, the print studio exists as a world entirely its own and it’s something that can never be replaced.
To take into our next week:
Ins: Pomegranate tea, hosting movie nights, reading before bed, sunrises, the color mauve, hummus, thermoses full of coffee.
Outs: Sleeping after 11pm, broken appliances, wind tunnels, dry knuckles, static electricity, grease.
I always believe time is well spent no matter what you’re doing as long as you’re in a space you love. I hope everyone is able to enjoy the places that bring peace, happiness, or even just respite from the chaotic world in the coming days.
