Avatar

* there’s no plan *

@onebatch--twobatch / onebatch--twobatch.tumblr.com

Ari• 27 & Bi • (Old) writings at matth1w
Avatar
Avatar
craftbadger

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but if you’re at a low point:

If you were a fictional man right now, there would be *at least* ten people if not a large portion of the fanbase that would call you their wet beast poor little meow meow

Avatar
Avatar
miiilowo

tumblr is great because no matter how many followers i get it doesn't stop me from being really fucking annoying. other places i will perhaps think before i post. Not here. not here

Avatar
Avatar
inkskinned

i know we’re both just messing around pretending to be whole but look at me. if the train was coming would you move. if the ground was falling from under your feet would you even notice or would it just be another tuesday for you. if somebody stabbed you could it hurt worse than you already do. what i’m saying is that i love you but i think we both drive over the speed limit when it’s raining. what i’m saying is that i want to hold your hand and i understand about how you sometimes have to sit down in the shower. what i’m saying is that i’m here for you and if the train comes please move.

i wrote this 7 years ago, somehow. every day someone else finds it and whispers to me - oh, i understand this. something always turns in the wash of my stomach: i am so, so glad you feel seen. i wish you had no idea what this post was about.

i wrote this while working in a program for new writers. on wednesdays, two of the teachers would be contractually obligated to read our writing aloud to the group of 300+ teens. i had never read my work in public before. i had something like 6k poems and was panicking about it. none of them are good enough. sometimes the train is howling. it is hard, actually, sometimes, even as an adult.

and then i thought - what is one thing i wish i could tell all of them. each of these 300 kids. what did i need to hear, at 16?

i wanted to tell them about the day you wake up, and the sun feels warm finally. i wanted to tell them about carving a life out of soapstone, your hands turning bloody. i wanted to tell them that sometimes yes - it actually does feel easy. i wanted to tell them about weddings and cookie dough and long road trips. about albums of new music and old friends laughing and the sound of snow falling.

you will learn the pattern of the train. you will learn to close your eyes when you hear the engine rumbling. you will learn to let yourself have the grey days in their lily-soft numbness. sometimes it will feel like life is wet paint, and god has smeared your canvas across a sewer grate. sometimes it will be so boring it isn’t even pronounceable - the tenacious, soundless blankness. survival isn’t just ugly nights and wild mornings. it is also the steady, unimportant moments. it is just driving with your seatbelt on. it is calling a friend on the way home. it is burying your face into the fur of your dog.

when i had finished reading this poem aloud, the auditorium was silent for a solid minute. someone stood up to take a picture of where it had been projected onto a screen, and then three more people followed the action, and then - like a bad internet story, people remembered they were supposed to be clapping. kids came up to me after it - thank you for writing that. i think i hear a train coming.

i would write this differently now, i think, but it has been 7 years. i still live by the tracks. i also haven’t picked up a blade in over 10 years. the scars are still there, but these days i only pick up scissors to cut my hair. i know why you can’t tell your mom about it. i know how the numbness slips over everything, a restless horrible cotton. i know how when you dropped the dish, you weren’t crying about the broken glass. i know about feeling like all the roads have closed their exits, that you aren’t supposed to still-be-here - and yet.

i am still here, and still yours, and i haven’t forgotten. what i’m saying is if any hope is calling to you - i know it’s hard, but you have to listen. i’m saying keep driving, but slow down the car. sit down in the shower, i’m not judging you. we can stay in the dark with the good hot water and do nothing but stare. notice the stab wound. make it through another tuesday.

i know what it is like to miss yourself. do what you need to. come home to me. i am writing to you, my past self, from the future. i’ll be waiting for you.

and when the train is coming - please move.

Avatar

I am once again thinking about digging holes

It's so fucked up that digging a bunch of holes works so well at reversing desertification

I hate that so much discourse into fighting climate change is talking about bioenginerring a special kind of seaweed that removes microplastics or whatever other venture-capital-viable startup idea when we have known for forever about shit like digging crescent shaped holes to catch rainwater and turning barren land hospitable

Avatar

As a lesbian i will always relate more to trans women than cishet women. Made to feel disgusting and predatory in women’s spaces? Check. Berated and mocked for our relation to sexuality and womanhood? Check. Hated for our “deviancy from the norm”? Check. Every single essay about womanhood by a trans woman–and especially, especially by trans wlw–has spoken more to me than anything written by a cis straight woman ever could. T*rfs can take that to the bank.

Avatar
pantlesshero

also, may I add because it’s not just the negative stuff. there’s so much positive connection:

gender euphoria experiences with a self determined approach to womanhood, attraction and sexuality

celebration of bodies beyond the norm

creating our own culture of appreciating complex and intertwined expressions of gender and sexuality

destigmatization and newfound respect of and for our bodies

true sisterhood based on choice not force

the inherent revolutionary nature of our existence and our love and community

creating space for exploration of pleasure and identity

Avatar
countsuckula

These posts were fundamental in my coming out as a woman and hopefully someone else will see them and see the overflowing love and acceptance that is waiting for them too.

Avatar

tired: mermaids are all women

wired: much like elves, merfolk are mistaken by sailors for being all women because they have long hair and are very pretty

inspired: merfolk actually have very different concepts of gender to humans because they’re an entirely different species with their own unique culture

marine scientist: what’s your gender?

merperson: what’s a gender

marine scientist: like, are you a man or a woman?

merperson: i’m merfolk

marine scientist: no, like, what’s in your pants?

merperson: i don’t… wear any? i don’t have legs?

Avatar
9lunarseas6

It’s a biological fact that fish do indeed change their sex to keep the male/female ratio balanced in their school population. So this fluidity actually makes more sense from a scientific standpoint than the silly idea that merfolk are born with a strictly assigned sex like humans.

Merfolk are all canonically genderfluid and we love them for that

Human: (invites merfolk friend to a boat party with their friends)

Merfolk: oh man, there are a lot of women here. Haha don’t worry guys, I got this :) *changes into a man to keep a balance because that’s culturally polite for merfolk*

Human: (spits drink) what the FUCK

OH MY GOD

So in the presence of a ship with an entirely or mostly male crew, nearby mermaids would become female to keep the balance.

IT GOES FULL CIRCLE

Avatar
Avatar
jame7t

Do we seriously have to skip both ads on YouTube now. Like we press skip on the first then we have to wait five more seconds to press skip on the second. Are you actually fucking kidding me

Before one of you chucklefucks says “get an adblocker” or “download this sketchy software to block ads on phones:” this sucks because companies are doing it, not because there are ways around it. Do not be stupid on my post where I complain.

I am complaining about ads being shoved into everything because it fucking sucks. Smarmy advice will help neither of us

You are using an unsupported browser and things might not work as intended. Please make sure you're using the latest version of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge.