momebie

So we'll do this again this year. Probably mainly on the week days like I ended up doing last year. I'll post a picture and a snippet to go with it. You use either for inspiration to get some words of your own for the day. Then you can leave them in the comments or you can keep them to yourself. It's mainly about motivation. Some of us find eyes motivating. ;)

. . .


[Source.]

At the end of their road there was an ocean. No gold-glinting horn. No seraphim. Not even a lower saint. There was only wet sand dotted in black tar, a beige island jutting up out of the horizon about a mile out to sea, and grey water washing out the whole picture like old linens in a tub.

"We've failed every one of them you know," Rene said. The wind whipped up with his fast darkening mood and David cupped his hand around his cigarette.

"You're getting your strength back at least. We must be close."

"Close won't be enough."

"Do you ever think that maybe you were booted downstairs because of your unwaveringly cheery disposition?" David asked.

Rene said nothing. He watched as some seaweed was pushed up against his dirty grey sneakers. Beige, grey, white, black. Not even the plant life had the strength to stand out. Clouds gathered overhead. David leaned into him as the temperature dropped. Rene shrugged out of his jacket and handed it over. He'd failed everyone else, he'd be damned if this human was going to die of a cold as well.

"Holy shit," David said.

Rene could see where David had gripped his arm, the sleeve of his own jacket brushing his elbow. David shook him. Rene looked up. The beige island was shining. A single bolt of sun had burst down through the clouds and swallowed it whole.

Suddenly David was wrapped around him, laughing. Rene couldn't return it. Couldn't move his arms. Couldn't convince himself this wasn't another trick of the light. But at this point, would it matter if it was?

I am not planning on cross-posting all of the poems I write for the GYWO Settings Bingo Card, but I really like how this one turned out. Not bad for a lunch time's work.


[Art by Philip Straub]

His muffled words against my joint, I understand,
but do not absorb. They are empty when I
shake them down. Through the glass we watch the
gleaming steel allowed to fly, allowed to be what it is,
whileI stand by wearing a bright orange sweater,
reminding him of intimacies left behind.

He loves the metal conveyances, whose weight defies,
the way their generators cycle and their rudders twitch.
Loves the sunlight that trickles down the buildings
that were built to stand proudly above the clouds.
Loves the swallow drones as they climb and dip
on their descent to the reflecting water far, far below.

We stand at the window. The sun sets. My arms,
the only steel in the whole city he doesn’t love,
locked around him. Half an hour every day, as I work
to cure a malady he also doesn’t love and doesn’t
try to explain. His words beg me to understand,
but he leaves empty those concepts I find relatable.

For 23 and a half hours a day I’m propped alone
against the glass. I try to watch. Try to rebuild what I see
in his image. So I can recalibrate, and be the cure he needs.
So I can be released. Because I’m all arms and no mouth, and smarter
than they meant me to be. I’ve learned a prescribed nightly embrace
will never do as much for his supposed soul as the swallow drones.

The history they promise.
The future they tease.
As they climb and dip on their descent,
to whatever lies far, far below.

Maybe I'll turn it into a chapbook exercise. Sorry about the robots! (Not really.)

I mean, I have a lot of feelings about AI and uploading people to the internet, but all I really want to live to see is gifs on t-shirts, because I have a mighty need to wear some of them about. I mean.


[Soooooooource.]

Look, now you've all been warned.

So I'm moving. I'm moving from Orlando to Boston. I've spent some time researching movers and calling around for estimates and it looks like, at face value, having someone else move my stuff will cost ~$1500 and moving it myself with a UHaul would cost ~$2500. In general, I'm all about saving a thousand dollars and letting someone else do the heavy lifting, but most of the movers I've found are 50% glowing reviews and 50% horrid reviews with horror stories that I just cannot think about. So:

Have you ever moved long distance?
Did you hire people or do it yourself?
If you did hire someone, did you like them? Was it a pleasant experience?
Do you have any other knowledge that a first time mover like me might need?

Unlocking it! Send your friends over!

I don't even know. This whole massive life change thing is kind of stressful, but I'm getting less nervous about what will happen on the other end.

So I went home, because that's what you do for Thanksgiving. I went home and now I can't wait until next year when sky_was_green gets to fight barbed_whispers and metonymy's families for me. Why is it that relative strangers always accept you for who you are more readily than the people who are supposed to accept you most? I'm getting to where I'm afraid of seeing who I was in people's eyes, especially if they want me to be that instead of who I'm becoming.

I didn't actually eat that much. I argued with my father in spite of trying desperately not to. I didn't end up seeing the ex or anyone he's related to so I didn't have to realize that stress. I took the boys to see Catching Fire and they really liked it. I got to hang out with marilla82, since she graciously let me stay at her house. This is us and corbylea at the tree lighting at the Ritz Carlton Wednesday night.



I don't have any idea what my face is doing there. Sometimes smiling seems so foreign. But that's about the long and short of the holiday. Now I'm back in my own bed, catching up with the end of Boardwalk Empire and giving up on Nano, since I'm not going to write 12,000 words between tonight and tomorrow. I feel better here than I felt there. I know I'll feel better elsewhere than I do here. I can't wait until I can finally move and truly work on going forward.


I think the thing I'm most thankful for in the world are all of the people around me who I love and who love me for exactly who I am and who I want to be, and who are willing to catch me if I need it. Sometimes I really need it. Thank you. All of you. For everything.

[Source.]

The bed and breakfast was bringing on a wistful nostalgia in David. Rene wished they'd found a hotel, but their search had lead them to a small town that was big on history and short on amenities. This was how things were going to be until they'd finished their research: mid-afternoon light through the curtains, questioning fingers pushing Rene's bangs back and forth across his face while he tried to read, dust motes, sweat spots on sheets, distraction. It's not that Rene wasn't enjoying it, it was just that it wouldn't last. Better be on the open road with the unsureness of place and mental clarity than here in this purgatory knowing exactly where he was and not knowing at all how he was supposed to feel.

[No source. GOOD JOB, TUMBLR.]


The crickets are deafening. People always talk about how they go to the country for quiet, but so far she hadn't found any. There are twigs and grass poking her in the face. There is a root near the foot of her sleeping bag that she kept knocking her ankles on. She wants to hate all of it. But above her there is a piece of black, gossamer cloth letting brilliant points of light slip through and if she looks at them for more than a few minutes she forgets to hate. She merely reaches forward. She begins to want.

[Source.]

He'd wanted a legacy. He wanted it to stand on the spot where he was born, so he obliterated his mother's loving, leaning beach home. Erased the white walls and dancing blue curtains of the three rooms where he'd broken his first bone and had his first kiss, let bonbons melt on his tongue. He wanted something that would last longer than the flesh of his flesh. Something to command the view, so that when no one remembered his face, they would still mark his effect on the landscape with their very breath.

But nature does not care for legacy. It does not pause to wait for men to pass. It aggressively heals its scars, because nature knows what so many of us don't, and that's that if you are not happy you'll never make anyone else happy.

The ocean reclaims a foot a year, but souls, trusts, and hearts are harder won.

I'm going to tie today's picture to something that forced its way out last night. In which Rene and David are possibly something more than I've made them out to be. This is why you can't leave characters alone with me.


[Source.]

The revolution will not be choreographed.

Rene left the car door open with the key in the ignition because he needed something to keep time. The winds were too fickle. The stars were too slow. The steady, man-made reminder of a machine bleeding out battery life, however, had the effect of straightening out the jagged pieces of him. It spoke steadily as if that tenor bong was heart of it. Ebb—-ebb—-ebb—. Rene could relate.

He stepped into the spotlight formed by his headlamps and the small mountain overlook became his stage. Behind him, the city of Denver lay low, reclining in the evening as its lights clawed at the black-blue sky. He rolled his shoulders forward, as if draping himself with a shawl knit from its iridescence. A costume, after all, was integral to the suspension of disbelief that any true performance required.

The ratty red Converse were terrible for pointe work, but he did what he could, scraping out a rhythmic tattoo in the concrete and gravel. Toe heel ball. Right. Toe heel ball. Left. Toe heel ball right. Right. Right. Left. He swayed low twice and then leaped into the air.

David was sitting on the hood of the car, an obscured figure caught between the high beams. His eyes followed Rene. They lifted and pinned him and there was a little burst of disappointment in Rene every time his shoes connected with the earth again. David’s gaze had held him in many places over the course of their trip, so why not now? Why not hold him up?

He finished on one knee, bent forward, palms flat on the ground making frames out of his arms and being pimpled by the gravel pushing into his skin. David pushed away from the car and slowly moved toward Rene, baptizing him with his shadow.

"I didn’t know a body could move like that." He cupped Rene’s cheek in his hand and used his thumb to gently stroke the skin below his eye.

Rene reached up and grasped David’s hand, holding it in place. “A body who has died many times can move however it likes.”

"Between the worlds," David said. "Neither here nor there. Tethered and ensnared and pulling at your bonds. What if I cut your strings?"

"You would send me hurtling into the noose instead. I’m of no use to you free."

"Not yet." David pulled Rene to his feet. "But one day we’ll be at rest and I’ll sever you in a fit of boredom. It will be my last act as I render the world wiped of grace."

"You would deprive even yourself of that power?"

"I don’t need power," David said. "I’ll have you."

By the time the car’s heart stopped Rene didn’t need it anymore. Flush with David, their shadow’s fought for the right to take the stage.

So, most of you will remember that I had this terrible idea for a book of superhero poetry and then never managed to dismiss it. I pulled together characters and archetypes. I briefly flirted with the idea of giving them their own types of poems, but it seemed too obtuse. I purposefully want it to be simple. I want characters, but I also want ciphers that will make people feel comfortable while they consume the story in this new, scary form. I've been thinking about these characters and this foolish waste of time quite a bit, which lead to me doing some sketches in a work meeting.

That's Erinys, Warning, and an early idea about Martys that I've since abandoned. What? I totally listen better if my hands are preoccupied, which is why I continue to sketch things in meeting even though I am clearly terrible at drawing.

As you can see at the link I started chatting a bit with a Twitter friend about Erinys's look and he offered to do some actual character sketches for me while he was procrastinating on his own Nano work. So I wrote up a detailed description of one of the main female characters and sent it his way.

Guys, I was pleased as punch with what he sent me back. It pretty much made my night, and that's the night I was seeing the five minutes of Winter Soldier footage Thor 2, so it had stiff competition.




[© Joey Silva (@joecool57h) Click the pictures to embiggen.]

He sent me four variations on the design, but I'm putting up these two because the first one there has the excellent sigil that he created and the second is the version I like best. I kind of have no words for the sigil, because it's much more complicated than anything I could create visually, but it fits in with the aesthetic and the universe really well. Like, if this stupid thing is ever published I'm going to pay him for it so I can use it with the books. And possibly put it on a mug for my own edification. I have simple needs.

Yesterday at lunch I was thinking about how Erinys is working symbol-less for the start of the book and I sketched out a possible version of Warning handing it over to her. It's not in poetic form yet--about half of this has been poetry at the start and half of it has been prose that I go back and tinker with and condense, which might be a really weird way to go about it--but it is definitely What Happened.

She took a step back, hoping to trip some out of body rewind button they’d yet to discover. She wanted so much from Spencer. She’d wanted all of him since they first met. Since she was in tutus and crowns instead of capes and goggles. It occurred to her that she had never not worn a costume.

Here they were, Erinys in her Elise Marks costume and Spencer Callow in his Warning costume. He was offering her a legacy, one that he’d been in charge of until such a time as she could take it. He was offering her her father back when all she’d come for was Spencer himself. His eyes were clear. He was looking through and into her, the way he always did. He had never, never simply looked at her or appreciated what she was on the face of it. Perhaps he was incapable of it. Perhaps he could not see her as her own person because he’d spent so long knowing that she was her father’s daughter, even when she didn’t know herself.

She stepped back again, hoping to trigger time, hoping to have been caught in the elevator or taken by the Shadow Organization’s thugs. She would welcome bruises and bleeding that could be tended to in place of the blood now pooling under her heart, because after everything, Spencer didn’t want her. Spencer wasn’t waiting for her. He was waiting to pass responsibility to her. And he was waiting for Babel to accept him in her father’s place.

It was all wrong that the vigilante had been her father. It was all wrong, all of it. This wasn’t her life. The symbol Spencer had placed in her hands wasn’t wind or destiny, it was weight and drag. He spoke no other words, but his intent was deafening. Spencer dove backwards off the rooftop without so much as whispering a goodbye. He left her alone. They all left her alone.

TL;DR - I really love this whole stupid Superheroetry universe and all of my creative friends. Please feed the artist.