Who wants to come over. and just. burn their old poetry.

My coworkers last night all were sitting around a table last night and asked, if Autumn was an animal, what would she be? And they all unanimously decided I would be a honey bee, and I’ve got to say, it was the most touching moment I’ve ever had in a professional setting even if they were incorrect in assuming a bee is an animal.

Sorry I haven’t been very active since beginning my pregnancy, I’ve been so busy and TIRED. But I found out I’m having a little girl! I will be taking time off soon and will *possibly* be releasing a book of poetry with never on-tumblr-released poetry so if you’re interested stay tuned for the next few months!

So yeah this was a year ago.

But I’m back.

Tag yourself badass queens (and a princess) edition

Boudicca: read Les Mis five times, goes to women’s marches, quiet and strong but also has a temper, wants to be a mother, is into mythology and paganism. 

Khutulun: thought about joining the military, daddy’s girl, arm wrestling champion, laughs loud and clear, gives good advice, loyal to a fault. 

Artemisia of Caria: loves the ocean, willing to sacrifice all the pieces at chess, independent, vengeful streak, has fun showing up men, doesn’t mind making enemies.

Grace O’Maille: dreamed of being a pirate, swears like a sailor, likes having short hair, intimidating eyes, questionable choice in lovers, patient, but probably plotting your demise. 

Zenobia: regal incarnate, loves museums and art, asks about others beliefs, protective, easy to get along with, an idealist, always a bit of a skeptic, hard working.

Janequeo: has seen too much evil, will fight you in an alley, tough as nails, but would like to disappear completely, keeps a black book, teaches women’s self defense.

Wu Zetian: understands politics, sexually confident, has bad dreams, a little harsh at times, wonders why gender equality still isn’t a thing, will educate you, forcefully if need be. 

Boudicca was a first century queen of the Iceni who led her people to revolt after her husband’s death and the rape of her daughters, saying, “This is a woman’s resolve; as for men, they may live and be slaves.”; Khutulun, the warrior princess who insisted any man who wished to marry her must beat her at wrestling, and if they lost, paid her with a horse, gaining a herd numbering in the thousands; Artemisia of Caria sailed 5 ships in the Battle of Salamis, praised by King Xerxes I of Persia for her strategy in war; Grace O’Maille, the infamous sea queen of Connacht, called the Nurse to All Rebellion, “An ag iarraidh dul: bhfolach ar mo thoin ata tu?”; Zenobia, or Bat-Zabbai, Queen of Palmyra who invaded and annexed Egypt, actively restoring Egyptian antiquities after they’d been stolen by Rome; Janequeo the Chilean heroin of Mapuche who avenged her husbands death against the invading Spaniards, mounted his murderer’s head on her spear, and disappeared into the forest; Wu Zetian began campaigns in China towards gender equality, having biographies of famous women published, and reportedly ruling China as a “mother rules her children”.

I want to write you a long dirt road that stops in all the places I’ve hurt you

and plants lavender and aloe in every rut and ditch I’ve dug into your being.

But I don’t know how. I can’t explain.

Sometimes I feel like an enemy soldier, trying to put a patch on a wound

I opened in your flesh, and saying I’m sorry doesn’t staunch the blood,

or ease your pain.

I wish I knew how to say that I am not good and kind and gentle like I wish I was,

like I often think I am: I am jealous. I am greedy and selfish and want

you to be all mine.

I am not the sleepy poppy; I am the choking ivy that creeps along the windowsill

and slips inside the shutters and down the pipes until I am inside and nothing

can escape my vines.

I wish being in love meant that everything I did was drenched in love,

but I have watered you with all my insecurity and fear and doubt

and somehow you can still kiss me.

I feel like a ghost in a dark ship, complaining of the creaks and groans of this vessel

that is only so dark and gloomy because I am haunting it

and will not let it be.

But how do I say all of that?

I wish I could tell you that your laugh makes my feeling of self fall away.

I wish I could tell you that looking in your eyes is the closest I will ever come to being an astronaut.

I wish I could tell you.

I wish I could tell you that I’m not afraid of dying anymore, I’m just afraid of

the day we don’t exist together.

Knowing I never deserved to live and love beside you.

I will try.

I think some of our greatest moments are the ends of our quarrels,

when we both make confessions,

and we both apologize,

because no one is perfect,

and no one person is to blame,

and blame isnt necessary.

Owning up, compassion, choosing you

and you choosing me

despite each others flaws

despite the dark and uncomfortable edges

despite our passions

that is when I feel you love me most

and when I feel I love you unconditionally.

There is a holiness there when we finally kiss

and hold each other

and feel those rough edges

slide into place again

like tectonic plates that are sure to rumble

again.

If we are just earth after all;

we will outlast these seismic upheavals.

[a.g.]

Lemons cannot satisfy the hungry - 

                       sweet but empty. 

Her hair is dripped in souls and flowers and a

smile that cannot last the summer. Hear her say, “Save me from this 

warmth, this hell. The

                                 sun has melted my desire. Give me a 

mountain, drenched and drowned in 

shadow like a cloak or crown or jewels on the breast. 

Cool and comforting and perhaps

                                                             wet.

 Disturb my mother and I’ll never leave. 

     Earth has need of us, but if a 

tree cannot bloom, am I to blame for this

summer?                    I am just a 

bandit, running and running back to my loot. 

         Run, run, running, but nothing but grass under my feet. 

Legs, you have so far to go before we

kneel,      oh fall and be whole and cooled, there at the 

                                                  throne, my throne, for he is mine.

Queen, he calls me, queen I am, but lover first. 

Underworld, what a homely name for 

home and the simplest place to 

                                                      rest.“

Fruit falls from her hands. Nothing satisfies like the 

pomegranate. 

I saw old Autumn in the misty morn Stand shadowless like Silence, listening… … But here the Autumn melancholy dwells, And sighs her tearful spells. Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain, Upon a mossy stone she sits and reckons up the dead and gone Alone, alone. With the last leaves for a love-rosary… … O go and sit with her and be oershaded, Under the languid downfall of her hair…

-Thomas Hood, Autumn

I don’t usually share screenshots of other people’s tweets, but this was too perfect 🐻

https://twitter.com/alixeharrow/status/1030461852579520512

one time in freshman history class the teacher asked if we supported women’s suffrage. one kid didn’t raise his hand because “women shouldn’t have to suffer”

imagine being him thinking women’s suffrage is women suffering and the entire class raises their hands and just being like w hat th e fu ck gu ys

so this post made it on a buzzfeed article and i have officially peaked

Not to be pretentious about art but male photographers that have portfolios that are almost exclusively filled with naked skinny white women with big boobs aren’t artists they’re just perverts

Not to be pretentious about art but female photographers that have portfolios that are almost exclusively filled with naked muscular men with big penises aren’t artists they’re just perverts.

There, now both sides of the coin are shown.

Could you provide an example my dear

hi I’m a photographer and I’ve met dozens of male photographers with portfolios that are filled with half dressed and nude women lounging in sexual positions that are either “conceptual art” or even worse “advertising”— and in college when my classes would go on trips to photographer’s studios, we’d walk into rooms with 3x5 ft prints of nude women all in highly sexualized situations just hanging on the walls by the entrance. I even had male professors who would sit us all down and show us their work, and more than half of it being nude photography of woman. Once we had a whole studio class session were the students were assigned to take nude art photos of female models. To which I found that useless and pointless and unnecessary.

howver I’ve never met a lady photographer that has ever had a male portfolio equivalent to that. In fact most women photographers have really complex and diverse portfolios, and when there is nudity it’s almost always treated with reverence or intimacy that is highly different from the jarring nakedness of men’s portfolios.

the idea that of pointing out the “two sides of the same coin” is absolute bullshit. There are about 1 female photographers for every 10male photographers. Women can’t just fill their portfolios with nude pics of men and call it a day because as a straight male dominated industry it’s not gonna fly. But a bunch of dudes taking tit pics and slapping on a title about the birth of the universes? Yeah they’d buy that.

@awesomlyautistic don’t talk about shit you don’t know

Showing both sides of a coin only works if both sides actually exist. If you can’t think of a single actual, real female photographer who exclusively takes sexualized photos of well-endowed naked men, your point is entirely irrelevant.

this is the same in illustration and cartooning 

@thebibliosphere @executeness

“I noticed, despite the infirmity of her predisposition, that there was nothing infirm about her breasts, which heaved with the merriment of her laughter and buoyed those around her. It was unclear whether I meant her laughter of her breasts. Perhaps both. It was unclear.”