I just got a Tumblr, I don’t understand Tumblr. I don’t know what a “note” is. Don’t really like the feeling of being “followed.”
By strangers.
Why do they call them followers instead of friends?
I have 81 followers. Mostly strangers
And they send me messages that say:
“Funny, you don’t look like a feminist”
I didn't respond
“Your septum piercing is sexy.”
I didn’t respond.
“My grandmother who has taken care of me since I was a little kid found out I’m gay but she keeps telling me I’m just going through a phase. It’s really getting to me. What should I do?
PS
I love your poems.”
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Phase, noun
a distinct period in a process of change or development
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I am seven-years old and leaving a play date from Samantha’s house. I give her kiss on the cheek and our mother’s swoon.
I am seven-years old and leaving a play date from Michael’s house. I give him a kiss on his cheek and his mother says
“Now that’s enough of … “
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Phase, verb
To introduce in gradual stages
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- I am 22-years old and I am dating a woman for the first time. Wondering where I had ever been before this. Wondering how it took me so long to see it
her name is
—
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Phase, verb
To remove in gradual stages
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~ I spent most of high school with a painter. A hopeful romantic who always wanted to exchange portraits for poems. I’m afraid if I write it now it will sound too much like the suicide note he didn’t leave.
Signed,
—
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Phase, verb
The process of waxing and waning
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The moon takes 29 days to orbit around the earth. Appearing to us in fractions of its full self
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Phase, verb
Illuminating the darkness
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How can we exist outside of a phase
if being human means constantly trying to find the light?
To the boy
Our reply
When they tell your love is just a phase, tell them you don’t like the word just. You are not just anything. Do not bury your demons on the dark side of the moon. Instead, Phase hate out of your sky.
When they treat your love like an eclipse, like it means living in someone else’s shadow, like it must be swallowed by darkness because it burns too bright to look at.
Do not let them.
Do not align yourself with their axis.
Do not fight your own pull
Trust in your own gravity. We are closer to the stars than they will ever be and if anyone tells you that you love wrong, if anyone waits for you to backwards become yourself, tell them you’re sorry that they’d rather live in darkness
than learn to love your light.
Learn to love your flicker flash irradiation.
Learn to love you full moon
Even on the days when you hang just a sliver in the sky, holding on for dear life to this rock like you’re in a death grip tango with the sun,
Hold on
Because I’ve seen people I love starve themselves out of the sky.
- Her name is Sarah!
~ Signed, Andrew!
- My starry-eyed girl and her constellation kisses
~ My man on the moon and his ghostly glow
I still don’t understand Tumblr, but I consider us friends. Thank you for sending us your secret satellite. We promise it did not get lost in space
PS
We hear you
loud and clear.
