no love is ever lost. i used to feel like I wasted my love on the wrong people but in the course of my healing, not only have i felt the love I've poured out come back to me in different ways, but i have been reminded that love is not expendable at all. love cannot be measured nor contained. discarded nor wasted. it has no form or shape. it surrounds us. love is essential. it's abundant. it's powerful. its potency makes it capable of finding its way back to you. again and again and again. love is a whole phenomenon. don't ever regret the love you give to anyone. it's theirs. it's yours. it's everywhere. the cycle is infinite

Hi sweeties and cuties miss u sm

my mother used to read me ‘where the wild things are’ & now i strive to be the wildest thing i want to be so wild that every wolves’ hungry mouth be terrified of me i am wild in the club at one am when a man touches me & i bare my teeth clench my fist & swing

RebeccaLynn Gualtieri, “Wild Thing,” published in Slamchop (via bostonpoetryslam)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BUY ONE EBOOK GET ONE FREE SUMMER LOVE WEEKEND SALE!

Visit our bookshop @ http://wordsdance.com/books

add two eBooks to your cart by clicking the ‘buy the eBook’ button on your chosen books’ sales pages & use discount code:

BOGOSUMMERLOVE

upon checkout to get one free!

eBooks by Poets on Tumblr include:

@natalieweepoetry + @tristamateer + @latenightcornerstore + @madgirlf +  @alonesomes + @brietopia + @amanda-oaks +  @schuylerpeck + @williamtaylorjr + @writingsforwinter + @almostmidwest  + @fleurishes + @5000letters + @melissamaynase + @donna-marieriley

(There’s no limit on how many times you want to use the code, but if you want to get 2+ free you’ll have to purchase twice+!) ♡

Happy Summer, loves! xox

Once upon a time we wrote together and while I never told you, you were a constant inspiration. We all fell apart, but I found your writing and dissolved in it. It inspired words to flow from my fingertips, never poetry but close enough. So thank you.

No, no. Thank YOU.

I am not ashamed, the story goes. I swear I will learn to leave a room without touching every part of your face.

Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, “How to Grow the Brightest Geranium,” published in Breakwater Review  (via figlip)

i’m better than every man i’ve ever loved and/or idolized.

Please share. Help me make this post go viral.

Almost 2 years ago, on July 31, 2015, I wrote a prose piece on suicide, titled “The Morning After I Killed Myself.” I posted it on my personal writing blog. The piece spoke from the perspective of a young woman looking back at her life after committing suicide, observing the effects it had on her peers. Within only a few weeks, my piece had been shared over 300,000 times directly on the blogging site, and as of today, it has been shared over 7 million documented times across the Internet.

Unfortunately, ever since I posted it, I have also come across at least 150 cases of it it being plagiarized. 150. And certainly countless more, considering these are only the cases I have been able to find myself. I have lost count of how many times I’ve had to contact websites to ask them to remove the plagiarized versions, how many times I’ve had to file DMCA notices, how many times I’ve had to enlist the support of my readers to bring awareness of the plagiarism to the attention of host sites. I have sent countless emails, filed countless notices, sent in countless reports, etc. On and on. 

I’ve had people steal my piece for English class projects, for art projects, get it published on well-known websites under their own names; I even had one girl steal the piece and submit it to the same national art and writing contest I won national medals for when I was in high school. I’ve had people steal my piece and copy its lines and twist its lines and meaning into a highly manipulative and distressing version that blames suicidal individuals for their thoughts and actions, leaving me in distress and sadness at my original message being distorted to such a degree, especially as someone who has personally struggled with suicide. It’s gotten to the point where on one single well-known website alone, The Odyssey, there have been at least 5 different plagiarized versions of my piece published at any given time, with new versions appearing each week.

I remember clearly when one girl used a plagiarized version of my piece for a final art project for her class. This girl was innocent; she had no idea she was using a plagiarized version of my work. I clearly remember her begging me to call her on the phone, a complete stranger, so she could explain, and listening to her break down in tears as she apologized profusely for using a stolen version of my piece when she was not at fault whatsoever.

It is unacceptable, damaging, and devastating to an author when their work is plagiarized, especially to the extent that my piece has been. It is unfair. It is hurtful, it is disappointing, it is inappropriate, and most of all, it belittles the time, effort, and dedication the author put into the work. We need to support and uplift the artists and writers we have left instead of destroying them.

Just yesterday I was contacted by several different individuals telling me that a plagiarized version of my piece is making the rounds on the Internet again. I cannot go a single week each month without being informed of more plagiarism of this one piece that I wrote almost 2 years ago.

Please. If you see plagiarized work floating around, whether it is mine or anyone else’s, report it. Comment on it. File a notice. Speak out about it. 

Artists and writers do not exist in a vacuum. They have human feelings; they are human beings. They feel hurt and pain and frustration when you take credit for their ideas and their words and art. Plagiarism takes an enormous toll. It is no exaggeration to say that over the past 2 years that my piece has been stolen, my mental health has taken a hit due to something I spent a great deal of time on being taken away from me over and over and over again.

Please share this, if you have the time. Not for me. But for all the artists and writers whose brilliant and emboldening work you have the privilege, not just the opportunity, but the privilege, to observe, learn from, and immerse yourself in every minute of every day.

i can’t think of a black rapper who hasn’t contemplated their own death on record.ready to die, life after death, death is certain, do or die, get rich or die tryin’, death certificate. this is natural. all my verses mention boxes or holes.

Nate Marshall, “on caskets,” published in Poetry (via bostonpoetryslam)

Mena Suvari as Angela Hayes American Beauty (1999) dir. Sam Mendes

YSL OPYUM 85 ANKLE BOOT BLACK PATENT LEATHER AND CHROME $1,495.00

Deny it, all that love– but I can’t.

Alice Notley, from “In The Pines,” (via violentwavesofemotion)

Heart-Shaped Bruise, New York, 1980, Nan Goldin

*me lying to men* oh wow that’s so interesting

The villains here aren’t southern rednecks or neo-Nazi skinheads, or the so-called “alt-right”. They’re middle-class white liberals. The kind of people who read this website. The kind of people who shop at Trader Joe’s, donate to the ACLU and would have voted for Obama a third time if they could. Good people. Nice people. Your parents, probably. The thing Get Out does so well – and the thing that will rankle with some viewers – is to show how, however unintentionally, these same people can make life so hard and uncomfortable for black people. It exposes a liberal ignorance and hubris that has been allowed to fester. It’s an attitude, an arrogance which in the film leads to a horrific final solution, but in reality leads to a complacency that is just as dangerous.

Get Out: the film that dares to reveal the horror of liberal racism in America | The Guardian (via fullpraxisnow)