iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 22h

going through some old poems and coming to the conclusion that, unfortunately, they ARE good, they are just very *me* in that they’re kind of depressing and strange, and I am going to die unpublished and stubborn about it

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

It is October 3rd, which means it’s Fullmetal Alchemist Day and also our anniversary. Happy 6th to my lover, life partner, wife. Love loving you!

an image of my wife, a beautiful radiant woman with short hair in a white dress. She is posed in a triangle of bisexual lighting surrounded by cacti at night

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Another poem from Diane Seuss, which just makes me cry and cry 🐦‍⬛

ROMANTIC POET
You would not have loved him,
my friend the scholar
decried. He brushed his teeth,
if at all, with salt. He lied,
and rarely
washed his hair. Wiped his ass
with leaves or with his hand.
The top of his head would have barely
reached your tits. His pits
reeked, as did his deathbed.

But the nightingale, I said.

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

“What can memory be in these terrible times? Only instruction. Not a dwelling.” Diane Seuss, from Modern Poetry

WEEDS

The danger
of memory is going
to it for respite. Respite risks entrapment, which is never good. Don't debauch yourself by living
in some former version of yourself that was more or less naked.
Maybe it felt better then, but you were not better. You were smaller, as the rain gauge must fill to the brim with its full portion of suffering.

What can memory be in these terrible times?
Only instruction. Not a dwelling.

Or if you must dwell:
The sweet smell of warm weeds then.
The sweet smell of warm weeds now.
An endurance. A standoff. A rest.

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

me: I have a master’s degree in writing and lots of publications. hohooo. I am so ~smart~ also me:

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

“I am planning a lesson on Sappho knowing I can get gunned down in the middle of a fragment” SG Huerta ( @sgpoet.bsky.social ) from their books Burns

Texan Sonnet
I am planning a lesson on Sappho knowing I can get gunned down in the middle of a fragment or fired for the confusion of my manwomanboygirl body or ravaged by a virus until my brain and lungs are once again too foggy for poems.

I finally started binding, loving it, and it's 100 degrees in Texas. Risk: heatstroke. Risk: dysphoria. Risk: death.
My besties are waiting at the bear bar for trivia but I am too scared to leave my house with my body.

I don't struggle to love myself, not now.
I struggle to live in this great state.

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Thank you to River River for reading my manuscript and giving it such kind recognition 💙

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b @nicetryofficer.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Do I contradict myself? Good, I’m a fucking idiot

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

poetry friends I need help—a few months ago I read a poem I can’t stop thinking about and forgot to save. It was written by a trans woman in Poetry Magazine, was fairly short, and ended on an idea something like “I’ll turn my back on anyone / I’m not afraid at all”. if you can help me find this ily

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

“I mean I hate borders / as much as you think you hate me / for crossing them” @thepoetmendez.bsky.social in the Texas Review

what i mean is/ that we don't live/ on a flat earth/ or in a white history book/ yes i am speaking to you/ me oyes/ te estoy hablando/ in two tongues/ dos len-guas/ that are not my own/ I guess this is fine/ because you probably like to draw/ around all day/ live in a line/ the one where you get to/ shop online - a line/ the one you get to/ stand in at the store/ waiting for expensive green bell peppers/ wait a moment/ all the lanes are full/ while all the aisles are empty/ there are no more aguacates/ all the butter is ten dollars/ wait/ maybe the price will go down/ just like the price of war/ but that's the one thing i cannot/ will not/ won't not/ do wait here/ for the price of war to go up/ with you/ because/ i need to go/ ahead and collect this/ money and those things/ make an exchange/ make sure my family is fed/ both here and there/ and there/ is a line for that/ i cannot tell you how much/ i am broken over this/ you hear me say broke/ it's the same line/ i hear over and over/ well pick yourself up/ i am supposed to/ reach for my boots/ what if i wore those out/ which is what happened/ honest i wear everything out/ the pressure of making sure/ that everything is ok for you/ your world with your fresh fruits/ your Hello Fresh carts/ your mid-town life/ your DIY life/ your first-class tea leaf yoga session/ and your sugar cane/ and your coffee/ and your chocolate/ and your cotton/ and it's a lot/ out in the fields/ built up in rows/ rows of student desks/ out in these streets/ rows of cabbage heads/ rows of hospital beds/ in lines i have to tend to / to vax you/ kicking and spitting/ KN95 you/ to bury you/ to raise you from the dead/ mourn you
can i get a moment
to make sure/ that i have food/ on my table/ instead of eating under yours/ i am the front line worker/ i hate lines so much/ i failed school three times/ no not because it took me that long/ to learn English/ even though that's what you said was

the reason/ no/ really, because i refused to draw/ inside the lines/ i refused to color/ in the states/ in red/ or blue/ or white/ i refused to see all the white/ i even tried to erase all the lines/ excuse me/ did i say lines/ i meant borders/ i meant i hate borders/ as much as you think you hate me for crossing them/ ESO MERO/ there are no lines today/ neta, neta/ there are only people/ waiting to get past you/ you are so worried/ about what is happening on the border/ why don't you come and live near it/ The only border i know/ that is real is where the sand meets the ocean/ and there are no lines there/ just a deep blue/ or a deep teal/ or a light electric cobalt/ that curves into the sun/ lights up faces/ waiting to come ashore/ move out of the way/ because as soon as I am dry/ we can talk about it/ how it's ok for you/ to have come on wooden boats across a sea/ but mine can't even wade through a river/ but don't wait too long/ to respond with coraje/ not courage/ those aren't the same things/ cognates are real/ learn them/ I've got to make room/ we'll have more company soon/ they will be real hungry/ we will go/ through the drive-thru lane/ look at that line/ and they will want shelter/ and they will want to work/ in all the ways you forgot how to you forgot how you forgot you/ too

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Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

“Whose ring was that, whose the wiry hand?” A poem by Heather McHugh.

Deposition of the Seer

I burned the arrows
then I burned the air.

I burned the boats
the bay was taking

for a mere mirage. I took them for
a fact. I saw a sway rise up

from gold to red, and red to black—
I saw the sway, I couldn't hold it.

Whose ring was that, whose the wiry hand? And
by the bye who added good? To hell who added

0? The curves went wavery, and lit the whole
world's neighborhood. And then the sun went

out. That was a message from
the bull's-eye to the bow.

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

“that draft took me about 8 years to complete… and it wasn’t because necessarily I was trying to really craft the poem, it stalled on me because I knew too early on what the poem was about. So there was no place for me to go, I couldn’t surprise myself so I was stuck.” John Murillo

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

saddened and disheartened to report that I do indeed feel better after working out

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Blue sky nice ghost @rajandelman.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Absolutely fucking gutting

Speaking on why she remained closeted until age 36 and whether she has had relationships with women, Panettiere stated, "Yeah, I did. It was scary, though, because there were paparazzi always waiting for me outside, to follow me everywhere. I had very little privacy. I have dated women. I was much more into women even as a child than I was men. I have explored it, but because I hadn't shared this with anybody, I didn't really have the courage to throw myself fully emotionally into it. Because then if I did fall in love, that wasn't something that I wanted to ever have to hide."[83]

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Hayden :(( I loved Heroes as a teenager, knowing how much she struggled with child stardom, being closeted, addiction... this is so bleak and depressing.

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

oh I made an Insta just to share my writing. it is the same @ as I am on here if you would like to follow me there

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Derrick Austin @paradiselaust.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

On his b'day, a silly sonnet I wrote about Chris Hemsworth. the last poem I wrote in my 20s, which was originally published in @theoffingmag.bsky.social

Daydreaming of Chris Hemsworth by Derrick Austin

I feel amorous. I set plates
I won't touch. The most boring, beautiful date
talks with his hands. A little door opens
between the buttons of his shirt.
Desire can be so banal.
Outside are recycle bins, flyers on businesses
describing how we mourn the Earth.
In my mind, Chris fires a rifle while hounds hunt
rabbits. Little red spots on the earth.
O huntsman with your beard and enormous arms,
after you turn me out, don't up and leave.
Rabbits will have been skinned.
I long for so much. Today, I'm most pleased
not getting what I want.

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bug @evillittlebug.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

sometimes people are like Well which of the two ways of non-binary are we talking about. And well, you see, that's the thing,

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

“I won’t scatter myself on the sidewalk tonight” Taylor Byas

Rooftop Monologue
Listen,
mara view. Watch, i my own creation, i scatter myself on t)
When I'm not thinking of dying, I like to play God. Look; from this angle, the world folds
inward like a Monopoly game board, and those people below are more than just ants
to crush in the pretend-pinch
of my index finger and thumb. See the top hat and thimble, the boats and silver dogs backsliding along the sidewalks? I wore my old
Converse today. The soles unstitching from the canvas, the beginnings of lips
around my toes. Enough flex
in the soles to cuddle the roof's ledge the way
the other woman might hold a man after a fight with his wife. I don't want to jump,
only to be reminded of how thin the line between breathing and falling. How fragile a crossing.
With the sun setting like that, it looks like you could hike uphill right into heaven, these skyscrapers
steps for the giant. And the sky like hand-pulled cotton candy, sifting into ropes of rose

and gold, stretching and re-stretching itself into mouthfuls. Listen, I told you I don't want to jump,

but what a view. Watch, the sky is hemorrhaging twilight-my own creation, too beautiful to ruin.

I won't scatter myself on the sidewalk tonight.

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ANMLY @anmlymag.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

ANMLY is now open for our new folio exploring poetry on desire and devotion that revels in excess. We’re seeking previously-unpublished poetry, multimedia poetry, audio, and video. Absolutely no AI. Deadline: August 28th, 2026

Red background with a stack of white cards. Text reads: "Now accepting submissions for the next ANMLY folio, Fetish. Queer and trans writers are invited to submit poetry and mixed media slash visual poems. Deadline is August 28th, 2026.

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

non-poets: wow, a master’s degree, you must be so skilled with words and language me looking at the blank Word doc:

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

I write (and submit) so slowly anymore, that I often feel left behind or out of the general poetry scene. Things like this are a nice reminder that I am good at this and belong here :)

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Chen Chen @chenchenwrites.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

i go to poems not for morals or lessons or Knowledge—i go to poems for music and pleasure, texture and disturbance, lust and color, risk and provocation, tenderness and jokes, questions and rage, dream and gorgeousness, love and hate, love and what is it, what’s that

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

the last two months have been really difficult as we struggle through a housing situation, I have been distracting myself with chess and hit my yearly goal today which is cool

an image of my account on the chess.com rapid time control's rating distribution curve, showing I am rated 2258 and in the 99.9 percentile; in 72 million active players I am in the top 12 thousand. Which is pretty cool if I do say so myself :)

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

They haven’t announced it on here yet but it’s up on Instagram—I made the shortlist for @variantlit.bsky.social ‘s poetry prize :)

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

the rage in this duplex by Taylor Byas, from I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times ( @taylorbyas.bsky.social )

The Early Teachings

The Catholic school says, Cover your shoulders because the boys may be tempted by your
flesh.

Because the boys may be tempted by your flesh, your safety is your responsibility.

Your safety is your responsibility at the party you didn't want to go to.

At the party you didn't want to go to, a white tablet dissolves into your drink.

A white tablet dissolves into your drink and no one believes that you told him no.

And no one believes that you told him no— it's your responsibility, remember?

It's your responsibility. Remember,
the Catholic school says, Cover your shoulders.

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cait (and adonis) @cait.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

lol check out this post I dug up from approx. 2018. she was cooking

A Sensual Bitch
18 hours ago
@chaeronaea
why are we not allowed to speak ill of the dead even if they sucked shit. if you wanted people to say you were a good person maybe you should have been a good person

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

funny thing about reading The Aeneid for the first time is that it’s made Dido’s “White Flag” all the more emotional

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Kai Cheng Thom @razorfemme.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Simply amazing that there are deadly heat waves all over the world and climate scientists predict that future summers will get progressively hotter, killing vast untold numbers of people, but there are still people who believe that trans people are the biggest contemporary threat to humanity

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

I've been reading Sarah Gailey's novel Make Me Better and idk if it's just that I haven't read psychological horror in a while but good lord this book is SO good and SO stressful

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

“yet there must be // a way to cry goodbye aloud to leave you /these inadequate thanks” The final poem from C. K. Williams’ final book, Falling Ill

I want to wish you goodbye but don't dare
essential it is to wish you goodbye farewell thank you acknowledge how you devised

a life for me I never imagined I'd have
but saying goodbye can seem a diminishing
a subtraction something that must never

be thought though it already has been
and will be again but never allowed to reach
the lips to pass into the realm of language

or come too clearly even into the mind
the mind so sadly vulnerable with its capacity for contradicting itself yet there must be

a way to cry goodbye aloud to leave you
these inadequate thanks without resorting
to rending farewell oh dear heart farewell

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

is there a fury equal to the robe of illness —C. K. Williams

Rage

Long time since rage groundless anger
engulfed me for no nameable reason with
no apparent actual cause but itself its own

frustration fury that makes me want to destroy
no matter what to assuage the anger
I feel towards my affliction and if I don’t act

on it now some great part of my world
will forever be h satisfied unconsummated
though what can that possibly imply

is there a further equal to the robe of illness
that encases me as though in an embrace
composed itself of raging resentment

and hastened by still being able to contain
enough of me in itself to crush me
and dissolve me in my own wrath

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Big day to feel justified for my loathing of Garry Kasparov

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

it’s been a while but I got a double acceptance from Kenyon over the weekend which I’m pretty excited about :)

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Shō Poetry Journal @shopoetryjournal.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Sharing this audio feature here because @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social is not on IG! Listen to them read “In the Dark, the Arms Look Like Crosses” from Shō No. 8 and our Pride Playlist.

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Catherine Rockwood @martin65.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Arah Ko, "Hens' -- after Ada Limon. "Just the way one leg lifts gently when waiting, the dance of three eyelids and their slow, eerie blinks."

Arah Ko, "Hens" -- after Ada Limon

The heart wants her horses back, but all I have are hens. No majestic mammals for me. Just a brood or peep, their tiny, beating bird hearts, yellow-orb eyes, dusty wings. Just the way one leg lifts gently when waiting, the dance of three eyelids and their slow, eerie blinks. My heart isn't winning any races, but I never minded the scars their dinosaur talons carved as they balanced, squawking, on my shoulders. My cheeks are still warm from their egg-soft, downy bellies. Not everyone can canter through life at a breakneck pace. And sometimes that's all we need: to gather each night, on the same home roost, to dream of snug nests and scratch corn, to stretch pinions, to almost fly, to live one glorious, feathered life.

(in _Animal Logic_)

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Adam Clay ( @adamclay.bsky.social ) in the Bennington Review "I say all of this so I'll remember it"

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Ally Ang @theoceanisgay.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

I have a poem in the gorgeous new Devotion-themed issue of Poet Lore guest edited by @patrycjasara.bsky.social! Purchase the full print issue (www.poetlore.com/buy-single-i...) or read selected poems (including mine!) online here: www.poetlore.com/2026/06/02/p...

From Patrycja Huminiek's folio "On Devotion" in Poet Lore Volume 120 3/4
Ally Ang

Unsexed, my body upends its tethering

in the darkness, darkness draped
around me like a gown, my outline
mercifully obscured. I once believed

it was worship I craved, would prostrate
myself before any gilded calf whose marble
eyes beheld my image. now, I gnaw

at the hand that heeds me, my nakedness
impenetrable and mundane. is it possible
to fashion a new lexicon for desire

that doesn’t demand my self
-betrayal? to be an unnameable
creature, belonging to no one, governed

only by my want; no signifier to cling to,
groping through the absence towards god
knows what—

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

shoutout to the folks standing in the Arizona heat holding a pro-trans rights protest, that’s not usually the sentiment in north Scottsdale you love to see it ❤️

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

@shopoetryjournal.bsky.social was kind enough to ask me to include my poem, "In the Dark, The Arms Look Like Crosses" in their Pride playlist! ♥️💜💙

a colorful graphic displaying many writers' author pictures for Sho's Pride Playlist 2026. they are all handsome, beautiful, splendiferous gay people

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

@shopoetryjournal.bsky.social was kind enough to ask me to include my poem, "In the Dark, The Arms Look Like Crosses" in their Pride playlist! ♥️💜💙

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beestung @beestung.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Humid nights & caring madly. Ghost tails & Zoom sex. Broskis & deleted archives. Smoking in the sun. beestung #27 is here! w/ Sora Anindya, Birch Wiley, Christian M. Ivey, Esmé Kaplan-Kinsey, Kyla-Yến Huỳnh Giffin, Lavanya Arora, KB Brookins, & Stevie Subrizi www.beestungmag.com

Floral background in purples and oranges. Text reads beestung #27. What remains but the upload? The viral response? Naked, Posthuman adjusts the lighting, assumes a provocative pose, filters personhood into pornography. A predictable shift between states. A biological response to modernity. By Esme Kaplan-Kinsey.

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

“I want to move through the trees as you do: four palms flush to the earth, dark river with two wild torches” Kinsale Drake ( @kinsaledrake.bsky.social )

an image of the poem, “song for the black cat outside my mother’s apartment”

—

We know what it is to not be wanted,
when our bodies are taboo.

Night limbs, how our eyes
swallow everything.

When I was brought into the world,
I looked back.

The trees were heavy with dark.
They say a wicked woman walks

bad luck. What makes a wicked woman?
Irises green with want, barbed tongues

to catch what’s coming.
I want to move through the trees

as you do: four palms flush to the earth,
dark river with two wild torches

in a corner: living shadow, the same color
as forgetting.

How many lives
can I hold on each chamber

of my heart?

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kith books @kithbooks.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

"oh, to have someone inside of you, and, by having them inside you staying, forever, inside of them." @selizabeth.bsky.social's Transmasc Marvel Girl is trans cinematic ekphrasis, is self-examining self-reimagining bff stream of thought. kithbooks.com/shop/p/transmascmarvel

Release day

TRANSMASC MARVEL GIRL
sterling-elizabeth arcadia
cover: a sinew like painting of interconnected hot pink strands on a flesh coloured beige.

i am normal and can be trusted with an empty movie theater

the AMC slogan is “we make movies better,” but in my experience what they actually do is make movies a little washed out and blue. i wonder what happened to all the adult movie theaters. i’m not horny right now, it’s just the fact that i’m the only person in the theater makes me wonder if i could get away with rubbing one out. even though i’m not horny, i get turned off when a trailer for a ronald reagan biopic plays, followed by a trailer for national anthem (2024). national anthem (2024) is like, some queer, heavily americana drama, which i really think is a movie no one asked for. the queers i know all hate america, and the self-identified americans, well. i’m at AMC cherry hill to watch a movie about a singer songwriter who goes to a biker rally in south dakota. she leaves the home she shares with her ailing mother in ohio to take a chance on her music career. i used to be a musician. i moved to boston for it and quit just months later. the americana notes of the movie are unavoidable, but the romantic interest describes himself as a “fuck no, america” kind of guy. the cellist whose studio i was in when i went to boston turned out to be more interested in making a buck off me than anything else, plus i seriously fucked my back playing piano my first week there. sometimes if i masturbate for too long the injury acts up again.

TRANSMASC MARVEL GIRL
sterling-elizabeth arcadia

kithbooks.com

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

picked up a box slightly wrong and immediately felt so much pain I saw stars

an image from what looks like a pokémon game. a balding greying man is in a dialogue box witht the text “I’m 30 years old”

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