I am yours and we are dancing
we levitate on Neptune
across its frozen oceans
dancing beneath stars
that burst into jewels
clinging to your dress, twirling,
forming moons from nothing
and comets at your fingertips
you glide along the sky
so beautiful I find myself
adrift in your orbit
that pulls me whichever way
you will it
and I will find Saturn
to gift you his rings
but you deserve much more
and I will give you everything
because you give me love
like cosmic fireworks
This poem is borne from the idea of a creature that would be able to travel into our minds. What would it think about our deepest thoughts?
But this is also just me practicing structured(ish) poetry by limiting myself to eleven syllables for each line. But it’s a loose rule since the structure breaks apart a few times. I tried my best to develop the poem’s fantasy elements so that it’s at the very least least fairy tale-adjacent.
~
In the cesspool of my dreams a shadow prowls
leafing through my memories, it hums in thought,
pausing at each page turned, it raises a brow,
weighing each scene’s absurdity— all for naught.
“A dreadful, sinful person,” it must presume.
Alas, this is the shadow prowler’s sole role,
deterge, depurate those degenerate tombs—
tombes of our memories, that twin to our souls.
But back to me and my character. It’s foul—
or at least so the prowler presumes. It’s right.
Fruit pluckers like I shall be the fall of all.
Best to scourge my rot, all my blights extradite.
So the prowler gouges that meat of my mind,
and carefully bleeds it— drip by drip go by.
Back into me it pours nectar so sublime.
Golden, untainted virtue to gratify
those parents that left me dry
when I told them that one time
of lost dignity and pride
when I sold love for mere dimes
they said they’d rather I died
than have some foul sinner child . . .
At this page, the shadow prowler lays in wait.
Perhaps, its heart twinges with sweet sympathy.
Perhaps, I would be ever so fortunate.
But it’s too late. The nectar swallows fully.
Thus, I’m drowning in its makeshift chastity.
Birthing my new entity and sealing it
where Vice pricked continuous punctures in me.
The shadow prowler retreats when my mind is cleansed and pure like a baby’s.
Hey guys! This week I visited the Matthaei Botanical Gardens with my classmates for ARTDES 364 – Visualizing Science and took a lot of notes on the guided tour. We’re working on a project to revamp the Botanical Gardens’s map, so I made sketches of the general layout and where the different plants of interest are located.
I also took note of some botanical facts that made me imagine sci-fi speculative evolution worldbuilding for my own projects, especially the Indian banyan tree’s ever-encroaching roots that try to suffocate any plants in their path. In my own imagining they become the inspiration for giant biomechanical tendrils slowly engulfing ruins and wreckage from a bygone era.
All in all, I’m really glad that I got the opportunity to learn more about the botanical gardens for various creative projects that I’m gradually working on! Next week I’ll be selling in the Artist Alley at Katsucon in National Harbor, Maryland, so my weekly post will likely come later in the weekend than usual! Have a great week!
Here’s yet another update to my DnD character! I simplified Xhaska’s eyes to make her easier to draw. I also experimented with giving her a 1960s flair. I just wasn’t feeling her knitted vest right now, but I’ve decided it was the best option for her character design. I made the skirt too short and even in the middle outfit. The rip is more of a diagnonal.
“I turn the music up,”
After a very anxious past few weeks, I have started to find peace within myself again. This peace has coincidentally lined up with a week of unseasonably warm and sunny weather in Ann Arbor. Seeing the sun and not being freezing every time I step outside has been very healing (even though I’m not happy to know that this is climate change at work). The change in my internal attitude and the external weather has prompted me to listen to some of the music that makes me feel happiest.
“I got my records on.”
Coldplay is my go-to happy band, another band that my mom and I have connected through. When listening to their upbeat songs, I can’t help but feel energized and grateful. Walking around campus with this music in my ears and the sun on my face has been fantastic, and to make things even better, this week I got accepted into grad school!
“From underneath the rubble sing a rebel song.”
No matter how dreary and anxious I may feel, this week proves that those feelings aren’t permanent. The sun does come back out – metaphorically and literally. It’s the moments of stress and anxiety and sadness that allow me to be even more grateful for the happy and love-filled moments that I am fortunate enough to experience. Life goes on, and regardless of how I may feel in a moment, in my experience, life remains a beautiful, exciting thing.
“Don’t want to see another generation drop.”
That being said, though life ebbs and flows, I’m thrilled to feel like I’m starting the journey back to my usual positive self – I feel more at peace that way. I’m looking forward to the nice weather this weekend and spending time outside in Ann Arbor with some of my closest friends. Here’s to more acceptance, growth, and positivity this semester!
Listen to Every Teardrop is a Waterfall by Coldplay here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Kf_6BWcOOg
The microbiome is important
All manner of mushrooms sprout
Graphite mycelium merging with
Red parallel lines of soil
Spirals bound to spiral-bound paper
Spinning further with each need to
Focus and distract oneself
And on those festive occasions
You’ll find pumpkins, snowflakes, hearts
Technically vestigial, but still enjoyed
And four corners become eight as the page is
Folded and folded and folded and folded
Until the edges are torn
Piling up, scraps of snow on a paper mountain
Oh
Right
There are some words too
