Tag Archives: inkling

Poetry

Overdose – Alexandra Mayer

The sun drizzled into the sea–

a meeting like butterfly kisses.

 

Soaked in gold,

you curled your fingers into mine

and we wandered into the sky.

 

And I remembered when

Apollo stole turquoise from the swell

to craft your aster eyes

 

And promised me

a life like Spanish guitar

and raspberries.

 

I’ll smear them on my lips

So I can taste like summertime.

And I’ll let my heels char by the stars.

Or maybe, I’ll fall into your soul

And find

Unkempt hair and dandelions.

 

I love you.

Atleast, I think, I could.

 

Now, Sleep won’t follow, so

I walk on words.

The moon carves into my chest.

I’m nothing, but hummingbirds.

 

I feel like 2:00 am

Crumbling into morning,

Laughing at all the tragedy that makes you cry.

 

Light leaks in through the blinds.
The stale and yellowing map sighs.
The universe swells in the gap between your teeth.

 

And I believe in feeling.
Like cigarette burns and crimson.
Like fuck yes, I’m conscious.
Like atoms dripping from your aster eyes.

I used to dance on tombstones.
Now, I’m almost alive.

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Poetry

Overdose – Alexandra Mayer

The sun drizzled into the sea–

a meeting like butterfly kisses.

 

Soaked in gold,

you curled your fingers into mine

and we wandered into the sky.

 

And I remembered when

Apollo stole turquoise from the swell

to craft your aster eyes

 

And promised me

a life like Spanish guitar

and raspberries.

 

I’ll smear them on my lips

So I can taste like summertime.

And I’ll let my heels char by the stars.

Or maybe, I’ll fall into your soul

And find

Unkempt hair and dandelions.

 

I love you.

Atleast, I think, I could.

 

Now, Sleep won’t follow, so

I walk on words.

The moon carves into my chest.

I’m nothing, but hummingbirds.

 

I feel like 2:00 am

Crumbling into morning,

Laughing at all the tragedy that makes you cry.

 

Light leaks in through the blinds.
The stale and yellowing map sighs.
The universe swells in the gap between your teeth.

 

And I believe in feeling.
Like cigarette burns and crimson.
Like fuck yes, I’m conscious.
Like atoms dripping from your aster eyes.

I used to dance on tombstones.
Now, I’m almost alive.

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Poetry, Prosetry

Heavy Breathing – Iman Messado

My siblings and I have the habit of breathing heavily.

We inhale the dirt, the foliage, the pebbles in the moor with a single exhale,

(never mind the pesky case of asthma that we all seem to share)

and exhale the North wind, the starry night and the cloudless summer sky.

Our lungs must take up at least 83% of our bodies,

stratocumulus clouds and bunches of hydrangeas were pressed up against

our tracheas and primary bronchi.

When my sister speaks,

it’s with rays of sunshine peeking between her teeth.

She tends to talk rather loudly,

but I attribute that to her trying to be heard over the chirping of North African black birds.

Her knees are as knobby as a giraffe’s and her eyes are as clear as a doe’s.

However, she walks with the gait of a lioness,

and would rather inhale your fear then exhale defeat.

I have two brothers,

both are thin and gangly with limbs like birch wood branches or

a new born gazelle with awkward limbs and an ambition that could rival

that of a bird learning to master the air underneath its wings.

The older one breathes slowly and deeply.

He would inhale a scarab beetle as carefully as he would a baleen whale.

His exhales would spread across West African deserts and European tundras,

kissing nightingales and billy goats to sleep.

He doesn’t know of frantic cries nor hyperventilating,

his lungs are made of the same stuff as the mountains in South America.

The younger one is reminiscent of a rabbit,

young and small and rapid.

He breathes in lilypads and peonies and sparks of ember.

He breathes in harried words and furrowed brows and nervous feet.

He breathes in flicking tails and hurricanes and lightning bolts.

He exhales the rushing waves of the Pacific ocean.

My lungs are weak and I can only breathe in as much as I can imagine.

Sometimes, my mind is too large for my lungs.

I’ve got daisies and marshes and valleys and wombats and thunderstorms in mind.

I’m ready to exhale Atlantis, Paradise lost and the Second Coming.

Let me a breathe a little heavier.

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Poetry

Our Own Fairy Tale – Brooke Safferman

snowflakes

or something like

i

c

i

c

l

e

s

Drip down my arms, clinging to my veins,

Like it’s only a matter of time before they melt away.

In a place where time doesn’t exist,

In a world where reality doesn’t conform,

We can be whomever we want.

Once upon a time,

I was the ice queen, but you were the fire-breathing dragon

Frozen walls melted, its blocks floating into

happy little puddles of Sunlight

before my very eyes.

You can be the Unicorn; I’ll be the Fairy.

Let the Wicked Witch say what She wants,

But we will always write

Our own fairy tale.

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Essay

So You Think You’re a “Meninist” – Alex Esterline

Before you read this article, if you have a problem with feminism (equality of the sexes), then you should probably just leave.

If you keep up with the feminist movement on any forms of social media, you’ve probably heard of the men who denounce the activism in the community by redirecting the issue on the challenges men face in society. Now, I’d like to make clear that their issues do exist. As a feminist, I clearly don’t hate men- as I identify as one- and I benefit from feminism as well. (All genders do). However, anti-feminist movements usually spend so much more time telling us why feminism is the root of all evil than they do helping the men that are discriminated against in society.

The movement I’m referring to is, of course, “Meninism”.

Meninism started as a patriarchal joke on twitter that was backed by a few problematic white boys. They eventually started growing a fanbase and shortly afterwards and turned into a serious movement.

When looking into the foreign world of meninism, it seems their main goal is to completely disregard the patriarchy while perpetuating inequality of the sexes. They also like to complain about issues that may or may not effect them- without actually doing anything about it. Meninists have attempted to re-invent the wheel as they ignore the positive effects feminism has on all genders. This metaphorical wheel, of course, is extremely bumpy.

Meninism’s main issues seem to be body-positivity in men and the unjust expectations of “masculinity”. Both of which are extremely valid points. However, meninism segregates those who could be fighting patriarchal notions (those of which are the source of sexism) alongside each other. Feminism aims to promote equality of the sexes, which is why it benefits other genders as well as women- the oppressed gender.

When meninists come along and turn the issue on themselves (which they will inevitably do), they are removing the focus from the issues that matter increasingly to oppressed women. Meninism would be a wonderful movement if they actually worked towards equality for all genders- the main point they attempt to make, since they immediately equate feminism with misandry.

Meninism as a movement should be rejected on its face because of its misogynistic roots and innate dismissal of structural violence towards women. Remember that feminism is a movement for equality, and distracting from that hurts yourself and others. Misandristic feminism is not feminism, and

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Prose

Thoughts from The Grand Canyon – Reilly Wieland

The Grand Canyon seems to become more and more transcendentally ‘grand’, and the word appears to be more and more precise. This road trip seems to have become fantastical, like everything we have seen thus far cannot be explained in words. I am waiting for the greenscreen to fall and the stage producer is about to pop up and cut the scene.

In my life personally, I’ve tried to focus on “pleasure”. That word has a singularly sexual meaning but that’s not it. This trip has seemed to show me a lot of extraordinary things and people (or at least different sides of family) that I had not seen before that remind me that every moment of my peculiar and transient life is something so spectacular and meant to be celebrated.

I’ve seen a lot of beautiful things and I know it’s cheesy, but something about standing in front of the kind of place that makes me wonder how I have the audacity to feel anything but hopeful when a place like this is here is really amazing.

On that, I saw my first real dome sky, the kind that writers can pen novels about and you see as desktop backgrounds. The Earth was so flat that I could see the exact horizon arise and the sky rise like a bird’s nest, encasing me in. Skies like that will give you a strangely acute sense of reference in what the world can be. It seemed like the smog parted and everything came to me, like the little puzzle that I couldn’t find the last piece to anytime before.

This cross country adventure has seemed to teach me relevance, or at least made me comprehend the importance of giving my attention to the things that truly matter. In preparation for this trip, I focused too intently on outcomes: upcoming injuries, gas station food, sleepless nights.

The things that I thought would be big events at the beginning of the trip are, in fact, non-events of everyday life, all which I am not in control of. These non-events have made up this trip and my life. The irrelevancy of these miniscule annoyances seems to be overwhelming as I think about it.

What is relevant are the things that have come along with the injuries, the seemingly already perfectly preserved memories of the trip: the exact feeling you get staring at Zion, or at the Grand Canyon, or a dome sunset.

But in that, it seems short sighted to mark these non-events as unimportant. The non-events are also the events that act as catalysts for me to see the major happenings around me.
And those happenings in these moments are my life, and I want to take pleasure in them all.

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Poetry

there is nothing quite like the sound of I love you – Brooke Safferman

 

There is nothing quite like the sound of “I love you”;

So much promise in three little words

Yet not once did you even endeavor to prove them.

They are placeholders, conversation-starters ways to pass the awkward silences.

 

Words like band-aids, like a cherry lollipop after getting a shot;

The sound of your sweet little vows, lies or otherwise,

Somehow undo the damage that has already been done.

 

So I take your hand and I smile

Because there is so much security

In never having to believe a thing.

 

With you, I am safe in my euphoric world of denial

And with you, I have found my home in never having to expect sincerity.

There is nothing quite like the sound of “I love you”.

 

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Uncategorized

People Aren’t Medicine – Alexis Robson

You were broken when you were five,
It’s no wonder you were struggling to survive,
When your only support is a crutch of self-doubt,
How can anyone expect you to figure yourself out?

You lack the tools to fix yourself,
So you tend to turn to someone else,
To hold and guide you,
Always coming to your aid,
You forget the loneliness you felt when you were eight.

But using people as crutches is naïve,
Because eventually they get tired and leave,
And now you’re ten, but left again,
Struggling to figure out how to fit in.

People come and go,
But you become wiser and grow,
Soon you’re sixteen and have loyal friends,
And you realize there’s no point in trying to “fit in”.

The years fly and you turn eighteen,
And realize time has floated by like a dream,
You’ve learned to be your own crutch,
And that you used to overthink too much.

But life has taught you a lesson,
That you cannot use people as your medicine.

-a.r

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poem, Prosetry

Little Rectangles of Hope – Brooke Safferman

Little Rectangles of Hope

 

Anxiety.

It drips from your lips

Like some toxic saline solution

You always preferred for me to be the sweet one.

 

The unknown: the sun not yet risen, the butterfly still in his cocoon

I am suffocating from the words you will not say

Nervous and afraid, with those sweaty palms I love so much

Commitment was never really your style, no matter how painfully

I wish it was.

 

Worrying so strong, it becomes a tangible force

Quicksand, you laugh as you sink deeper within

I’ll play the role of the caretaker, you, the needy child

You throw your medication out when I look the other way.

 

Dull and numb, you say

You shake your head when I shove the bottle back at you

Commit to them, I plead

Commit to me, I plead

You shake your head when I shove the pressure back at you.

 

Whoever knew that an enemy could take the form of

Little rectangles of hope?

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Poetry, Prosetry

Just in Case – Ugonma Ubani-Ebere

In case you didn’t know, someone loves you.

In case you didn’t know, someone values you.

In case you didn’t know, someone adores you.
In case you didn’t know, someone depends on you.
In case you didn’t know, you are special.
In case you didn’t know, you are needed.
In case you didn’t know, you are wanted.
In case you didn’t know, you are important
In case you didn’t know, I appreciate you.
In case you didn’t know, I support you.
In case you didn’t know,  I admire you.
In case you didn’t know, I am inspired by you.
Just in case you didn’t know how important you are to the universe, I thought I’d let you know.
I thought I’d let you know, just in case.
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