iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

A ‘fistful’ sounds like more than a ‘handful’ even though it’s probably less. #words

Reposted by OlYello

dirt of the looming dawn @upfromsumdirt.blacksky.app · 04/09/2026

lucille clifton JASPER TEXAS 1998 "i was chosen to speak by the members of my body" "i am done with this dust. i am done."

i am a man's head hunched in the road.
i was chosen to speak by the members
of my body. the arm as it pulled away
pointed toward me, the hand opened once
and was gone.

why and why and why
should i call a white man brother?
who is the human in this place,
the thing that is dragged or the dragger?
what does my daughter say?

the sun is a blister overhead.
if i were alive i could not bear it.
the townsfolk sing we shall overcome
while hope bleeds slowly from my mouth
into the dirt that covers us all.
i am done with this dust. i am done.

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OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

In drought, the birds fight Over the fresh-filled birdbath. No one gets to bathe. #poetry #haiku

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Litbowl @litbowl.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

I'll never get over this poem. From Dorianne Laux's book, Smoke: bookshop.org/a/862/9781880238868 #poem #booksky #writing

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OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

The problem with entitlement is You never have enough. So no matter how long you live, Or how much you get, You die wanting. It’s a bad way to live, And a bad way to die. #poetry

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Litbowl @litbowl.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

From E. E. Cummings's book, Etcetera: bookshop.org/a/862/9780871401762 #poem #booksky #writing

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Reposted by OlYello

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

A Bluesky Bedtime Fairy Tale: The Queen Who Collected Skins In a kingdom stitched from dandelion fluffs there lived a Queen who collected skins…. #poetry #writing #fairytales #myth

The Queen Who Collected Skins

In a kingdom stitched from dandelion fluffs
there lived a Queen who collected skins.
Each morning she wore a different one.
A fox’s for its clever tongue.
A lion’s for courage.
A swans for beauty.
A menagerie in her closet of selves.
The people cheered.
“How perfect she is.”
So she gathered more.
Until her tower was filled with hanging skins,
each one a promise
Be this and you will be enough.
Years passed.
The queen grew weary.
The fox itched.
The swan pinched.
The lion’s mane was heavy in summer.
1/3

One night, while wandering the forest,
she met a ragged old woman feeding crumbs to crows.
“What skin do you wear?” asked the queen.
The woman laughed.
“My own.”
The princess frowned.
“But it is ugly.”
“Sometimes.” The old woman said.
“Wise?”
“Occasionally.”
“Brave?”
“When required.”
“Then how do you know you’re enough?”
The old woman scattered the last of the crumbs.
The crows rose like black leaves into the sky.
“My dear,” she said,
“an acorn spends its whole life trying to become an oak. It never wastes a single day trying to become a swan.”
The forest grew silent.
For the first time, the queen noticed the trees.
No two were alike.
The bent ones touched the stars.
The scarred ones sheltered birds.
The hollow ones sang when the wind arrived.
And none of them apologized.
2/3

The next morning she returned to her tower.
One by one, she opened the windows.
The skins all scattered on the breeze
fox and lion, saint and swan
all but one remained.
Her own.
It was plain.
It was patched.
It carried every scar she had earned.
And when she slipped it on,
it fit perfectly.
The kingdom said she seemed smaller somehow.
Less magical.
Less perfect.
But for the first time in her life,
she was not trying to become someone.
3/3

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Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Life Advice #poetry If I had one piece of advice, it would not be to chase happiness, for happiness is like the weather beautiful, brief, and beyond your command.

If I had one piece of advice,
it would not be to chase happiness,
for happiness is like the weather
beautiful,
brief,
and beyond your command.
I would tell you instead
to learn how to sit beside yourself
when things darken.
Make peace with uncertainty.
Speak kindly to the frightened parts of you.
Do not waste your years
waiting to become someone else
before granting yourself permission to live.
Love recklessly,
but not at the expense of your own becoming.
Remember that grief
is not proof that something went wrong,
but evidence that it mattered.
Create things.
Even badly.
Especially badly.
A life measured only by perfection
is a life left mostly unlived.
Because in the end,
you will be remembered
by the softness you offered,
the courage it took to stay,
and the moments you chose
to be fully, imperfectly,
alive.

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OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

If something is ‘bunk’, and then you ’debunk’ it, what is it then?

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Reposted by OlYello

Litbowl @litbowl.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

From Ada Limón's book, The Hurting Kind: bookshop.org/a/862/9781639550494 #poem #booksky #writing

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Reposted by OlYello

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

The seams… The knots begin, as they always do, with a single thought pulled loose from the fabric of an ordinary day. Suddenly my mind is connecting catastrophes from patches of the past, running ahead of me. #poetry

The knots begin, as they always do,
with a single thought pulled loose
from the fabric of an ordinary day.
Suddenly my mind is connecting catastrophes
from patches of the past,
running ahead of me.
It calls fear preparation,
calls panic wisdom,
calls certainty from evidence
of fibers that no longer hold.
What do I know for sure right now?
Not what I fear.
Not what I predict.
Not what old wounds insist will happen.
What do I know?
I know that in this moment
I hold the needle.
I know that anxiety is a seamripper,
not a stitch.
So I return,
again and again,
with my needle
to this mending of truth
I do not know what comes next.
and that is not the emergency
my fear insists it is.

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OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Almost anything can be made Beautiful If you polish it Enough. #poetry

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Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

A dangerous moment For one dangerous moment, I begin to believe That tomorrow is promised And today matters because of it. But I have learned Even if tomorrow never comes, #poetry

For one dangerous moment,
I begin to believe
That tomorrow is promised
And today matters because of it.
But I have learned
Even if tomorrow never comes,
Today is the only day that matters
Because everything else
Is memory or imagination,
The past cannot hold me,
The future cannot save me.
All I have
Is this small breath returned,
This heartbeat insisting upon itself.
This chance to witness
What is here before it is gone.
And perhaps that is enough.
Not because tomorrow waits for me,
But because today arrived.
Because life is not measured
By the promises it makes,
But by the moments we dare to inhabit
Before they pass.

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Reposted by OlYello

Elvis Dylan @elvisdylan.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

#vss365 #Life Before birth, I was part of my mother’s body. She was once part of her mother’s body, as was her #mother who was once part of her mother’s body . . . . . . and so on for tens of thousands of mothers’ mothers. This living chain makes me 2 billion years old, later this month.

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OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

There is no cold; It is only the absence of heat. There is no stillness; Only the absence of motion. No dark, though The shadows do appear to move. #poetry

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Reposted by OlYello

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

@prettyvulgar.bsky.social @donkee.bsky.social submission. This has been edited again slightly. Love letter Dear me of tomorrow: I hope this poem finds you well. Are your hands steadier? is your breath less negotiated, your heart no longer asking permission to beat? … #poetry

Dear me of tomorrow:
I hope this poem finds you well.
Are your hands steadier?
is your breath less negotiated,
your heart no longer asking permission
to beat?
I hope you have stopped apologizing
for the way you take up space,
for the way you stay
long after others would have left,
for the way you still believe
in something soft
after everything that tried to harden you.
Tell me
did you learn how to rest
without calling it lazy?
Did you find a way
to hold your grief
without letting it become your name?
I’d like to think
you walk differently now
not lighter,
but more certain.
Like someone who knows
the ground may give way
but has learned to dance there anyway.
1/2

If you are scared,
I hope you remember me
this version of you
who kept going anyway,
who grasped for meaning
inside confusion,
who loved you enough
to imagine you whole.
And if you are loved
fully, gently, without condition
I hope you let it stay.
I hope you don’t reach for the exit
out of habit.
Tomorrow me,
you are not a destination.
You are a continuation
of every small, defiant act
of choosing to live.
I am proud of you already.
With hope,
and a kind of faith I’m still learning
you are loved.
Me
2/2

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Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

At the edge of it you hesitate because something in you recognizes the gravity of the door. Thresholds whisper a frequency of skin prickling with the knowing that who you were cannot follow where you are going. #poetry #tarot #witchcraft

But listen
on the other side
is not emptiness.
It is love,
unfamiliar at first,
because it does not come from survival.
Others who stood where you stand now,
heart hammering,
grief and hope braided together,
who will nod
when you arrive
and say,
We know. We were afraid too.
So step.
Not because you are fearless,
but because the fear itself
is the invitation.
Not because you are ready,
but because something deeper
already crossed
and is waiting for you
to catch up.
2/2

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OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

“A robot is beating human pros at table tennis. Its maker calls it a milestone for machines.” — AP News Seriously? Never heard of ‘Pong’?

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Reposted by OlYello

Andromeda @ulveheksa.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

What I Mean When I Say I'm Tired ~ K.E. Sermonté "I want quiet. I want the mercy of being unseen without being unloved."

What I Mean When I Say I'm Tired

I don't mean I want to sleep.
I mean I want to disappear for a while.
To be rain on a stranger's roof.
To be smoke rising from someone else's fire.
I don't want to die.
But I do want to rest in a way
the world has never allowed me.
I don't want comfort.
I want quiet.
I want the mercy of being unseen
without being unloved.

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Reposted by OlYello

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

The Loneliness of Clarity The loneliness of clarity is not silence it is noise no one else can hear. It is standing in a crowded room while the walls whisper truths through their cracks, and everyone else calls it stillness. #poetry #SenseWrds #prompt205

The loneliness of clarity
is not silence
it is noise no one else can hear.
It is standing in a crowded room
while the walls whisper truths
through their cracks,
and everyone else calls it stillness.
You learn quickly
that seeing is a kind of exile.
That naming the shape of things
makes people flinch
like you’ve turned on a light
they did not consent to.
You watch patterns repeat
like rituals without awareness
pain dressed as personality,
harm disguised as habit,
control mistaken for love.
1/2

$And I I cannot unsee it. I speak less, not because I have nothing to say, but because truth sounds like accusation in the ears of the comfortable. So I carry it quietly this knowing, this sharp, clean edge of reality. I grieve things before they happen. I recognize endings in their earliest breath. I feel the fracture long before the break. And sometimes I wish for blindness for the soft mercy of not understanding, for the warmth of shared illusion. But even in the ache, there is something sacred here. Because clarity is also a kind of devotion to truth, to seeing, to refusing the lie even when it would let me belong. 2/2$

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Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

The Magic of Words Words are small things until they are not. A whisper can bend the spine of night, it can slip beneath a locked door, and coil around a tired heart. #poetry #magic #witchcraft

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Reposted by OlYello

Litbowl @litbowl.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

From The Essential W.S. Merwin: bookshop.org/a/862/9781556595134 Merwin passed on March 15, 2019. #poem #booksky #writing

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OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 01/03/2026

Writers, try to remember that a ‘regiment’ is a unit of military organization, while a ‘regimen’ is a training program. You can train a ‘regiment’ using a ‘regimen,’ but you can’t refer to your training montage as a ‘regiment.’

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Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 01/03/2026

Incantation for Peace & Release I lay down the noise. I unhook the claws of urgency from my ribs. I loosen the tight fist of what-if, of should-have, of never-enough. I call my breath back home. #magick #ritual #poetry

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OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

“… am I what God thinks?” “I think therefore I am.” —Descartes “I am that I am.” —YHVH “I yam what I yam, and tha's all I yam.” —Popeye

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OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

You can’t own the Earth, you know; The Earth owns you. Although, to be honest, perhaps it’s not so good for her. “Nasty habit, keeping humans around. Bad for the complexion,” Some other, more fastidious, planet might say. But we’ve all had things we loved that weren’t so good for us. Haven’t we?

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OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

“You can convince the universe…”

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eileen chengyin chow @chowleen.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

Folks, I'm telling you, birthing is hard and dying is mean– so get yourself a little loving in between. Langston Hughes, "Advice" #everynightapoem #botd [Robert Mapplethorpe, Tulip, 1985]

Mapplethorpe photo of a pair of entwined tulips

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OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

“As far from myself as ever”

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OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

ND, bah. Just because you’re intellectually lazy doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with *my* brain.

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OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

When you pass a law, you create the conditions for crime. Without law, there is no crime. So, after you pass the law, there will inevitably be more crime than before. More crime means more police, more courts, more prisons … and more taxpayer expense. Even well-intentioned actions have consequences.

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OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

Generative AI + ‘Proof of Work’ cryptocurrency = electricity nobody can afford.

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OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 31/12/2025

“The Century’s corpse outleant.”

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OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

Writers, please don’t introduce all your characters at once in chapter one. It’s confusing. Introduce them one at a time, letting each one make an impression, then give me some time to get used to them before you prompt me to visualize the next one.

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OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

Until you are enlightened, Do not think of any thing As untrue, or absurd. Until your vision is clear, You cannot know.

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Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 20/12/2025

No one wears #humble anymore. It’s out of fashion mistaken for weakness instead of grace. It doesn’t shine under bright lights, doesn’t clammer for attention. #poetry #vss365

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Katie Phang @katiephang.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

Didn't watch it. It's always lies. Moving on.

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OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

There are two kinds of belief: “I’m sure this is right,” and “I’m sure this is wrong.” Neither is useful. No, maybe there is a third kind: “I’m sure this can be made right.” That one is useful.

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OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

I hate this poem; It’s just not right— I posted it too soon and Now I see 3or4 ways it Could have been better, Should have been, must be… But no, I’ll leave it. Though it niggles and it nags… I could delete, Repost. Just a few words, It could be so much… but I don’t, I… I’ll… Just leave it be.

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OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

There is an angry darkness In you that calls To the mad shadow In me that flickers, Tenebrous, against The wall of the cave. Somewhere, behind me, There is A Light (there must be… right? Right?) But I can’t see…can’t Turn My head Quite That Far.

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Fran @galacticidiots.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

I know you well, don’t I? It’s your blessing and my curse. I know you well enough to hear all the words you don’t say. To feel the touch you don’t allow your hands to claim. To stop myself from giving you the kiss you don’t know how to ask for.

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OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

“Is that selfishness? Is it something silly?”

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OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

It doesn’t really matter how smart you are If you’re not paying attention.

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Litbowl @litbowl.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

"And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye clear. What we need is here." From The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry: bookshop.org/a/862/9781582430379 #poem #booksky #writing

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Litbowl @litbowl.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

God what a poem. From Marie Howe's book, What the Living Do: bookshop.org/a/862/9780393318869 #poem #booksky #writing

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OlYello @olyello.bsky.social · 15/11/2025

Hats off to Nicholas Cage, the Honey Badger of Hollywood, who shows he has the balls to drive his career right off the edge of a cliff… again!

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Ilene Goldman @ilenegold.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

She’s gone.

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