hearing the young girls screaming the bridge really just hits me straight through the chest and rips out my bloodied broken ribcage

since the jwst is on everyone's minds right now, i want to take a second to remember voyager i, our little interstellar probe that could. it's out past the sun's reach now, traveling away from us at nearly 40,000 mph. and it carries with it the "golden record".

we knew when we sent it that it would eventually leave the solar system, and would someday -- many, many years in the future -- find another star or solar system. eventually. the laws of physics demand it.

and so we put a record of ourselves with it. just in case -- in the highly unlikely, but still possible, event that it happened upon a world with intelligent life that could understand it. our message in a bottle, cast out into the endless sea of space.

we recorded our voices, in many languages. we recorded the sounds of wild animals, of insects, of water rushing. we recorded brainwaves.

ann druyan's brainwaves, in fact. an hour of them, as she thought of all kinds of things.

she and carl sagan worked on this project together, and over the course of their work, they fell in love.

she took the time, during the recordings, to think of him, and how she felt about him.

so that love -- not just earth's existence, or its sounds, or human voices, but love -- would be sent out in our message, cast out into the ocean of space, in the distant hope that someday, somewhere, something would see it and hear us, and know us, and know how we feel.

even if voyager i never finds another life in the universe, even if the golden record is never played, i think it's important that we sent it anyway. what it says about us as a people, our hope and our optimism and our faith and our love -- we cast this all out into the stars.

"dare to cast thy bread upon the sea," indeed.

the angel staying over at my house asked for a nightlight in their room and i told them buddy, don't you produce your own light? what're you gonna do with more? and they said they wanted to see why people like it so much. and also that the nightlight i own is blue and they're been trying to understand color. anyways i think they've stared at it for an hour now

they should invent a tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow that doesn’t creep in this petty pace from day to day

i cant

i hate it when i cant even write a poem about something because its too obvious. like in the airbnb i was at i guess it used to be a kids room cause you could see the imprint of one little glow in the dark star that had been missed and painted over in landlord white. like that's a poem already what's the point

I'm never forgetting the Palestinian babies that were left to starve to death then rot in their beds by the IOF.

I'm never forgetting the Palestinian doctors surrounded by bodies of dead children begging the world to stop the slaughter.

I'm never forgetting the Palestinian children who held a press conference in English to beg the world to stop murdering them because they want to live.

I'm never forgetting the Palestinian Priest who said "We will not accept your apology after the genocide" to the world.

I'm never forgetting the Palestinian Imam who used the speakers of the Mosque, not to call people to prayer but to call out to God while the world around them was burning from American supplied Israeli bombs.

I'm never forgetting the grandfather who held his dead grandchild in his arms. Or the father carrying the remains of his two children in plastic shopping bags. Or the mother holding her dead child in a shroud. Or the father sitting among the rubble after he lost his whole family. Or the girl trapped under a broken building begging for people to save her family first. Or the boy who cried when he saw his brother alive. Or the girl who asked if she was still alive after being pulled from the rubble. Or the boy who carried the remains of his brother in his backpack. Or the old man the IOF used for a photoshoot before they shot him dead after getting pictures. Or the little boy wearing plastic gloves to pick up the remains of his family. Or the graves desecrated. Or the body of that small baby girl left alone in a tent because no one knew who she was or if her family was alive, small and alone and not one person who knew her name to bury her. Or the young boy who was shot in the street while his sister watched from the window. Or the men and boys who were stripped naked in winter. Or those tortured. Or those made to stand in open graves. Or the people who were raped by IOF soldiers. Or Palestinian workers kidnapped by the IOF and then labeled with wristbands, each one reduced to a number, then made to walk back to Gaza to be killed in the world's largest open air concentration camp. Or the people of Gaza starving because Israeli Zionists are blocking aid trucks. Or the Israelis dancing and celebrating the death of Palestinians. Or the lies spread by Zionists and their supporters. Or the people profiting off the oppression and deaths of Palestinians. Or the people of the West Bank being killed or kidnapped by the IOF. Or old woman who was older than the creation of the terror state of "Israel" who was shot by snipers for saying that. Or the Israelis dressed up as Palestinians to enter a hospital and kill three Palestinians in their beds. Or every single Palestinian currently kept in an Israeli prison. Or the journalists, doctors, poets, men, women, children, and the unborn all massacred. Or the fact that WCNSF exists now. Or the woman who refused to wash the blood from her hands. Or the dead, unburied and unmourned.

I'm never forgetting those who chose silence in the face of a genocide.

I may not know all their names but I will not forget the over 30,000 Palestinians dead. Or the over 60, 000 people hurt. Or the unknown number of people missing, still lost under the rubble. Or the 12,000 children slaughtered. An entire generation crippled or murdered.

I will never forget these things when Palestine is free.

Limelight

Fingerpainted Ibispaint X,

Thur 21 Dec 2023

A lone megapterygius (newly discovered mosasaur) basks in the limelight while exploring an underwater cavern. A quick concept that I decided to blotch out for fun, I may attempt it again in the future

i hate it when i cant even write a poem about something because its too obvious. like in the airbnb i was at i guess it used to be a kids room cause you could see the imprint of one little glow in the dark star that had been missed and painted over in landlord white. like that's a poem already what's the point

columns of kelp underwater are so gorgeous. absolutely one of my favorite things in the natural world

In my mind I'm

Eight years old braiding daisies

In your goose down hair

I slip my hand into yours

We run into the wildflowers

odysseus made their marriage bed with his own hands. with his own hands

This whole drive I can’t stop thinking about that one retelling where Odysseus is a long haul trucker and Athena is a voice on his radio…

do you guys think jesus, the son of a carpenter, smelt the wood of the cross & temporarily thought of home