These are my poems. I stand by them

no matter how bad things get, you cannot allow the monster to eat you

when you're wrapped up in someone with a really strong personality, your center of gravity changes. it's like addiction in the sense that it becomes hard to even notice other things in the world, let alone remember how it felt to go through life without that person. when this happens, it is imperative to just go somewhere without them in it for a while. long enough that you go through the day without thinking about them. even if they're a good person and they've done nothing wrong, you must remember that life exists outside of one person. you must continue to be yourself above all else.

a lesser-acknowledged piece of advice about learning a new skill: you are allowed to enjoy sucking during the "sucking at it" phase. if you're a new writer or dancer or person in general, there is invariably a period where your work just isn't very good. it's frustrating because you have good taste and can recognize other good work, but you can't produce it yet. it can be hard to slog through this if you're only thinking about how bad your work is, BUT it can be fun if you turn this into a bit. deliberately write the worst poem you can. feels great. still learned something. sucking at things feels bad if you try to cover it up, but when you own it, it hurts far less to be witnessed.

this is by far my worst writing hack, but. i buy a large size movie theatre popcorn, and I'm not allowed to eat it unless I'm writing. I love movie theatre popcorn enough that this makes me write in almost any mood. is it healthy? who knows. but by God it works

my favourite little human gesture is reaching out to touch the tree bark while you walk by. I was always embarrassed because I thought I was doing something weird, and I would try to hide it until I caught my friend doing the same thing. and my dad. and my other friend. and everyone always looked sheepish when they noticed someone saw. but we are all just desperate to touch touch touch and we all want the same thing

this is by far the least problematic thing about shitty instagram AI reels, but why are they always at such a bad camera angle? the semi-above or straight on is like, such a bad storytelling view 90% of the time. all the 'spot the AI' tips are about looking for misaligned reflections or excess symmetry but really it's just "no one actually shoots from that angle because it's impractical and sucky"

for anyone struggling to meet people or make friends, I cannot emphasize enough the value of activity-based social spaces. not sure what to talk about? discuss The Activity. too emotionally drained to make a lot of conversation? that's okay, it's Activity Time now. yes it's scary to show up for the first time, and there will be new people, but scary and new is also the point. find a scary and new that's manageable for you and the world will open up in unbelievable ways