iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Alina Stefanescu @alinaetc.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Scraping my brain from the floor to admit that I'm on deadline this week so I won't be here much, but My Heresies is coming out at the end of April and here is more on that note, and thank you, friends, for reading. Always. Cue "Epitaph for My Heart". 🫶 www.alinastefanescuwriter.com/my-heresies

alinastefanescuwriter.com

alina stefanescu, writer

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dirt of the looming dawn @upfromsumdirt.blacksky.app · 01/04/2025

upfromsumdirt ABSTRACK AFRICANA haydens ferry review issue 71. haydensferryreview.com/upfromsumdir...

haydensferryreview.com

HFR-upfromsumdirt's Abstrack Africana

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Association of University Presses @aupresses.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

"I think it’s important to publish scholarship alongside poetry & to keep the two in figurative conversation in our collective consciousness, as well as physical proximity on the shelves of bookshops," @arianab.bsky.social writes @LiteraryHub bit.ly/42oN1OH this week....

bit.ly

Art, Liberty, Diverse Voices: Six Poets on Why University Presses Are Critical for Poetry

For anyone who pays attention to major literary awards, it will come as no surprise that university presses figure prominently among celebrated and vigorous publishers of contemporary poetry. In th…

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Association of University Presses @aupresses.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

University presses have a finger on the pulse of contemporary poetry. In fact, poetry publishing play an important role in university presses’ mission to cultivate human knowledge. 6 poets discuss their work w/ university presses @literaryhub.bsky.social. bit.ly/42oN1OH #PoetryMonth

bit.ly

Art, Liberty, Diverse Voices: Six Poets on Why University Presses Are Critical for Poetry

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Christi Klibert🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkloverchick.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

And the great irony is they all have money, and none of them know how to be happy. They haven't figured out that money has a very limited ability to bring happiness. And above a certain amount, you get diminishing returns. Our relationships with the people we love is the true recipe for happiness.

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Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾 @arianab.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

This. Their problem is that we have the nerve to be “broke” and still find a way to experience delight. “Broke” and still connected to others and the world through what we make. They can’t fathom anyone could be happy without money being the driving force of that happiness.

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

Pet theory time! Creativity is the Riddler to Casino Capitalism’s techno-fascist Batman. (I’ve been reading to kids a lot lately!) A lot of the hate for writers, writing, etc is two things: 1. Alienation — they cannot do it & have never understood it. 2. Capital cannot fully capture creativity

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Nathan Spoon 🧠 🏳️‍🌈 @nathanpspoon.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

This poem, first published in Gulf Coast and then in The American Sonnet: An Anthology of Poems and Essays, is included in my collection, The Importance of Being Feeble-Minded, due out next month

Kiddo

What was it that slid through the field of my hand?
A mountain. I will say it was a mountain, although
it is no longer here for any other to see. It is elsewhere
and doubtless sitting like a toad whose voraciousness
desires to be appeased. At a key moment any hand may
grow warm and as sustaining as a grove of pawpaw
or sassafras trees. I will negotiate moving forward from

here, forward into the thickness that buries all
but the most willful homing. The seat is leather-like
and brown and the back is mint green. What kind
of sense does that make? Who knows? But at least
people needing to sit have somewhere to do that. There
are always turns as entirely unexpected as this. Often
a bright pair of shoelaces appears as if out of nowhere.

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Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾 @arianab.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

As a Writer! at least 235 of my 500+ open tabs are **critical research materials** That “Final 4 Escaped Lab Monkeys Stick Together As They Avoid Traps In South Carolina” story is gonna make a helluva poetic metaphor… whenever I get around to writing it.

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Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾 @arianab.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

wrote a piece that theorizes why/how Black people got/are into anime 👩🏾‍🎤 imo, Saturday morning Toonami + Representation (not in traditional “protag looks like me” sense, but in the structure of the story/world) = Black fandom! some excerpts here, full story linked: kenyonreview.org/piece/sho-ga...

You think back to those lazy childhood Saturday mornings, wiping the sleep out of your eyes as you searched the couch cushions for the remote, determined not to miss the next episode of whatever loud, bright, boom-crash-bang show the channel was airing that day. This was the height of leisure: no school, no need to get dressed or look even remotely presentable, no parents awake to interrupt your regularly-scheduled marathon (an early version of what we now call "binge-watching") with chore requests or boring errands-just a bowl of sugary cereal, an incessantly flashing screen, and an indulgent kind of innocence specitic only to the ritual of weekend cartoon watching.
You feel a lament for that version of you, that harmless naivete that allowed you to fully immerse yourself in a fantasy world-a world where the rules actually made sense. A character's power was directly measurable by their level, which was illustrated by numbers and symbols that flashed on cards in a magic deck or a sparkling ball of light that indicated "evolution"—a transformation into a higher being. Everything the protagonist had, they'd earned. Every fight they won, they won by grinding to the level of strength required.
You try to remember what it was like to believe that your world operated on a similar system, that all you had to do was work hard and believe in yourself and your dreams would eventually materialize right before your wide, sparkling eyes.

A KENYON REVIEW
=
Anime is a genre that, perhaps more consistently than any other, relies heavily on tropes and common plot arcs to tell its stories. This is especially visible within the subgenre shönen (main article: Shönen), a form of
"Japanese comics and animated films aimed primarily at a young male audience, typically characterized by action-filled plots" (Oxford Languages Dictionary).
Shönen is bombastic, with fights and scenery that leap off the screen. It often doesn't take itself too seriously, and characters will frequently fight to what appears to be the death, only to be magically healed by some built-in plot armor. This phenomenon is a crucial element of what I call schematic Black representation in anime. The heroes have a cause and will fight for it until they drop, dedicating their whole lives to the achievement of a singular goal that, more often than not, represents some larger moral tenet of humanity: justice, love, freedom, revenge.

In many ways, to exist as a Black person is to be fighting each of these battles, with all the requisite drama and blood and tears, from the very moment you are born into the world. You, like almost every shönen protagonist, are an outlier, an outcast, a never-should-have-been. Anime, with its constant violent battles and explosions and injuries and hard-fought wins, tells a story that, more closely than any other genre, represents both the struggles and triumphs of Blackness-the tiniest nuances that explain why, even though being born Black is to be dealt one of the hardest hands in life, the vast majority of us wouldn't trade our cards for anything. This bloody, stylized, death-proof hero's journey is an example of schematic representation whereby Black anime fans come to understand themselves as being represented by the genre, not just at a skin-deep level, but in a way that is perhaps more relatable and lasting in its effect; one that, in dramatizing the struggles and battles of its protagonists, demonstrates an understanding of both our material and interior lived experiences.

Additionally, the characters aren't punished for justifiable violence. They are allowed, and generally encouraged, to run each other fades. They aren't demonized or labeled animalistic; rather, fighting is a means of self-expression. Each character has their own unique combat style that often aligns with an element of their personality or backstory. Taking, for the sake of argument, an agnostic position to unarmed, peer-level fighting among Black youth, one could understand anime as being representative of this long-standing in-group phenomenon. Don't start no fights, many a Black mother warns, but if another kid tries you, beat their ass. A contained, one-off fistfight has long been understood by many Black folks as an effective, if not flawless, method of conflict resolution among equals-but when taking place in a white world, these fights are often mischaracterized as symptomatic of some kind of inherent brutality and lack of humanity. In shönen, if you throw a punch, you better be ready to punch back-it's as simple as that.
Conflicts are, in large part, resolved in the moment and between the interested parties, without the interference of law enforcement (because lol what laws) and policing tactics.

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Laura Vrana @callmevrana.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

Presented on @arianab.bsky.social's Black Pastoral on a MELUS-sponsored panel at #MLA25 yesterday - and (rightfully) many folks afterward expressed enthusiastic interest in the book and in taking up, reading, even teaching Benson's work! I love helping to bring amazing new poetry to wider audiences.

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✫✫LVN✫✫ @urbanaudacity.blacksky.app · 19/12/2024

Meruem, a chimera ant from HxH with a speech bubble

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Todd Dillard @toddedillard.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

George Forman’s sons, all named George, to release an autoGeorgeography entitled “On Earth We Are Briefly Georges” in 2025 from Panini Press

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Dr. Taylor Byas, Ph.D. @taylorbyas.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

So, book news: Roxane Gay picked RESTING BITCH FACE for the Audacious Book Club!!! 😭 The first piece of news I get for my forthcoming book has completely knocked me over, and galleys aren’t even in. I am so grateful, I cannot even begin to tell you guys. I can’t wait to share the book with y’all.

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Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾 @arianab.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

That “Don’t make gingerbread people live in a house made of themselves” commercial just triggered the most violent existential crisis 😟 like why do we do that?? it’s sick??

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Dr. Han VanderHart @hanvanderhart.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

I have this poem taped up on my kitchen cabinet, and once in a while it just grabs me by the face, lovingly. Denise Levertov, “Prayer for Revolutionary Love”:

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Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾 @arianab.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

#nowplaying Mythwrecked! Knew I’d love this game the first time I saw the trailer, and it has not disappointed! Collecting cool stuff + unique art+ mystery = my ideal indie game! One of the most emotionally intelligent games I’ve ever picked up too—think Spiritfarer vibes.

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Haolun Xu @haolunxu.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

This week I painted the Buddha hovering over Austin, Texas. 36x48 in, water-soluble oil. ⛅️

oil painting of the Buddha hovering over Austin Texas. Daylight with a southern live oak.

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Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾 @arianab.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

New(-ish?) Black Love Poem out with underbelly mag, a journal that presents a both a draft & final version of the same poem! Read below abt the editing & process of this poem that came after I was “done” with my first book (spoiler: it wasn’t done with me)! www.underbellymag.com/spotlight-ar...

FINAL VERSION >

LOVE POEM IN THE BLACK FIELD

Jamestown, Virginia, 1622

I look for beautiful things to plant
Alongside you in my mind: the shimmer
Of horseflies’ wings as they fever
Over a rotting fieldmouse, the mist
settled over the waiting leaves.
These new things called honeybees,
All buoyant with excitement at being
Let off the ship. Found another dead one
Yesterday—whole, stinger and all, curled up
Under a tobacco leaf. I won’t step on it.
Not because I’m scared of the sting. Because they ain’t
So different than us—jarred in darkness,
Drug cross all that blue, made to labor
Under a vengeful sun so some man’s tongue taste
sweet—that I can call burying them underfoot
Anything like mercy. We like the bees:
Ruined, and so buzzing, humming, drowning
Out everything but our own noise.
I’ve seen the beast all that silence
Makes of man. For you, I speak,
Keep sugar on my lips. I open anew
My eyes. Look at the flowers, they say,
The miracles of God. and it’s all I can do
Not to think about how pink is no more
Than a thinner kind of red. In a flower, the bee takes
A kind of bride, as I choose you—thirsting
For a sip of something fuller than nectar,
lighter than blood.

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Annette Gordon-Reed @agordonreed.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Worth a read!

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Dat Dude @osanimated.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Video game music doesn't get enough credit. They really be in the studio cooking!

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Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾 @arianab.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

So honored to have shared a laugh with her. A giant who chose every day to walk with the people. Rest in Power 🤍 “I hope I die warmed by the life I tried to live.” —Nikki Giovanni, 1943-2024 🪽

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Alan Cummings’ Traitors Outfits @scryptkeeper.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

Dearest Nikki ... a memory ... go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=G...

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Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾 @arianab.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

A few extra snaps from my weekend trip. Satisfied a childhood desire—staying in one of those hotels with all the inward-facing windows! Atrium style, as my adult self now knows them 😅

atrium-style hotel with crystalline/mettalic chandelier handing down in from of the arched windows

a mirror selfie of me (a black woman with new locs that are dyed slightly reddish) wearing an olive-brown long sleeved top, deep blue cargo jeans, and offwhite sneakers

Restaurant view of a lavender cocktail that was sadly not as tasty as it looked, a lit Christmas tree, an electronic candle, and ESPN’s Around the Horn on the TV in the background

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Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾 @arianab.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

Watched All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt on my flight this morning. Raven Jackson’s poetic directorial/cinematographic eye flickers with a kind of emotion that just can’t be taught—felt like the camera’s eye was brimming with tears. Can’t wait to see what she makes next!

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Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾 @arianab.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

“Literary Men” sounds like the name of a stodgy barbershop quartet. Like I can just hear the candy apple pinstripes and the overzealous tenor eating the harmony alive.

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Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾 @arianab.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Got my hair loc’ed up yesterday and I know it’s early but I really love it 🥹

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Dr. Taylor Byas, Ph.D. @taylorbyas.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

So a really cool thing has happened—I just signed on as a Poetry Editor-at-Large for Texas Review Press today! This means I’ll have full freedom to acquire one poetry book a year and to edit one-on-one with the author throughout the whole process. I’m so so excited.

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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

A must-read: Patrick Chandler Brown — named after the PCB chemicals dumped in his community — purchased the plantation where his great-grandfather was enslaved and is in the process of transforming it to serve farmers like him

bittersoutherner.com

Black Earth — THE BITTER SOUTHERNER

In North Carolina, a Black farmer purchased the plantation where his ancestors were enslaved— and is reclaiming his family’s story, his community’s health, and the soil beneath his feet.

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Neil Renic @ncrenic.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

Two stages of writing: 1) This shouldn't take too long 2) Oh no

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Joel Dias-Porter (DJ Reneg8d) @diasporter.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

I don’t usually send my work out to get published, but sometimes I do. This was one of the hardest poems for me to write. I wrote it the day Prince died, tho I didn’t know that while I was writing it. It’s me coming to terms with the fact that I am autistic. www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...

poetryfoundation.org

Portrait of the Artist as a Starfish in Coffee

wants to know what’s so funny but who can say Oran Juice Jones without a concentrated face so you try to collect the loose nickels and pennies of thought spilling from your front pocket but Cynthia fi...

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Alina Stefanescu @alinaetc.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

Atlanta's @refaatlibrary.bsky.social shows us how to support Palestinian liberation locally, in our communities. You can join its wonderful creators and learn more while supporting the Sameer Project by signing up with @workshops4gaza.bsky.social. www.workshops4gaza.com/calendar/hif...

workshops4gaza.com

How To Start Your Own Mobile Liberation Library — Workshops 4 Gaza

Step 1: Donate to Sameer Project here (suggested donation $60 USD). Step 2: Register for “How to Start Your Own Mobile Liberation Library” here . In this workshop, volunteers from the ...

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Ally Ang @theoceanisgay.bsky.social · 23/10/2024

I had the pleasure of interviewing Summer Farah about her chapbook “I could die today and live again” (@gameoverbooks.bsky.social) for Electric Lit! We talked about Zelda, empire, obsession, prose poems, and Tumblr electricliterature.com/summer-farah...

electricliterature.com

Summer Farah Finds Poetic Inspiration from "The Legend of Zelda" - Electric Literature

Her chapbook "I could die today and live again" explores the regenerative cycles of death and rebirth within video games

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Maurice Ruffin @mauricenow.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

This is the perfect time of year to reflect on the past and scheme for the future. Most of my successes were birthed in December.

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Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾 @arianab.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

⬇️ This thread 🙌🏾 such pure joy to see folks sharing their achievements in the realm of their passions! I’ll go too: This year, my first book won one of the biggest prizes in the field of poetry! ✨ In ‘25, I hope to explore new/hybrid genres & write/share about my experiences w/ endometriosis

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Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾 @arianab.bsky.social · 01/12/2024

…this is true i fear. NBA discourse needs a little toxicity. a dash of ignorance, even!

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Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾 @arianab.bsky.social · 01/12/2024

Prescient philosophical explanation of the shift in focus from writing itself to “Literary Figure-dom” in the current iteration of the publishing landscape. “Oh you can *write*? Aww that’s cute—but how many *Followers* (online and off) do you have? What is your Brand™?”

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Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾 @arianab.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

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Dr. Angel C. Dye @blkgrlpoet.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

I proudly own and operate a small business and have for 6, almost 7, years. I love that every candle I sell is handmade with love and care and that I can cater to my clientele. Consider shopping small this #SmallBusinessSaturday! edensglowcandleco.com 💜🕯️✨

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Poetry Daily @poetrydaily.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Today’s Featured Poet: “My Faith Unfolds Itself” by Alafia Nicole Sessions, from Issue 21.1 of @cincinnatireview.bsky.social. Read here: poems.com/poem/my-fait...

poems.com

"My Faith Unfolds Itself" by Alafia Nicole Sessions

from The Cincinnati Review

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JP @jpbrammer.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

the national dog show is a beautiful illustration of how to handle rejection like their asses do NOT understand they weren’t selected

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Dee @deelasheeart.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

“Passing it Down”

Illustration of a warm and inviting kitchen scene featuring three generations of a Black family. A young girl with braided hair and white beads is in the center, cutting out biscuits using a tin can. Her grandmother with gray hair rolls dough in the foreground next to her. In the background, her mother tastes the macaroni and cheese, standing near a stove with a pot of greens and a pound cake visible.

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Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾 @arianab.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

this. & psychology tells us anger is often the secondary emotional product of shame, so it’s the *shame* we gotta combat we must lift the shame of illiteracy (which has generationally devastated Black Americans) off the people’s shoulders and lay it where it belongs: the feet of the broken system

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George Abraham 🍉 @intifadabatata.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

For Mizna, I reflect on this moment of honoring Palestinians at the National Book Awards @nationalbook.bsky.social & sit more deeply with @lenakt.bsky.social & Fady Joudah's earth-shattering books. An honor to publish both finalist readings, including Fady's new poem 🍉🇵🇸 mizna.org/mizna-online...

mizna.org

Honoring Palestinian Poets in a Time of Genocide: Poems from National Book Award Winner Lena Khalaf Tuffaha + Finalist Fady Joudah - Mizna

Love takes the form of rain clouds: we accumulate despite our im/possible wounds, gather even in miraculous conditions. We join our kin in the swarm, all of whom gathering, like us, as waters from unk...

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Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾 @arianab.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

realized I don’t have any of my poems up here yet, so here’s one: “On Loveliness” 🐞 I like to think of it as a Black love poem, whatever that might mean to you. #addtoblacksky

a screenshot of a poem that reads:
i read somewhere
that a group of ladybugs is called
a loveliness. and i wonder
what the person who gave them that name (surely someone of at least
measurable humanity) knew,
or thought they did, about what love
-what kind, specifically-so embeds
itself in a thing that the thing,
subsequently, becomes an embodiment of that love: the way river breaks into current; the way trees make forest, simply
by standing closer to each other
than to anything else...
... by which I mean: i need you
to tell me which of my black spots
you find loveliest. which interruption
of my red feels most human
to the forest of your fingers; the current you river into touch
along my breaking skin.

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