Finding My Mom's Doctoral Essay

fish song

Are fedoras really that bad?

YES YES THEY ARE

TW : Transphobia

there is always tomorrow

Just got transferred to Gotham Police Department from Central City, and it's so...weird?? There was an immediate drug bust, the perps were wearing speedos and joker masks, my partner just subtracted 20% of the cocain as "travelling fees" 'cause we're driving through the east end?? What! is! this place!!

At least rent's low.

blood in the water 🩸

The man who saw her lips and knew defeat

Embraced the earth before her bonny feet;

And as the breeze passed through her musky hair

The men of Rome watched wondering in despair.

Her eyes spoke promises to those in love,

Their fine brows arched coquettishley above—

Those brows sent glancing messages that seemed

To offer everything her lovers dreamed.

The pupils of her eyes grew wide and smiled,

And countless souls were glad to be beguiled;

The face beneath her curls glowed like soft fire;

Her moneyed lips provoked the world's desire;

But those who thought to feast there found her eyes

Held pointed daggers to protect the prize,

And since she kept her council no-one knew—

Despite the claims of some—what she would do.

Her mouth was tiny as a needles eye,

Her breath as quickening as Jesus' sigh;

Her chin was dimpled with a silver well

In which a thousand drowning Josephs fell;

A glistening jewel held her hair in place,

Which like a veil obscured her lovely face.

The Conference of the Birds, Attar

you worry the cardboard sleeve around the coffee and think about landfills and the future without straws. you are worried about prion disease and deer. you are worried about the rising temperature of mushrooms. you are worried about teflon and microplastics and carcinogens and whatever else you're being quietly lied to about.

your mother used to jokingly say you are "a worrier," which always kind of oddly hurt your feelings. you feel like a person. and besides, you've been told one-million-times that this is normal. examples get trotted out in a pony show each time: everyone gets nervous sometimes. they talk about public speaking and picturing people naked and how when they get nervous they just-get-over-it.

you run your hands down the grater of your life and feel the sharpness. you started holding your breath in tunnels as a kid, worried that if you relax, the ceiling would cave in. like years of architects and engineers weren't responsible - you, and your faith, you were responsible for the success of infrastructure. if you slipped for a moment, your whole family would be swept away under the ocean. and the problem is that it worked - no tunnel collapsed.

you once broke a coffee carafe and even though you didn't drink from it after, you worried that there had been some previous invisible micro-break that had made you drink glass particles. you stayed awake for 24 hours, constantly dreading each swallow, waiting to taste blood.

you hate being late, you worry about it. you go to grab literally just lunch with a friend - no pressure, no emergency - and you still park the car an hour early and just sit there scrolling on your phone aimlessly. maybe you just don't like surprises or change. you triple-check you locked the doors, and then go to bed, and then get up out of bed to check twice again.

a worrier. like a strange and dreadful bingo card, you collect weekly experiences. someone tells you that you're overthinking, that's 2 points. you have to physically turn around and go back in your house to check you unplugged everything, that's 1 point. spiraling about climate change or politics or the state of the world is a free space, that's basically every evening.

you worry you're being selfish and not a good person because how come you're worried about your dog's health and the itch in your eye when you know people who are really very ill or who have it worse or who are genuinely struggling. then you worry that you're being annoying by infantilizing them. then you worry that your priorities are wrong, that you should be infinitely more worried about the state of a dying planet.

you wanted to be a person, is all. you wanted to go through life in a softness, to hold the world gently and have it whisper past you. and instead you are a worrier. everything that touches you is hard and raw and sharp like diamonds.

rncpoems / Johnson 4/20 @2009 by NEA, Inc. / pencap / iloveskies / Hafiz / Unknown /  Sunlit. Oil on linen , Gunter H. Korus / silentthevoice, louisamayanniecat / Unknown / Atticus