It's so weird how "Heat of the Moment" by Asia has pavloved dogged me, by one Berklie Novak-Stolz, into a feeling of genuine joy, connection, and happiness whenever I hear it.

Not weird because it was Berk who inspired such feelings, I'm convinced that anyone who sees Berk interact with the world in even the smallest extent we get through our screens would be able to feel such things through them, but because my original understanding of the song was of such an opposing nature.

But it's not anymore, and I've got @icaruspendragon to thank for that, so happy (late) Tuesday everyone.

Berk coded

My mother had a scale in the house and I refused to use it for my entire youth and when I left I refused to buy one, because some part of me knew that if I stepped on it it would become routine in the way only the worse things can for me.

Which is a little bit funny in that there is a certain obsession in my avoidance, an adamance that doesn't honestly feel earned, but there are a lot of things in life that I do preemptively because I can tell there's another side once I start, but that other side is really just a bottom of a pit and starting really just means jumping and so I step back and I never do.

So no, this makes sense to me, I don't think I'll ever have a scale in my house. (also legitimately how is it that I've never had a unique experience in my life, I'm aware Berk is only human but also, how do we as humans have other humans that are so so similar, despite the fact that we have never met and will never meet, going a little out of my mind with the presentation of this fact once again)

something the women in my family are absolutely flabbergasted by every time it comes up is the fact that i don’t own a scale.

“how do you know how much you weigh??” they cry.

“i don’t.” i simply respond.

“you look thinner, have you lost weight?” they ask at christmas.

“i dunno.” i say as i check on the turkey.

“you look bigger, have you gained weight?” they probe, as if my weight rests on their shoulders.

“i’m not sure, but it’s fine if i have.” i respond with a casualness they cannot comprehend.

“don’t you want to know if you’ve lost or gained?” they inquire over cups of coffee and a plate of untouched cookies.

“i do.” i take a sip. “which is why i don’t need to know.”

“we don’t understand.” they say.

“i’ll drive myself mad if i know. it’s been a question i’ve been looking for the answer to since i was in the seventh grade and my weight was the topic of conversation for the first time; the stretch marks on my calves puberty brought being questioned and condemned. and so i started weighing myself once a day. then twice a day. i gained weight as i grew and was told to stop. i got depressed when i was 16 and the weight i gained was more concerning than the scars on my thighs. the critiques turned to compliments during my first year of college when i’d started skipping meals and my body had to feed itself because i wouldn’t. everyday i stepped on the scale and smiled as i watched that number get smaller and smaller. hunger felt like victory. i started doing drugs that took away my appetite and then my strength. and started feeling guilt when my stomach felt full. and suddenly every time i looked in the mirror i hated what i saw. the more weight i lost, the better i was supposed to feel. each remark on another part of my body lost felt like a slap to the face. i was told i looked good but i knew i wasn’t good enough. and so i tried harder. and then i started to get dizzy when i stood. and i ignored it like i’d learned to ignore my hunger. and then one day at work i dropped like the weight that was never enough after i bending at the waist to grab a milk cap from the floor. and when the darkness faded, i was surrounded by panic as an ambulance was called. and then i was tested and prodded and poked because they thought something was wrong with my heart. and the problem persisted but they never found out why. but i’d known all along. and then i left home and its scale behind. and moved into a new home that was mine. so i bought plates and sheets and art for the walls. but i didn’t buy a scale. then every time i walked down an aisle i’d see the them and pause. and i’d think about the hunger i now kept at bay. and even though i didn’t know how much i weighed, i didn’t notice my body had changed. and i’d think about how i hadn’t been dizzy for months. and how i hadn’t fainted for longer. and then i’d keep on walking. and now most days i like how i look.”

“but don’t you want to be skinny?” comes their quiet response.

“i want to be myself in whatever body i have.”

they stare in disbelief. so i shrug my shoulders, and grab a cookie. and i smile at them as i swallow the first bite.

happy first birthday poetry book i wrote called lazarus rises (amongst other things).

you would’ve never been possible without fanfic and this, your living kiss by opal_bullets

So Berk posted a video of some poems that never made it into Lazarus Rises and I wanted to talk about my favorite one.

It's this, it's this one.

If you're just here to read the poem, fair, it's amazing and stands on it's own, honestly click the link and read the rest of them, because they're all so good!

If you're here as a fellow-feral-unhinged-raccoon and want to read my honestly unneeded analysis, it's below the cut.

Oh my god. Are you kidding me?? This was a poem that didn't pass the cut??? And it's this good?????? (Once again I feel justified in telling literally every person who spends five minutes in conversation with me about how good of a poet Berk is)

Honestly though, this is one of my favorites of the poems in that video, because it's so short, it's so simply written, and this says so much that I feel like I could write an entire essay on each of the lines themselves and their meanings (I honestly might anyways but I'm not gonna subject you guys to those rambles)

"Life loves Death"

In the same way you can't help but love an impossible task you just want to give up but that at this point is the only company you truly remember and the only thing you know how to work towards.

"Life loves Death"

In the same way we can't help but try and find meaning in beauty in the thing that truly only takes from us, because if there isn't meaning and beauty in our pain, then why the fuck do we have it?

"Life loves Death"

As something we can't take seriously. As something we truly don't understand the risks of until it's too late. As something that for some of us, we rush forward to with joy and open arms because we think it'll feel like the warm embrace of the sun but instead all we are met with is the cold cold ocean.

"Life loves Death"

As a burden, a burden that some claim is a gift. A burden enforced upon us poor poor sinners by a god in punishment. Am I talking about Apollo or Jesus? Both, neither of them, I don't believe in either, but I mean no one believed Cassandra either.

"Life loves Death"

As a needed tool, as a part of every flower we decide to put in a vase, as every dye we put in paint, as every food we are forced to consume and as the tool that at the end of the days ends up changing us.

Also something something, gods punishing poor sinners for wanting to enjoy life something something an apple and a weaving contest being the show of ultimate pride something something I don't have religious trauma you do

Like do you get it???? Do you see how insane this is??? How much information they've packed into six lines???

And I'm not even gonna go over the way Life and Death are capitalized and personified, you all already know how I feel about how impressive it is they do that, but regardless, this poem is amazing and you can pry it out of my coffin-bloodied-cold-dead hands.

As always, the source is always more interesting than anything I have to say, so if you haven't yet, go read Lazarus Rises(amongst other things) and follow them on their Tumblr @icaruspendragon because they write so many cool things beyond just their published book.

"religious guilt, in part, means growing up to hate yourself a bit."

I don't think there's a better more simpler way to put that honestly. Like I could provide my own anecdotal evidence that this is correct, but not only is this blog not really about talking about my own personal traumas at all, but again, I don't think I could state it better than that line does.

girls will be like, “i don’t have catholic guilt. i use the imagery when writing because it’s fun to play around with!” and then write this:

I am insane, too. I just finished reading their book for the second time, and I also recently finished watching supernatural, and there's one poem that just hit because?? the things it could mean? I'm eating drywall

XVII starts out with "if it bleeds, you can kill it." now when I first read this, I just took it as a generic, "yeah, it if bleeds, it can be killed." but now?? it's from s7e14, and it's basically a mantra Sam had. he kept repeating that so the fear wouldn't consume him, but you put that in the context of the poem?

"Yet my bleeding heart still grieves.

I have found no weapon to pierce the armor

Which Grief has crafted from my love.

You cannot kill what can never die."

there's just, something about it. I cannot articulate it at the moment, but the way Sam had repeated it, and then Berk saying that it can't be killed, because it is her heart that is still bleeding, and it is protected by Grief which was made from the love they have for her brother? I'm eating drywall, man

!!!!!!!

First, I'm glad I have found another feral-berk-brain-rot-raccoon, welcome to the club.

Second though!!!! See this is why I created this!!!! I never would've thought of this connection! It's so good though! You're giving me so many edit ideas! I'm so happy! And by happy I mean I am sharing consuming drywall along with you, but I'm sure they'll be some greater goal and meaning that comes out of this.

I have corrupted another human 😌

Brain rot of the day: quick analysis of XXIX

So for reference for those of you who haven't read Lazarus Rises yet here is the poem in question:

So this is interesting for one reason, well, for many reasons, but for one main one at least.

Now I am not Berk and I cannot tell you what they meant by what they wrote or who exactly they're talking about with this poem, but I can infer what they might mean using context clues.

In stating "the tomb of you is full" it helps us to infer who the "you" in question they're talking about is possibly, in this case it's most likely their brother. This makes sense to me because a) this collection is like pretty much fully about them dealing with the loss of their brother and b) it states a tomb, this implies the person involved has passed away.

What makes this poem interesting with that in mind is these two lines:

Berk is Lazarus,

and their brother is Jesus?

This seems contradictory. Their brother is the one who has died. Their brother is the one who needs salvation in the form of resurrection, but Berk is "Lazarus, day one".

This shouldn't make sense, but it does to me. You can be living and yet have died along with or because of someone. You can be living and know the only thing that feels like you'll be saved is if the one who left you were to come back, but them coming back isn't just pulling them from a grave. It's pulling you from yours, from the one they made for you by leaving.

The dead are dead and maybe in that death they themselves are living and need saved, but maybe they're just dead, and that only matters to us because we're alive.

I don't know, I'm not sure I have a great analysis for you this time. But the good news is, you really don't need my analysis in the end, if you just go read their book. They say it all enough.

So go do that, go read Lazarus Rises and check out their tiktok and their tumblr. They're far more interesting than me.

*Me anytime anyone mentions Supernatural, fanfic, grief, or poetry*

"Have you heard about our Lord and savior Berklie Novak-Stolz?"

Brain rot of the day:

coffin-fucking-bloody

Which, look, the actual quote is:

When I tell you though, that these words, these goddamn (/pos) words were in their first poem in Lazarus Rises, and that as soon as I read these three words I realized I was going to become obsessed, I am literally not lying.

"Coffin-bloody" repeats in my head daily.

I say these words out loud daily.

I think about myself using these words now.

Daily.

I just, how are they this good at writing????? (rhetorical, they've clearly put a lot of thought and effort and time into becoming like this) how has a single poem reshaped my entire brain chemistry??? (trick question, it's more than a single poem, all of their poems have made me like this, they're all this good).

Just, go read their stuff, please, someone, so I can talk out loud to literally anyone about this author and how much I love their work.

Lazarus Rises(amongst other things) and their tumblr @icaruspendragon

@icaruspendragon

Brain rot of the day:

Their use of alliteration.

Am I aware this is a common skill/tool used in poetry in general? Yes. Do I fucking love it when they do it nonetheless??? 100 percent.

Like look at this. Tell me this does not just scratch an itch in your brain, I fucking dare you.

As always, the source is always more interesting than anything I have to say, so if you haven't yet, go read Lazarus Rises(amongst other things) and follow them on their Tumblr @icaruspendragon because they write so many cool things beyond just their published book.

Brain worm of the day:

The way they capitalize things in their poems. Examples are like this:

And this is fascinating to me (/gen /pos).

So like I think we're generally aware of why things get capitalized. It's used to make something a proper noun, because of basic grammar (beginning of sentences) or for Emphasis.

The interesting thing to me about their poems is that they're often times used in combination of all of these things.

In some cases they are clearly being used to declare something as a proper noun, or in essence almost personifying it, such as this:

As they put it, they're calling it "Hope", meaning they are naming it, personifying it.

Or sometimes they capitalize words because it doesn't need to be given a new name but it needs to be acknowledged as an entity nonetheless:

Sometimes though they capitalize a word and use it both as a proper noun while also seeming to merely want to apply emphasis, sometimes in the same poem itself. For instance in their poem XXV in Lazarus Rises they start out with using love as a verb, but they capitalize it nonetheless.

This might appear to be for merely emphasis, and it does accomplish this, but farther down the poem, Berk used Love in a way that seems to suggest this word isn't just an action. It is practically a physical being, able to be housed:

Having read to the end of this poem and come to realize that Love is a person, a thing, an entity given the same weight as our own names, means that when you reread that first line it strikes you that much harder.

Because now you're not only reading it with emphasis, you're realizing that this verb is formed from a name, and not the other way around. After all, when we take someone's name and use it as a verb, we all realize that the verb itself is secondary, in fact in doesn't even make sense if you don't have the context of the person behind it.

And this genuinely makes my brain go insane you don't even understand gives their poem layers now, layers that mean you can reread this poem 6, 7, 10s of times by this point honestly and still take something new away.

It's fascinating, I love it so much, and god they do it so well. I'm not even gonna get into how they use capitalization differently in the grammar of their poems because that's gonna be a whole other rant, but suffice to say, this is a skill, and they do it so well (which I'm not surprised by as they studied English in college and they find etymology of words fascinating which is just the sort of things that line up to allow someone to do something like this and pull it off well, but I digress)

As always, the source is always more interesting than anything I have to say, so if you haven't yet, go read Lazarus Rises(amongst other things) and follow them on their Tumblr @icaruspendragon because they write so many cool things beyond just their published book.

Brain worm of the day:

The way Berk uses difference in punctuation specifically between poems as a whole.

So in a previous post I did an incredibly overly detailed babble of words into how Berk uses capitalization for individual words that provide not just emphasis, but sometimes change their entire meaning from that of a verb to a proper noun/entity.

This isn't the only way they use capitalization though. Berk's poems in Lazarus Rises seem to follow a couple different levels of grammatical rule breaking basically. Some of their poems follow basic grammar sentence structure:

What I mean by that is that capitalization occurs in the same way it would for normal sentences, with the first letter of a sentence and all I's being capitalized, as well as with periods concluding each sentences.

Sometimes they follow a form of normal sentence structure:

Their I's are still capitalized and they still use periods, but the beginning of sentences aren't capitalized. Not only that but the sentences themselves don't follow a normal sentence structure in the form of subject-verb-object, they seem to begin and end wherever emphasis or a spoken pause would be needed.

Sometimes though they completely throw the rules out the window:

In the case of this poem they don't capitalize a single letter or use a single period until the very end of their poem:

Now here's the thing, this could all be Berk just messing around with style (they're entitled to playing around with it but honestly a lot of the ways Berk writes seems entirely too well thought out and specifically chosen for that to make sense to me). This could be Berk just deciding the shift key was too heavy that day (which I would argue is in itself a choice that would carry through to your poems). This could have no greater meaning to it (press x to doubt).

But regardless of whether this was all intentional (and I very much would argue it is, at least subconsciously) the fact that Berk writes in this way provides more layers to gain from their poems.

In the case of their poem X. periods hold a significance whenever they choose to use them. They provide emphasis that might not have otherwise been given, they provide a dictation for how their poems might be read aloud, they provide another layer of meaning.

The same can be said for their lack of capitalization.

"One day, I will move on from my grief." is incredibly different from "one day, I will move on from my grief." The first case could be seen on a hallmark card honestly. It's not wrong, but I kind of immediately want to throw it away in annoyance at feeling misunderstood.

But in the second case?? You can literally feel the exhaustion.

This second line means something to me. This second line comes from someone who actually gets what it's like to grieve, who gets that to put it into polite terms, is really fucking hard.

When they throw away all grammar rules though???

Their poem XIII does this :

Tell me you didn't get to the end of that poem, and get knocked out of your chair. Look me in the eyes, and lie to me, because of course you're on the ground.

"You are not alone." hits you like a sledgehammer. Nothing else in that poem follows normal grammar. There is not a single other period or capitalized letter. So when you read that statement you can almost feel Berk trying to lovingly slam you with the idea of friendship and caring and sharing in pain together so that we are never alone again.

TLDR; Berk uses all available tools they have in the written form to knock you upside the head (/pos) with an emotion. Sometimes this is the words they choose to use, sometimes this is the way they fit those words together, and sometimes they make sentence structure their bitch in a way that I'm honestly in awe of.

As always, the source is always more interesting than anything I have to say, so if you haven't yet, go read Lazarus Rises(amongst other things) and follow them on their Tumblr @icaruspendragon because they write so many cool things beyond just their published book.

Brain worm of the day:

The way Berk uses difference in punctuation specifically between poems as a whole.

So in a previous post I did an incredibly overly detailed babble of words into how Berk uses capitalization for individual words that provide not just emphasis, but sometimes change their entire meaning from that of a verb to a proper noun/entity.

This isn't the only way they use capitalization though. Berk's poems in Lazarus Rises seem to follow a couple different levels of grammatical rule breaking basically. Some of their poems follow basic grammar sentence structure:

What I mean by that is that capitalization occurs in the same way it would for normal sentences, with the first letter of a sentence and all I's being capitalized, as well as with periods concluding each sentences.

Sometimes they follow a form of normal sentence structure:

Their I's are still capitalized and they still use periods, but the beginning of sentences aren't capitalized. Not only that but the sentences themselves don't follow a normal sentence structure in the form of subject-verb-object, they seem to begin and end wherever emphasis or a spoken pause would be needed.

Sometimes though they completely throw the rules out the window:

In the case of this poem they don't capitalize a single letter or use a single period until the very end of their poem:

Now here's the thing, this could all be Berk just messing around with style (they're entitled to playing around with it but honestly a lot of the ways Berk writes seems entirely too well thought out and specifically chosen for that to make sense to me). This could be Berk just deciding the shift key was too heavy that day (which I would argue is in itself a choice that would carry through to your poems). This could have no greater meaning to it (press x to doubt).

But regardless of whether this was all intentional (and I very much would argue it is, at least subconsciously) the fact that Berk writes in this way provides more layers to gain from their poems.

In the case of their poem X. periods hold a significance whenever they choose to use them. They provide emphasis that might not have otherwise been given, they provide a dictation for how their poems might be read aloud, they provide another layer of meaning.

The same can be said for their lack of capitalization.

"One day, I will move on from my grief." is incredibly different from "one day, I will move on from my grief." The first case could be seen on a hallmark card honestly. It's not wrong, but I kind of immediately want to throw it away in annoyance at feeling misunderstood.

But in the second case?? You can literally feel the exhaustion.

This second line means something to me. This second line comes from someone who actually gets what it's like to grieve, who gets that to put it into polite terms, is really fucking hard.

When they throw away all grammar rules though???

Their poem XIII does this :

Tell me you didn't get to the end of that poem, and get knocked out of your chair. Look me in the eyes, and lie to me, because of course you're on the ground.

"You are not alone." hits you like a sledgehammer. Nothing else in that poem follows normal grammar. There is not a single other period or capitalized letter. So when you read that statement you can almost feel Berk trying to lovingly slam you with the idea of friendship and caring and sharing in pain together so that we are never alone again.

TLDR; Berk uses all available tools they have in the written form to knock you upside the head (/pos) with an emotion. Sometimes this is the words they choose to use, sometimes this is the way they fit those words together, and sometimes they make sentence structure their bitch in a way that I'm honestly in awe of.

As always, the source is always more interesting than anything I have to say, so if you haven't yet, go read Lazarus Rises(amongst other things) and follow them on their Tumblr @icaruspendragon because they write so many cool things beyond just their published book.

*revives you because honestly I was ready to read that entire essay*

Brain worm of the day: Christian symbolism without preaching Christianity.

Literally just that, Berk can write a book, with a Christian story (Lazarus) on the title cover, and carry that story metaphorically through the entire book, while never making me, a person with severe trauma due to Christianity, ever feel triggered.

Because it's just symbolism, it's just metaphors, and to be quite frank, sometimes it's fueling my religious blasphemy:

That's it, that's all you get for the day, they're good at what they do, and what they do is sometimes weaving Christian symbolism with Greek mythology with a fictional angel with a single episode of the fictional angels show with their own personal grieving process until you're not actually sure where one of those starts and one of those ends.

As always, the source is always more interesting than anything I have to say, so if you haven't yet, go read Lazarus Rises(amongst other things) and follow them on their Tumblr @icaruspendragon because they write so many cool things beyond just their published book.