you figured love was an invention of the movies and the poets and the romantics. in some ways you are a romantic, and certainly you loved your friends and music and the sunrise. but a love like that - the icon - it is as real as a unicorn or a mermaid. sure, maybe in the history of humankind there has been something similar, the way a unicorn was maybe a rhino, or a mermaid was a manatee. over the hands of a real story, the magic had been added in; a fiction. sometimes people seemed very happy, this was an observable fact. but you thought that the statistical likelihood that you could experience such a thing was just not very likely.

sometimes you wondered if you even could. your first "boyfriend" was a spring of a thing. sometimes at night you'd think he's very nice. i should feel more for him. so maybe love was like a birthday: despite all the marketing, it just was never going to be very exciting. you tried love again, of course, you're an optimist and this is what society has told you is best. it all felt sort of fragile and lonely. you loved people because you do love people; you find it easy to do so. you love them like coffee or your cat's soft fur. but when men walked through your life: you never felt that magic. never felt that thing that is the cursed princess's cure. moonstruck. while you do admittedly sometimes want a family - you never found yourself picturing a husband, couldn't understand the allure.

and then the moon split a star into a person. and you finally met her.

i know ai won't win because i broke my favorite mug.

the lines on the bottom say do not microwave but i have been microwaving it for 7 years now. i put it away wet and it must have slid off the counter. it broke into 6 pieces. my girlfriend says this is proof a ghost that lives in my house; particularly because it is a black mug with a ouija board design. i think it is proof that i should dry things before i put them away.

i had superglue from an abandoned art project. it took me four days. inspired by kintsugi, i painted the seams golden. it is my first time doing anything like this, and it was more error than trial. i do not have any fancy materials. there is a thick band of gold across the no, so it reads like a diphthong now, N\O. a part of it broke in an almost-perfect peace sign, oddly round.

it will not be watertight anymore, it cannot be a mug. i'll reuse it as a flower pot. it will go on my back porch. it is kind of ugly, really. i didn't do an excellent job.

i spent every minute of this repair thinking about how often i had used it. how many little rituals it has been a part of. it is a big mug, but not a soup mug, which i loathe. it is perfect for two hands to hold. i have used it almost daily, so often that many of the details have worn off. my own skin did that - almost a decade of shared warmth.

none of the times i have told this story has a single person said what do you mean you have a favorite mug. not a single person who has seen the resulting half-maimed piece has said why would you put that back together? not a single person has said this is a waste of time. not a single person has told me what's the point of this? if you want to find a new mug, just use AI.

somewhere someone is probably using AI to draw an image or write a poem, i know that is true. but i think it is also probably true that most of us are going to write and read and draw and dance just because. that the process of doing so is not for a goal or a specific benefit, but because for thousands of years now - when a piece of pottery breaks, we try to fix it. for thousands of years - long before capitalism had any say in it - humans have been doing things just for the experience of it. for the fuck of it. for the love of the game.

ai is not going to win because i cut my thumb while i did it. ai is not going to win because i kept thinking about my all friends who do ceramics, how they're always asking me if i want to join them for a lesson. i was thinking about every person i've ever shared a coffee with. i was thinking about who i was when i bought this mug (graduate student. could barely afford the off-season thing on clearance). i was thinking about how many hands have held this, how many people i've been since.

ai is not going to win because i didn't do a perfect job of it.

my sister-in-law and i recently had a conversation about how one of her coworkers uses Chat instead of reading self-help books. and we both looked at each other about that, the stunned silence of rabbits. "can you imagine?" we said. what's even the point to it.

did i tell you? i had this dream once. we as the earth decided that for one moment, we'd all go outside and sing. any note we wanted, any way. it could be a howl or a scream or a high c. the noise we made together - it was the most beautiful harmony. this, i thought. this is the natural state of things.

she is a princess and you are a dragon. she will be married tonight. do not keep standing outside of her room like that, go inside. go get her. that is what proper dragons do.

not that you have ever been a good or proper dragon. when you hatched out of your egg, your eggtooth was too smooth. the other dragons were rough with you, put little holes in your wings.

you were not bold. you were odd. you liked rippling water and the shine of chitin when bugs scuttle and of course the movement of the stars. those were all acceptable interests albeit maybe not traditional. perhaps you had inherited these through some great-great-uncle or something. certainly a dragon may be wise, or clever, if they are not bold.

yes, you have been a great deal of a puzzle to the other dragons. your body is smaller and rather more soft than it ought to be. so speed should have been yours, perhaps - your mother said it would be like fighting a shadow. if a dragon is not aggressive, it may instead be cruel, sly; a backstab. but alas your scales - so iridescent that they almost shine like the moon at night, a glow from within - you are not a shadow, you are a beacon like the flash of a knight's blade. your father has said at least you would make a fine egglayer, a nice mate to a good male. a dragon like you may still be a good mother perhaps; and that is a fine thing to be; although of course it would have been better if you'd been a trove-hoarder instead.

what a dragon must not be is kind.

you have watched her now for six moons. what a good and proper dragon would do is to go inside and to snatch her. a very proper dragon would have kidnapped her many times over, but you will be the delight of your brood to princess-snatch even at all. when you catch her in your jaws and bring her home, they will love you, then. they don't think you're capable of it, but you are, because you're a proper dragon. you can show them that. if you go in, now, right now.

you are rather too glossy to hide in the shadows, so instead you have learned how to appear flat and round, a puddle of light. (how your siblings would mock you! a dragon should be matte, to blend with the night). you dapple your flank with mud. you perch in odd angles atop of trees, scuttle like the bugs you love - hither, tither, frantic.

what you must not do is fly with your wings full-out. alight, you will be limned by the moon's corona. you will be a beacon. you must remember this when (not if) you snatch her.

____

you found her because of the lake. this lake in particular was your favorite - nestled deep in the woods, between two mountains. it is very quiet; there is nothing to horde there so no other dragon bothers you. a gentle waterfall spills over into a deep cove, and there are many mossy caves you've spent your afternoons napping in. while it is not proper for a dragon to prefer such things, you like to lay in rolling tenure just under the water. you have become excellent at holding your breath, can do it for hours. it is the easiest way to appear as a patch of sunlight.

she was not sunlight. she was the night's joy. the dark press of water. her face at first concealed by many diaphanous layers. her breathing quick and quiet.

she had pulled them back to drink from her water flask. and there she had been: a princess. your first very-real princess. right there, only the reach of a single talon from you. if you had simply lunged then, you would have been able to take her easily, in one single movement.

but you did not take her.

we need to deplatform ariana grande.

"don't comment on people's bodies!" i wouldn't usually do so, no. however, do not act like what is happening is a usual situation. also, do not gaslight me. i grew up in the 90s-00s. i remember when y'all would comment about how "fat" extremely-thin celebrities were. the push to not comment on people's bodies was, at least in part, to prevent eating disorders. also, this rule only seems to be followed when it is someone hyper-thin - every time a woman on the red carpet is even a little bloated, comments fly.

most importantly: she's a public figure. she is quite literally a model for swarovski. she is currently on tour. she regularly posts pictures of herself in ways that highlight her exposed bones. this is not a private citizen. she is making millions of dollars and is not in any way hiding what we all see to be true. it could also be argued that she is going so far as to highlight and sexualize her current figure.

her PR team - and there is one - obviously knows there is an issue here. they would have most likely released a statement if it was a health issue. they can do so without violating her privacy. so far she is quoted as saying she's "the healthiest" she's ever been. meanwhile her instagram content would have been flagged 5 years ago for being "thinspo."

research shows that exposure to ultra-thin body types does encourage self-image issues in young girls and women. to quote NEDA: "Of American elementary school girls who read magazines, 69% say that the pictures influence their concept of the ideal body shape. 47% say the pictures make them want to lose weight." I cannot even imagine what social media is doing on a much larger scale.

due to social pressures, you can "catch" an eating disorder. eating disorders are also the most deadly mental illness to have.

anecdotally, before i recovered, figures like her would have been extremely triggering for me. most people who have any passing experience with this content will agree: it is becoming harder to fight the internalization of those thoughts.

this is not because i dislike her. i have no opinion on her actually. it literally has nothing to do with her as a performer or as a person. however, there is a reason people fought to deplatform eugenia cooney: it is not because we seek to abandon that person, but instead because their behavior is genuinely concerning and they should not be given massive amounts of access to the public.

if she was self-harming or doing drugs (or god forbid shaving her head), companies would be too "concerned" with their public image to support her as a model. but she is just... too skinny, and it's okay to be skinny, because we as a society hate fatness.

as more and more celebrities follow in her wake, we are beginning to see hyper-thinness as being "normal" or "toned" where it is not normal nor is it toned - it is often extreme thinness.

and no, there is nothing wrong with being skinny. every time i comment on something related to this, some skinny person regales me with times they've been attacked by some kind of pro-fat mafia - as if that makes my point untrue; as if private suffering negates the existence of public research. eating disorders are real, and they are dangerous, and if you feel attacked because i am concerned about the normalization of sick bodies as role models - you need to go outside and talk to any fat person. what i am talking about is more important than your personal validation that your life was hard. if you're thin, you can just be thin, i am not stopping you nor am i judging you. i beg you, please think rationally about what i am actually saying. it is not a reflection on you; nor on your body; nor on your experience. this is about a popular performer displaying signs of an extremely dangerous mental illness.

she has done great work for charities. she's a great singer and actress. i do not know what she went through. my heart hurts for her and the pain she's clearly in. my understanding is that it is not uncommon for victims of sexual assault to develop an eating disorder. whatever is happening to her, i really, really hope she gets the help she so clearly needs.

in the meantime, though. she should not be on billboards. she should not be posting thinspo disguised as normal pictures. she should not be touting her health and wellness. she should not be held up as a paragon of sex and wealth.

she is categorically, visibly unwell.

unfortunately there are like 23 billion other things to worry about right now but just for the record: straight people who are trying to "rebrand" pride month as "national nuclear family month" are so fucking evil. positioning gay pride as antithetical to the concept of a family is evil. doing so in a way that is explicitly white nationalism is evil. acting like queer pride is the thing that destroys families is evil.

we are not just backsliding, we are back at the milquetoast assertation "love is love." for the record: when people ask us why we need pride this is literally fucking why. when other queer people ask me if we really need all the rainbow shit, this is why. when we make a fuss about so many shows not having any positive queer rep: this is why.

it has only been 11 years since it was nationally legal for gay people to get married. homophobia is still very much alive and well - and it is often the thing that ruins a family.

having physical anxiety even when you're actually having a good mental health day is so fucking stupid. mentally i'm like "i'm so grateful for my life and the beauty of this incredible world." however i drank about .002 too many dropulets of coffee so my body is currently home to 23 species of ants as well as 56 different adverbs. like sure i'm out here doing my little gay nature walk and my journaling and my grounding techniques and yet the entire time my skin has been attempting to become a rocketship and it has decided it must do this via stomach-based forbidden torture techniques

how many times have you heard i want to kiss girls but it's scary. you have said those words, even. you flinch but you still do feel it - kissing men is easier, dating men is easier. there is already a social contract about it. a republican's wet dream; you had been socially conditioned to "know" what to do, even if it has never explicitly been described to you. the man and the woman get together, end of story.

you want women, of course. you want them, badly. and sometimes you wonder about that. is it because a man isn't real to you? this thing you have with men - is it only easier because you wouldn't have to change anything? your parents can pretend you're "straight", no matter how many times you exit the closet or say i'm at least half gay.

are you just... afraid?

because what if it's not true. what if kissing girls is just as easy - better, even - than kissing boys. what if dating girls means there's no weird subtle power imbalance; means that your life is full of laughter and love.

or maybe it's because if men don't find you attractive - well, okay, whatever. they can choke. you don't exist to make men happy, certainly. you can shave your head and let your leg hair grow out and dye your eyebrows because fuck what men think.

but what do women want? what if you try as hard as you can and you are not what women want? or worse - what if they do want you, but you have no idea how to treat them? certainly dating a woman is not dating a man; and you only have the manual (ha!) for one kind of relationship. everyone at this queer bar probably has kissed and hooked up and knows interesting positions to fold other women into. they've probably had sex in the bathroom and know where to slide their fingers into.

logically you know every body is different. there is no singularly correct way to have sex or kiss or love anyone of any gender. you know some people need to suck toes or do gymnastics or picture wife-roaches. so how hard could it be, really.

but you tell yourself - well, the dating pool is smaller. you have heard so many wlw horror stories from your friends - like their exes randomly appearing at a party, or the time three of your friends all accidentally dated the same person at once. and your lesbian friend warns you - wlw breakups hit harder.

and it's not like you're unhappy. you are happy, certainly. the man you're with now might genuinely be the love of your life. he paints his nails and likes bugs and treats you like a princess.

but still. in the late night, you feel your heart stutter. because what if it isn't really that difficult. what if you're just creating false assumptions in your head in order to fit a fear-based narrative. what if this is your internalized homophobia; what if it's heteronormativity; what if you're the only thing stopping you. what if those rules don't exist, and you're imagining scenarios so that you never take a risk.

what if.

this year for pride i'm identifying as a fucking problem :)

falling in love is so fucking stupid. everything on earth is glowing honey-bright. i am easily charmed by small things. i am obsessed even with the shadow formed by her eyelashes. i can't get over the magic of this: that humans can feel something like this.

and yeah in the history of humanity we still can't seem to talk about it enough. because i can tell you about it - about her - and it won't surround the experience. it can never be big enough.

i am feeling something people have maybe always-felt. who knows when the first person fell in love. i am also feeling something that feels new and silly and extreme. like maybe we're the first people to really understand it, truly.

i know the science of it; why her smell is so good to me (something about our compatible genes). oxytocin and whatever hormones. and still it is incredible - i didn't think my body did this kind of thing. i thought it was an invention of romance-book marketing.

things make sense that didn't make sense before. songs about how love is an addiction or possession or insanity. orpheus had to turn around, of course he did, i would turn for her too, just to see. my mom and i watch a rerun of a murder mystery; for the first time i understand the line he did it for love - instead of being trite, it feels like a genuine tragedy.

and of course i am feeling the same way millions of people have maybe felt and know i cannot write enough about it, that it won't quite surrender to poetry. why do i think i'm gonna be the one who can finally communicate this thing that resists definition so ardently. this girl in my kitchen, humming. who walked so casually into my life. this girl pulls the rain down from even a cloudless sky.

what i can say is that i feel something impossible, and stupid. what i can say is that nothing about this is unusual, and yet i am so caught in it that i keep waiting for some terrible evil - something so good surely must come with some kind of retribution.

we get high and watch zombies 4 (it's terrible). the main characters sing a song about love; how theirs feels wild and impossible. the kind of thing i used to think was insipid, bad writing. baby that's us, she says into my ear.

that's us, she says, but with us the true love thing is actually real.

i'm going to tell you a secret now, and you're going to think the secret doesn't involve you, but it might.

first we must understand: there isn't a "wrong" way to be queer. i know this and you know this, we both understand this logically. the secret is that i still feel i'm often wrong in my queerness, somehow.

for a long time i identified as bisexual. i heard it a lot, then, about how to be queer the right way. i had multiple partners imply that i would eventually "choose" another gender. i was constantly inundated with requests for sexual favors. my queerness wasn't taken seriously by either straight people or other queer people - the assumption was that my queerness was temporary. even when i began exclusively dating women: when i called myself gay, i genuinely received hatemail about how the word gay was reserved for real queer people, not for bisexuals. i was invited to the party, essentially, but i wasn't invited warmly.

even now i see it. that any "straight appearing" couple is, in some way, not being "queer enough." that bisexuals shouldn't speak about their own queerness, that would be taking up too much space. that to be a real queer person, you must have some kind of list of (usually sexual) credentials.

so maybe that is where i learned it.

i've been out as a nonbinary lesbian for a while now; but i wonder about this a lot. i wonder if i would have figured it out sooner if i'd felt less pressure to act a certain way. heteronormativity versus my own community. maybe it is that i am on the spectrum but - there are moments where it feels like i'm not doing gay the right way. i think it's an observable truth that there are people who are more accepted in the community. that the community does shun others while still paying lip service to "diversity." that there is a visible in group, and an invisible out.

in part i know i do not "look" nonbinary. in part i know i do not "look" gay. yes, i know this is not technically a thing i am supposed to say - i am supposed to remind you that gender and sexuality has no true appearance. but this also just... isn't my lived experience. i know people do not look at me and see "they/them," and i know people do not look at me and see a lesbian. i lack a certain type of aura, i suppose.

and i want to have that, desperately. i want it to shine out of every pore of me. it just doesn't.

maybe it's because i was not raised with the same cultural touchstones that seem to pervade the constant narrative of what queerness "looks like." no i have not seen the L Word nor really any of the "queer media" legacies, but thank you for suggesting them to me. no i don't really know how to do carpentry. no i was not on a softball team - i did ballet, actually.

and i just do not have the same interests as often pervades every "queer event" in my locality. with all due respect, one can only do so much drag-bingo-brunch-drinking-trivia-comedy.

it is as if other queer people - cooler, more interesting, doing it correct effortlessly - are behind a glass door. i am allowed to watch. i am allowed even to be in the room. i just always feel like i'm a strange visitor, and unwelcome to it.

for the record, i want queerness to be bold and brassy and wild and free. i want rainbows and banners and shouting. i want us to remember the names of every person who worked for our freedoms, and i want us to do so loudly.

i go to these events and i can't help but feel: they're very lovely, but somehow, they're not for me.

i love being gay. i just got home from a 4-day "date" with my girlfriend. and still, i don't know. i'm not being gay correctly.

i literally know other people have said it before and no honestly i don't know what to do about it but holy shit every morning i wake up and there's some other incredibly-obvious violation of the law. what do you mean only three people voted to put that data center into utah. what do you mean that a data center in michigan was voted down; but they sued the town, won, and is now getting put in anyway. what do you mean that the projected environmental costs of these surveillance-state bunkers is akin to a nuclear bomb.

what do you mean that the president privately settled his own frivolous lawsuit, meaning that he is redistributing tax dollars to the proud boys for emotional damages. what do you mean that he offered a no-bid deal to his friends to seal the reflecting pool. what do you mean his cronies have learned to just dodge questions and lie on the stand. what do you mean about fucking anything he does.

and of course yes the pointless, inhumane war is distracting from the files. of course the gas prices are distracting from the endless push of capitalism's last breath. it's hard to revolt when you have no energy or time left.

and god forbid you try to actually do anything about it, holy shit. i've done the protesting and the volunteering and yes, we are all incredibly burnt out. we've been running on fumes forever, but these days everything feels incredibly pointless. we don't have the money for schools, but we will have the money for more weapons delivered to the police station.

and i don't fucking know the answer! i don't know. everyone says just get out there and vote and like, obviously yes, duh. i'm so well-past voting as an answer, though; because my trust in democracy is essentially zero. no matter how much we beg fucking do something, they just wring their hands and say: well, we need to meet them in the middle. no health care. no social security. no environmental protections. over and over we're told the money doesn't exist; and over and over we reply: it does if you just tax the rich. but don't worry! we can fund ICE with half the fucking treasury! because if he wants it, it gets done.

it is the country's 250th birthday in a month. and look how far we've come.