Flower Lover

bi, queer, trans

light of Aurora, Anastasia Trusova, acrylic, 2021

Quint Buchholz (German, 1957) - Katzenversammlung (The Cats’ Assembly) (1995)

Resist the thought that you may need a savior, or another special being to walk beside you. Resist the thought that you are alone. Resist turning your back on the knife of the world’s sorrow, resist turning that knife upon yourself. Resist your disappearance into sentimental monikers, into the violent pattern of corporate logos, into the mouth of the unholy flower of consumerism. Resist being consumed. Resist your disappearance into anything except the face you had before you walked up to the podium. Resist all funding sources but accept all money. Cut the strings and dismantle the web that needing money throws over you. Resist the distractions of excess. Wear old clothes and avoid chain restaurants. Resist your genius and your own significance as declared by others. Resist all hint of glory but accept the accolade as tributes to your double. Walk away in your unpurchased skin. Resist the millionth purchase and go backward. Get rid of everything. If you exist, then you are loved by existence. What do you need? A spoon, a blanket, a bowl, a book — maybe the book you give away. Resist the need to worry, robbing everything of immediacy and peace. Resist traveling except where you want to go. Resist seeing yourself in others or them in you. Nothing, everything, is personal. Resist all pressure to have children unless you crave the torment of joy. If you give in to irrationality, then resist cleaning up the messes your children make. You are robbing them of small despairs they can fix. Resist cleaning up after your husband. It will soon replace having sex with him. Resist outrageous charts spelling doom. However you can, rely on sun and wind. Resist loss of the miraculous by lowering your standards for what constitutes a miracle. It is all a fucking miracle. Resist your own gift’s power to tear you away from the simplicity of tears. Your gift will begin to watch you having your emotions, so that it can use them in an interesting paragraph, or to get a laugh. Resist the blue chair of dreams, the red chair of science, the black chair of the humanities, and just be human. Resist all chairs. Be the one sitting on the ground or perching on the beam overhead or sleeping beneath the podium. Resist disappearing from the stage, unless you can walk straight into the bathroom and resume the face, the desolate face, the radiant face, the weary face, the face that has become your own, though all your life you have resisted it.

We have always loved and we will continue to love. Oh, the beauty of human connection!

When we discuss the genocide of Palestinians by Israel and the United States, we must always remember that control over water is central to settler-colonial projects.

Pay attention to this struggle over water.

Please, please send some funds to Ahmed and his family as soon as possible. He is in dire circumstances and needs so much more attention on his campaign.

George Noseworthy (1929-1985) — Moon Spell [oil on wood board, 1977]

Late 18th century Russian court dress

age 24: been getting into greek yogurt & birdwatching lately

Carolyn Forché, "Infinite Obligation to the Other" from A God in the House: Poets Talk about Faith, ed. Ilya Kaminsky and Katherine Towler

Mary Oliver, from "The Pond" in Felicity

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