Keep Growing

it is easy to envy the shifter who runs with canid grace and flies on borrowed bones who hears metaphor in whalesong and drinks deep ultraviolet radiance

but what of the loss of such gifts with every shift?

we, landbound, tasting flight with our eyes forever cast skyward mourn every pang of loss upon waking from that dream of wing and loft and break

so how must the shifter feel?

with a thousand phantom limbs a hundred phantom senses mourning loss of seal language when in a form without ears doleful glare at sweet berries while a carnivoran tongue cannot taste its kiss hot tea left un-drunk in a garden where eyes no longer reach the full spectrum

I, knowing that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, waited carefully for the lab director to be deep in conversation with someone else on the other side of the laboratory. And then I took my chance.

Test tubes, as it turns out, are really bad as shot glasses. Their shape turns any liquid inside into a stream, so you really can't knock it back quickly - it takes a couple seconds. Additionally, the best way I can describe the taste of virus concentrate was "sterile rot". A very unique kind of bad! Made worse by the test tube's inefficiency as a shot glass.

(by the way we were studying bacteriophages, not animal viruses. these viruses are too specialized on attacking prokaryotes to even recognize our cells as targets at all, according to studies.)

(but also like. if the viruses managed to successfully switch hosts and killed me with a violent infection, itd still be worth it.)

Edited to add: Since a lot of people are reblogging this original post, I'm adding the updated version I did that incorporates the intersex circle...

My guess is that she knows that gay people and trans people and people of all colors and shapes and sizes exist and we love them all?

Or because she knows about "Mutiny Health" (community health but I don't have the heart to correct her) and that's why it's our responsibility to get vaccines and wear masks and always wash our hands.

Maybe because I let her have autonomy over her body through deals (to an extent we HAVE to wipe our butt) and let her make decisions for our family as long as they are safe and with in the confines of her understanding (it's 102 heat index today and Penny chose our activity! We're going to the movies!)

Maybe it's because she's not allowed a tablet but because we don't want her to get too far behind her peers in technology she's allowed to play video games with her dad on her very on switch or her very own Nintendo DS

I hear you - I do and I need you to hear me when I say I have a 5 year old warlock haunting my home who is foaming at the mouth for birthdays

My wedding anniversary? Our family's birthday

Pride? Gay People's Birthday

Independence Day? America's Birthday

World Cup? That's soccer's birthday

nature is healing