#2611

For eight thousand years and more we have served the gods wine
sweet and bitter, rich and tart
vines and variants perfected across continents and civilizations.

Yet soon we will have only wine tasting of wildfire ash to offer our most sacred divinities
will pour them smoke-tainted vintages bottled during years when we never saw the stars
and the sun rose red as blood each dawn.

Before we know it, we will not even have that to give
our millennia of legacy lost to a century’s folly;
will the gods still answer our prayers then?

#2610

I’m done. It’s time.

Call the priest.

Tell him I am a house choked by ghosts

that they fill every room and I cannot be rid of them

no matter my gnashing and wailing.

Tell him I will gladly submit

to the oil and incense

the psalms and holy water

if he can empty me once more.

If he cannot:

burn me down.

#2607

As a child I built churches anywhere I stayed longer than a night, cluttering every surface with anonymous altars, and I sought secret psalms in songs from which I wrung all meaning in my quest for the answer to a question I could not yet formulate. As an adult I cup these years of offered trinkets in my hands and bless the lodestone heart that drew me ever faithfully toward the temple waiting within, to the place where there are no questions, no answers, only trust and limitless, overflowing love. 

#2603

in my dream I surrender to grief’s embrace
float face-down in an ocean of sorrow
my ancestors grip my shoulders
a steady, reassuring pressure
promising I am not alone
promising we do this together
promising they will not let me
be lost to the black depths

#2601 – 2022 Book List

2022 was a busy year, so I didn’t read as much as I wanted. However, I still managed a total of 70 books! That included: 25 nonfiction books; 27 fiction books and comics; 18 collections of poetry and/or short prose; and 35 books either by queer authors or featuring queer main characters.

Some of my favorite reads of the year included Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer, What Moves the Dead by T Kingfisher, The Merciless Ones by Namina Forna, and of course Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. The Luminous Dead was a reread from last year because it was so good I couldn’t wait any longer to have it back in my brain.

The full list is below. If you’ve read anything from this list, let me know what you thought!

  1. The Dead and the Dark – Courtney Gould
  2. The Elpis Pages: A Collective – Ed. Kayla King
  3. Warning Lines Issue 3: FALL’N CHERUB
  4. The Witch’s Heart – Genevieve Gornichec
  5. Wave – Sonali Deraniyagala
  6. Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe – Laura Lynne Jackson
  7. Corporeal: Volume 1 – Ed. Katharine Blair and Lucca Hermes
  8. Whispers of Stone (The Last Gift Book 2) – Allegra Pescatore
  9. Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death – Ed. Yoel Hoffmann
  10. Gender Euphoria: Stories of Joy from Trans, Non-binary, and Intersex Writers – Ed. Laura Kate Dale
  11. Lady of the Wood – Mark Braun
  12. Emotionally Raw: Second Edition – Carlos Cabrera
  13. Analogies and Allegories Literary Magazine Issue 7: Zodiac Signs – Ed. Mollie Williamson
  14. Seven Mercies (Seven Devils Book Two) – Laura Lam and Elizabeth May
  15. The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why – Amanda Ripley
  16. The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth and Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine – Thomas Morris
  17. Zenith Literary Magazine Volume 3: Wasteland – Ed. Catalina Irigoyen and Mikey Waller
  18. Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law – Mary Roach
  19. Tempest: Wild Weather Collections – Ed. Sam Bellamy
  20. Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World – Paul Stamets
  21. The Saint of Witches – Avra Margariti
  22. Death, Ritual and Belief: The Rhetoric of Funerary Rites (Third Edition) – Douglas Davies
  23. Warning Lines Literary Magazine Volume 4: Otherworlds – Ed. Charlie D’Aniello
  24. The Golden Wave: Culture and Politics After Sri Lanka‘s Tsunami Disaster – Michele Ruth Gamburd
  25. The Body Is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self-love – Sonya Renee Taylor
  26. These Gossamer Strings (The Last Gift Book 3) – Allegra Pescatore
  27. If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho – Anne Carson
  28. Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot – Mikki Kendall
  29. Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States – Samantha Allen
  30. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants – Robin Wall Kimmerer
  31. Dead Dad Jokes – Ollie Schminkey
  32. Maiden, Mother, Crone: Fantastical Trans Femmes – Ed. Gwen Benaway
  33. Aftershocks of Disaster: Puerto Rico Before and After the Storm – Ed Yarimar Bonilla and Marisol LeBrón
  34. The Gift of Blood (Crimson Tears Book 1) – Vaela Denarr and Micah Iannandrea
  35. Genderqueer: A Memoir – Maia Kobabe
  36. What Moves the Dead – T. Kingfisher
  37. The Halloween Tree – Ray Bradbury
  38. Queers Destroy Fantasy! Special Issue – Ed. Christopher Barzak
  39. Tsunami! – Walter Dudley and Min Lee
  40. The Merciless Ones (The Guilded Ones Book 2) – Namina Forna
  41. Lady of Water and Flame: Ancient Hymns for Tefnut – Chelsea Luellon Bolton
  42. Tsunami Alert: Beating Asia’s Next Big One – Oakley Brooks
  43. Treasury of Egyptian Mythology: Classic Stories of Gods, Goddesses, Monsters, and Mortals – Donna Jo Napoli
  44. Furrows: Deep Earth Collections Vol 2 (Green Ink Poetry) – Ed. Sam Bellamy and S. Farrar
  45. Disaster by Choice: How Our Actions Turn Natural Hazards into Catastrophes – Ilan Kelman
  46. Avatar, The Last Airbender: The Dawn of Yangchen (Chronicles of the Avatar Book 3) (Volume 3) – F. C. Lee
  47. Nona the Ninth (The Locked Tomb Book 3) – Tamsyn Muir
  48. Antiracism in Animal Advocacy: Igniting Cultural Transformation (The Encompass Essays) – Ed. Jasmin Singer
  49. Creepy Cat Volume 1 – Cotton Valent
  50. Nights with a Cat Volume 1 – Kyuryu Z
  51. A Cat Story – Ursula Murray Husted
  52. Will the Flower Slip Through the Asphalt: Writers Respond to Capitalist Climate Change – Ed. Vijay Prashad
  53. Seven Blades in Black (The Grave of Empires Book 1) – Sam Sykes
  54. Pink Pansy Press Volume One: Haunting – Ed. Jay Hogan, Asher Cookson
  55. The Scratch Daughters (The Scapegracers Book 2) – H. A. Clarke
  56. Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History – Dan Flores
  57. The Raging Sea: The Powerful Account of the Worst Tsunami in US History – Dennis Powers
  58. Kiki’s Delivery Service – Eiko Kadono
  59. Soul of the Deep (Of Mermaids and Orisa Book 2) – Natasha Bowen
  60. We are Changed to Deer at the Broken Place – Kelly Weber
  61. The Blue Mirror – Kathe Koja
  62. Corporeal Volume 4 – Ed. Katharine Blair and Lucca Hermes
  63. The Luminous Dead – Caitlin Starling
  64. Lord of the White Hell Book One (The Cadeleonian Series 1) – Ginn Hale
  65. Lord of the White Hell Book Two (The Cadeleonian Series 2) – Ginn Hale
  66. Champion of the Scarlet Wolf Book One (The Cadeleonian Series 3) – Ginn Hale
  67. Champion of the Scarlet Wolf Book 2 (The Cadeleonian Series 4) – Ginn Hale
  68. Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And Other Questions About Dead Bodies – Caitlin Doughty
  69. Myth and Lore Issue 4: Midwinter lights are dimming – Ed. Mark Ryan
  70. Master of Restless Shadows Book One (The Cadeleonian Series Book 5) – Ginn Hale

#2577

Ave Cascadia

Hail Cascadia, full of rage,
your sisters in slumber are with thee.
Dreadful art thou amongst disasters,
and dreadful is the fruit of thy wrath, tsunami.
Holy Cascadia, Mother of Mountains,
have mercy on us mortal creatures
now and at the hour of your waking. 
Amen.

#2576

Dua Tefnut, Great Mother of the Earth and Sky
Dua Tefnut, Venerable Eye of Ra, Brightly Burning
Dua Tefnut, Lady of Sweet Waters, She Who Brings the Rains
Dua Tefnut! 

Great mother of the gods, I sing your praises!
You bless us with all the waters of the world:
the cool morning dew, the damp evening fog
the sweet spring rains, the cooling summer storms!
From you flow all rivers and springs;
with every precious drop of water
you bring life to the driest deserts!
First daughter of Ra, I sing your praises!

Dua Tefnut, Great Mother of the Earth and Sky
Dua Tefnut, Venerable Eye of Ra, Brightly Burning
Dua Tefnut, Lady of Sweet Waters, She Who Brings the Rains
Dua Tefnut!

#2574

A list of 9 things you think about at 18 and 1 you don’t

  1. if you really want to be an English major
  2. why you signed up for an 8 AM class
  3. if you can write a paper in one night
  4. how to tell if a beta fish is happy
  5. what you’re going to be for Halloween
  6. if Pop Tarts count as a balanced breakfast
  7. how to tell if a beta fish loves you
  8. whether your writing is actually any good
  9. if you should finally get your ears pierced
  10. what songs you want played at your father’s funeral

#2563

“She/They”

I am both Notre Dame and the sacred space which fills her vaulted archways.
I am gargoyles and spires and the vibrating silence after the bells have ceased.
I am that which cannot be seen, cannot be touched, cannot be proven;
I am stone, glass, wax.
I am facade and everything it fails to encompass.
I am sanctuary.

#2560

my body is a nuclear reactor in which I alchemize grief into rage // shedding as hazardous byproducts unstable atoms of // anxiety, compulsion, paranoia // which I store away deep in my belly where they // cannot leak out and harm innocent bystanders // or worse yet, embarrass me // but such transformation requires a complex and delicate machine // and I am only one person // the lights in the monitoring panels start to blink and // I am only one person // the alarms on the walls start to shrill and // I am only one person // an explosion rocks my core and as everything goes dark I am // only one person

#2555

Queer Joy (is)

sacred revolution
holy reclamation
defiance of fate and fortitude against death
a communion with those who came before
a covenant with those who come after
a consecration of those who fight and fall beside us

#2552

heart still beats ‘neath the floorboards of a house I can’t return to, twenty years and more straining in the damp glacial till that nurtured a blackberry youth, and every night my spirit leaps free my slumbering body to fly ‘cross moonlit miles and reunite like no time at all has passed, what foolish business!, and thus I wake each morning curled ‘round that house-shaped cavity wishing I could say goodbye, wishing I could let that place go, wishing I could move on from a past that keeps moving farther on from me with every passing year

#2551

Imagine you are born to run with a pack
yet there is no other like you in all the universes.

Imagine you are born to sing songs with your kin
yet they muzzle you with a sword through your mouth.

Imagine you are born to run, the hunt burning in your veins
yet they bind your legs with unbreakable bonds.

Perhaps this is what they meant
when they said you were born this way:

that you were destined to become a monster
because they never intended any other option for you.

#2550

Paguridae

what a pink-fleshed thing I am
all soft meat and squinting eyes
flinching at every sudden sound

out in the world I am horribly exposed
clothes offer no comfort from others’ perception
buildings no shelter from the world’s ugliness

only in my home biome am I safe
armored by evergreens and blackberries
secure in my shelter of seawater and songbirds

yet as glaciers melt and wildfires rage
and every day the chainsaws close in
I feel the cracks in my shell spreading

#2549

My gods are living gods. They speak in dreams and divination, in blessings and curses, in all the tongues of man.

My gods are dying gods. Their celestial bodies rot with fate from within; they cough up ichor and vomit starlight.

My gods are dead gods. Their corpses hang on meat hooks. Their temples lay in ruin and dust.

My gods are resurrected gods. They walk out of the underworld with heads held high, summoning spring buds from winter’s rot.

My gods are undying gods. Their names, first uttered millennia ago, are spoken still. Whether we believe or not, we uphold their memory.

My gods are deathless gods. They have always existed and they always will.

#2545

I came to you a child
(like we all did)
soft and defenseless and
entirely too guileless.

My, what big eyes you have!
My, what big ears you have!
My, what big teeth you have!

(Etcetera.)

But conceit made you careless;
you never noticed my shadow(s),
nor considered I might be protected by things
bigger and hungrier than you.

(Oh my!)

#2544

“Illicit Illicium”

in a world of darkness you were a pinpoint of light
a pulsing star calling the lost and lonely

[ I am here… come find me…]

yet you were no beacon bravely blazing
merely an anglerfish lighthouse laying in wait

#2542

oh little man, you think yourself a continent
how you weather the common waves and storms
but you are merely a lone island in a

v   a   s   t    ocean

and I the roaring tsunami
abyssal beast born from seismic seizure
rushing inexorably toward your shores
to scour away all you’ve built

#2541

“In this metaphor I am the shattered sword you didn’t need”

I am happy ending intolerant
final kisses curdle my stomach
burn the back of my throat.
I politely excuse myself
go sit on the toilet, head thrown back
eyes wide so the tears can’t spill.

Did you think you were like them?
Did you forget for a moment that this story isn’t for you, either?

Save the cat, kiss the princess, roll credits
I am so envious it hurts.
Catra the war criminal redeemed and forgiven
Carmilla the vampire blessed with a heartbeat
I, the asexual, still more monster than them both.

#2532

It was easier, ultimately
(than the knife and the heart)
to pick, pick, pick
at her flawless skin
(the forest and the hunter)
until it bled and scarred
bled and scarred
(the apple and the coffin)
and the mirror simply
stopped saying her name.