This

This

Everything's so much easier if you know people, even if getting to know them was difficult. Get outside people, talk to others. Sometimes you'll meet the right ones, and it'll be amazing.

young me especially would have hated hearing this but networking is literally the most important thing you can do to improve your situation like forget economic barriers to education etc just keep making friends with different people and eventually someone will offer you a hand up just because they dig your vibe and that is exactly all that's happening when undeserving people surpass you anyway

Thereabouts

‘Now is that or is that not totally fucked?’

Mum smiles, reaches over, pauses the screen.

We’re watching a doco.

‘Really? Not the no blemishes?’

She shifts a little in her seat.

The doco’s on the slave trade.

We’re looking at a ship’s manifest:

Seventeen men, five women and a child.

A little girl with no,

Like Mum says,

Visible blemishes.

‘Yeah, that’s fucked.’

But it’s not the blemishes for me.

Nor is it that they put her at the bottom;

Least important, lowest on the list.

No,

For me it’s that her age is

‘Eight years old or thereabouts’

Thereabouts.

Nobody knows her birthday.

Well, that’s not true,

I bet her mum knows her birthday,

But she didn’t have an angel cake with pink icing,

The kind I did on my eighth birthday,

Or a copy of ‘Anna Karenina’, gold-edged,

Or a bow for her hair.

Just the field,

Or the kitchen, maybe, if she was lucky,

With no one there to help her count the days.

Alice Te Punga Somerville, Always Italicise: How to Write While Colonised - Kupu rere kē

[ID: A poem titled: Kupu rere kē. [in italics] My friend was advised to italicise all the foreign words in her poems. This advice came from a well-meaning woman with NZ poetry on her business card and an English accent in her mouth. I have been thinking about this advice. The convention of italicising words from other languages clarifies that some words are imported: it ensures readers can tell the difference between a foreign language and the language of home. I have been thinking about this advice. Marking the foreign words is also a kindness: every potential reader is reassured that although you’re expected to understand the rest of the text, it’s fine to consult a dictionary or native speaker for help with the italics. I have been thinking about this advice. Because I am a contrary person, at first I was outraged — but after a while I could see she had a point: when the foreign words are camouflaged in plain type you can forget how they came to be there, out of place, in the first place. I have been thinking about this advice and I have decided to follow it. Now all of my readers will be able to remember which words truly belong in -[end italics]- Aotearoa -[italics]- and which do not.

Next image is the futurama meme: to shreds you say…]

(Image ID by @bisexualshakespeare)

you guys know you can get USB connectable CD, dvd, and blu-ray players right. and you can buy external hard drives with crazy amounts of space for an amount of money that would make the average person from 2009’s head explode bc of how cheap it is. and if you do this and get ripping software such as handbrake for CDs and DVDs and makeMKV for blurays you can both own a physical copy of whatever media you want and make it accessible to yourself no matter where you are. do you guys know this

today i realized i had never been in love before

as i felt the butterflies flutter in my stomach

the way his hand glides across my back, sending shocks of electricity through my body in ways i had never felt before

it made me feel sick, almost. like there was a little bit too much love.

is that even possible?

this encounter had me looking back at every relationship i’ve had in the past

every ‘i love you’ to leave my mouth

every pink nike jacket i’ve gifted for christmas

for the amount of soft rosy lips that i’ve placed my own onto

it made me realize that i had never been in love before. i had never TRULY felt those butterflies, or had that electricity run through my veins like i need it to sustain me

wrap me up in its arms, holding me so tight that i’m afraid i might just lose my grip with reality

the one detail i forgot to mention, the one detail that complicates the matter

it all happened in a daydream. a world of my own creation, a set of my own design.

don’t get it twisted, you see, these character may not exist in their reality, but they are very real

the love i feel through them is very real

the warmth of his hand is very real

the sound of the blades against the ice is very real

the pain and suffering they’ve taken on… is very real.

it may not have a real world effect, of course.

they live in my head. they are just a figment of my imagination that i go to so that i can escape the dystopian reality i’ve been faced with. despite this i don’t see how people could say they arent real

because, today, i fell in love for the very first time, and it was all because of a daydream.

Letter #26

She didn't know how to rest yet Hadn't learnt the point of growing up Curled lips and big bright eyes Vein attempts at masking her truth She built palaces with her words Enrapturing swarms with pretty lies Answer "I'm happy" in earnest when asked Naive to knowing emptiness isn't meant to fill If only charms didn't cost her a sense of self When rose coloured glasses lose their hue Tell me, what else is a young girl to do? She'll learn the lesson of life eventually Little by little, day by day, Time will tell every tale that shall come Each rose petal guiding her forward The future will change her pace Discovering what it means to slow down Dream in something other than clouds Her mind knew not of certainty No shining knight, no protective shield Mercy found only beyond towering walls As their creator, she shall soon be their end But refusing destruction beyond herself There is only so much a tender heart can mend A limbo she lives, hopelessly hopeful Spinning until she becomes spun So for now, let youth recklessly take her It's not a lesson you can teach her She has to learn it on her own

Date Written: 23rd of September, 2023