Cabinet of Wonders: Tumblr Writers

I ache for quiet voices, for slow mornings and unhurried days, for warmth that doesn’t ask me to be anything other than who I am.

A place where nothing is raised but kindness, where silence feels safe, not heavy, where I am not told to grow faster, to be louder, stronger—less… me.

Just a voice that says— “it’s okay… take your time.” “You can feel.” “You can stay.”

Is that too much to long for? Or is it simply something rare— something soft that I have yet to find?

I wonder what it would feel like to finally rest, and not be afraid of who I am in someone else’s hands.

The lamp breathes soft in yellow light.

The hour is still, the world asleep.

Beyond the window, summer bright

A silhouette melts, starts to seep.

You want to be my second sight,

To leave your trace in me so deep.

And in the window, cold as night,

Your silhouette fades off to sleep.

Original:

Лампа шепчет жёлтым светом.

Час безмолвен, дом согрет.

За окном тем сладким летом

Тает мягкий силуэт.

Ты захочешь быть ответом,

Чтоб во мне оставить след.

И в окне холодным летом

for salvation,

but sunk

into oblivion.

A short comic I made about my experiences as a seasonal worker, and the way places change you.

marginalia of me

Even at the end of the world, you still need to brush your teeth, so I headed to the nearest pharmacy, feet heavy and chest, empty. I’d lost my heart the night before, somewhere between the hospital room bearing my mother’s lifeless form and the lonely walk to my car in the garage, paperwork crumpled in my hand. Releases. An autopsy waiver.

I still had teeth, though, and for some reason, morning came and brought with it morning breath, so I headed out to get some damn toothpaste.

Outside, the world carried on. The sun came up and the birds were singing, but my mom was dead.

There should’ve been an earthquake, right? A storm, some sort of cataclysm that sucked the world in and everything good in it and ground it to dust barely worthy of spitting back into a cold, empty galaxy. The sky shouldn’t have still been blue, the sun shouldn’t have been a pale golden yellow, and my mom shouldn’t have been dead.

But they were. And she was.

And as I floated between fluorescent aisles and offering too many varieties of toothpaste, I waited. I waited for someone to look at me, to know the devastation and ruin that the last twelve hours had wrought, because I felt it. It choked every breath in my chest, engulfed every nerve, every fibre of my body and as I was burning, I was certain everyone else was, too.

An old lady passed me and smiled. Down the aisle, two teens giggled at an assortment of products gathered under the “family planning” section. A box of toothpaste crumpled easily in my hand but no one noticed. I couldn’t breathe, but no one noticed. I was standing alone, gasping and grappling for any part of my old life before it drifted away, but there was only air. Dust, floating in the sunbeams streaming through a Walgreens window, because the damn sun was shining and it wouldn’t stop.

I paid for my dented toothpaste and the cashier thanked me for coming in. I walked across pavement that wasn’t broken to my car, and drove home on roads that were still in tact, through traffic lights that still worked.

Because the morning after my mom died, there were still pleasantries to exchange and birds to sing and toothpaste to buy.

The world kept spinning.

Something to take the edge off clean, to blur the parts I didn’t want seen, like dimming stars in a crowded sky so I wouldn’t have to ask why.

And for a while, it worked like that… a controlled drift, a practiced act, like I could step in, then step away, like I was still choosing every day.

But it shifted.

Not all at once, not sharp or fast, just something tightening, meant to last, like gravity I didn’t name slowly pulling me the same.

It wasn’t chaos, wasn’t loud, I still stood straight, I passed, I vowed, still showed up, still played the part… but it had hold beneath the surface, quiet, constant, in the dark.

Because control isn’t what you show, it’s what you do when no one knows, and I knew it, every time I crossed that same, familiar line.

“This is the last”- I’d say it straight, then circle back like it was fate, like orbit locked in endless spin, always drifting back again.

That’s the part no one sees- not the fall, but the repeat, the way it settles, feels like space, like something you can’t displace.

Until I stopped.

Not one choice, not one clean break, just smaller ones I had to make, quiet refusals, day by day, pulling myself the other way.

Sitting still where I’d escape, feeling everything I’d reshape, the weight, the noise, the restless pull, learning how to stand there… full.

It wasn’t clean.

It wasn’t fast.

There were nights I thought I’d crash, like stars that burn before they fade, like something breaking what I made.

But I didn’t go back.

And that’s the line that matters now- not where I fell, not what, not how, just that I stayed when I could’ve gone, just that I held where I’d leaned on.

Because I don’t need it anymore… not to quiet, not to ignore, not to feel like I can breathe in something I can’t leave.

It’s still there, somewhere in space, a distant pull I recognize- but it doesn’t decide my place, it doesn’t move me anymore.

I move.