karunam (pathos)

I was 13 when I first met you, static as boys should be

while I coiled like a fetus in my bathtub,

watching everything I’d ever known  

rally into drains.

I’m stiff except for the cerulean streams of history that flow beneath my skin.

I’ve never been less lonely or more content,

Nestled between ceramic and public water, filling sentences

With words you never said.

Led Zeppelin-

Drown the air,

Drown the notes of my parents contending

Over bone-shaped childhoods,

Erode my breath between boulders of

Rock.

I bled dry into what I perceived you to be. I did not cry but I hoped you’d still hold me,

The way fiction sometimes creeps into your shirt.

In cold, distant wheezes.

_____________________________________________________________________

Footnotes: this is a part of an awfully long poem i’m working on, based on the Navarasangal (or the nine facial emotions) of Kathakali (a form of classical dance and storytelling native to Kerala, India). Esthappen from Arundhati Roy’s ‘God Of Small Things’, to whom the poem is addressed, is a very important character to me for various reasons. i’ll be uploading the other parts soon.

- The weather reports have been frustrating, because they advertise ninety-degree coolness when in reality it feels like a hundred and five, accounting for the cloudless skies and the sticky quality of the air. We have been eating outside on the deck to adjust ourselves. Every night my sister makes hot soup––hot soup––which on one occasion I douse all over my thumb. I text pictures of the large pink bubble beneath the nail to my friends, who have little sympathy. “Why the hell are you eating hot soup in this weather?” And that is a very good question.

- I eat mangoes two a day, which are somehow still being sold for twenty-five cents each at Costco in mid-July. Nobody else is allowed to eat my mangoes unless they ask permission and undergo a routine inspection, in which I stare at them hard in the eyes to gage how much a mango would really mean to them. I’ve gotten used to the itchy, irritating feeling that springs in one’s mouth after they’ve eaten two mangoes a day for weeks on end. I dread my doctor’s appointment next month––learning how even further out of whack the vitamins in my bloodstream have become.

- We keep a list of nicknames for the cats on the fridge on crumpled purple notepad paper. One of our cats is a thin black-and-white princess with rabbit fur, so of course we give the most ungraceful nicknames we can muster to Her Holiness––Cow Kitty, Mint Chip Moo, Squeaker, El Petite, and simply Cat. We also have a less-groomed, nearing-obese gray commoner cat who has a strange hobby for hanging around bathrooms, and we try to make her feel as important as we can––The Grey Lady, Miss Èclair, Daisy Dearest, The Gray Goddess of Middle Tennessee, Baby Belly, and Earth Bender Badger (the last a fitting title we adopted from watching Avatar: The Last Airbender reruns on Netflix).

- My dad and sister are the intellectuals of the family––they engage in such activities as reading The New Yorker for fun and debating about the geography of Zimbabwe. One day my sister laughed obnoxiously loud at “Lexicon for a Pandemic,” which was an article in one of those magazines, and the entire family was left grinning at such plays on words as “Someday, Noneday, Whoseday?, Whensday?, Blursday, Whyday?, Doesn’tmatterday." The other day my sister showed me “The Unexpected Solace in Learning to Play the Piano”––another one of those magazine articles––and I laughed tears and put a page of it up on my wall. After which I thought, “Maybe I should become one of those intellectual people things."

- It’s too bad that classical music is so boring. I would love to use a worldly knowledge of Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Chopin, and Liszt in quiz bowl and to impress my friends. But it’s all so dull, and my seven-second attention span can’t possibly be expected to stand the tests of little violin ditties. Instead I listen to useless things. I think a need for fun, a need to listen to things I actually like, is my downfall. But sue me––I’m more of a movie soundtrack kind of person. And “Ice Bear Combat” is so much more fun than “Minute Waltz.”

you start dying the second you've finished growing; yes, it's like when you've gone so far right you're on the left side of things. it's the moments you learn about the irony of you funny bone - you dare someone to laugh after you've hit it, through clenched teeth. (if only it started raining destinies again, then our growing would keep 'til the end.)

i bleed my eyes out on this mattress

blinking to the dull hums of male voices 

i split a kon-peki blue over the molt of my fingertips and 

swallow the shards of the shattered bottle

a cyst sits under my skin and 

rolls my flesh between its teeth 

flicks stones at the muted fabric of a dying mind

i bleed my body out on this ceiling and wish the gods would die 

to a writer's pen 

mediocrity smashes my cranium in to eat but 

there is no brilliant mind, only a 

stuffed tragedy, a beheaded fairytale dripping at the edges of bloodshot eyes

there are too many mistakes to die over and

crying in shitty moonlight poetry

i swallow this like a dry pill and choke

and i hope it kills someone talented

i wonder if the gods would look human in their dying moments 

just to frame my seething inferiority, pretty pretty—  

i cut my screams from the throat of a gutted painter

crush it into crimson ink, hang my name as 

the dying writer tearing pretty words from their broken bones

—just to satisfy a burning desire of merely being enough

for just a second, only just a second before 'not anymore'

just to kill a deity once before it breaths again,

buried in the wombs of virginal maidens

unfair unfair, how gods are born instead of made—

but i take it with me and go

i take it with me and go

and if everything was bruised and torn and the sky sank its spoiled teeth into the earth and ripped like a dog, depraved and frothing, and if we were standing there, if we were standing there in the middle of it all, could you doubt for a second that it was beautiful? even when the earth is being crushed between a giant's fingers like blackberries, dark juice running in rivulets down swollen fingers. even when my ribs have been splintered and my lungs are heaving in the clogged gray air. even if we find ourselves at a house party at seven in the evening, rummaging through the medicine cabinets of people we barely know for anything to relieve a headache, and the next room over someone's yelling at their kids, and the stench of beer and someone's perfume steeps in the air, and you can't remember quite how you got there or how many days you've been telling yourself you'll find a way to get out- even then.

because somehow you are standing here. and somehow you are running through the parking lot at the end of your first concert, trying not to get hit by a car but mostly thinking about the euphoric numbness in your ears and the taste of cotton candy still simmering in your throat, and then you’re on the train and it’s past midnight and you have school tomorrow but there’ll never be this moment again. and somehow you’re sitting on a bench downtown, splitting ice cream with your crush, and she offers her earbud to you, and the sun is spilling through the trees like honey with the smell of almonds and jasmine wafting through the air. it's a fairly mundane way to spend your friday afternoon, but there's something a touch ethereal about it in the moment. 

once you read an article about the failings of modern art. the primary flaw, in the author's words, was that modern art sought to ask the question "what is art?", but of course there can never be a satisfactory answer to a question so broad and somewhat useless. you've been to the MOMA. you've seen the shapes and colors wrestling on prints, the wall-to-wall paintings that look like someone attacked the canvas with a knife, angry gouges of red and blue oozing out of the pale backdrop. there are sculptures of airplane chairs and solid slabs of color, and you don't want to think about what it must've cost the museum to display them.

but the article was wrong. modern art does not seek to ask "what is art?", it seeks to answer it, and the answer is "everything." every color bleeding from a blurry windshield on the rainy city streets, every half-ripe fruit that falls from the trees in your neighbor's yard, every tired face on the shuttle from the airport in a city that you don't recognize at 2:00 AM. every time you wade barefoot through the dewy summer grass; every time you see the morning glories braided through the fence in spring; every time you stand freezing on the pier and watch the sea calmly slapping against the wooden barrier, sending a spray of saltwater up through the air just as the clouds part and the droplets catch in the sun, and you think "oh" like you've had an epiphany, but it's not something that can be put into words. and yes, even the earth turned inside-out, bruised and torn and falling to pieces.  

you are proud of your country, and of her rich heritage. and you shall try,desperately try, to be worthy of her. you open your eyes wide, waiting in line at a school quadrangle, it is yet another morning assembly among your fellow restless comrades eager to escape to lands outside of the tiny home they have grown up in. you yearn together, as you wipe the glistening sweat from your dusky foreheads, stuffy tunics amplifying the effect of the sun's heat emanating from the azure sky as crows erupt in a cacophony of voices. the hymn is disrupted, but the choir undeterred-their scarlet robes a testament to the long-standing heritage of a school that has seen far worse days. the final bars of the national anthem rise and swell as your eyes travel down the corridors of an undefiled heritage of the storied past.

you long to go back, to summers well-spent you'd laugh with your cousins over jokes you cannot remember, your attention arrested and suddenly occupied by their boisterous dog, she'd lick your face and you'd both fall down. you like to reminisce about the stories your Nani would tell you, of your childhood, the sweet, pungent aroma of her signature Aam ka achaar wafting through the dense air. the warm,fresh-out-of-the-tava aloo parathas await, but it is not enough for your ever-eager appetite.

you would greet guests sometimes, they would ask you "what you want to study, beta

? but you didn't have an answer, so your shy smile would do the talking for a while." then, in dadi's open aangan you would sprinkle coloured powder onto the olive floor, hardened by the passage of time. the finished product was a rangoli, you'd smile up at your mother's face, she was proud, you deduced (oh but you hoped, you really prayed she was, pride was a commodity too precious to sacrifice.) on Diwali, you'd hasten through the Puja, tie the red thread on your wrist, only to pull it out a week later, carelessly. gazing admirably at your Dadi, circling incense sticks over elephant gods that you have to believe in, the earthy scent of deep yellow marigolds emanating through the smoke of the puja room. gorging on mithai after every meal with your Dada. you'd help acquaint them with the wonders of the technology you have grown up with, but to them is a reflection of changing times, the roles reversed, the younger generation adopting the role of a teacher, the older, the unsuspecting student. aloo tikki drizzled with dahi, generous amounts of gold-streaked sev and green dollops of chutney, the taste of which lingers in your mind.

and then you'd go back home, awaiting your next visit. they'll tell you to call but you will forget, only birthdays can serve as a reminder of what you leave behind, away from the cosmopolitan society you belong to. they will tease you about your Hindi, and you'd laugh and shrug it off. and maybe, just maybe, you will remember to call.

I'm bored right now so I decided to do this Q&A.

What got me into writing: I don't know. I used to HATE writing. Until one day, in 5th grade we had to write a narritive and I got this ridiculously stupid idea about a small group of kids finding a parrot and following it and getting kidnapped by pirates. That's as far as I got... But I like had started writing it and everything. Then I lost interest in writing until a year or so later when I was reading Harry Potter. The books got me through a lot and so I wanted to try to get other kids through similar things and decided to try to write a book. I couldn't think of anything and lost interest again for a year and then finally I started getting ideas and writing them and then my boyfriend came along. Ruining my plans of not having a love interest in any stories (Thanks a lot babe! I'm kidding, I love you!). But he also inspired me in a lot of ways. He is also a writer, an astonishly amazing one at that! And now, I am a young writer seeking to express myself and help others through my words!

My biggest writing influences outside of WTW/Prose: My boyfriend, who inspires me most. Myself, I have a lot to share about my life and so much that I've had to heal from, things that have left me with a limp for the rest of my life but have not killed me. My family, especially my father, for private reasons... Pain. John Green, JKR, Rick Riordan, Veronica Roth, and so many other authors. And finally, the one who gave me my gift, God.

Significance behind my profile pic: There is no significance other than the poem appealed to me. It rings true and spoke to me the way that words can only speak to a writer.

Top 15 fave books:

1)Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - JKR

2) Clockwork Princess - Cassandra Clare

3) Divergent (the first book of the series) - Veronica Roth

4) The Fault In Our Stars (My 2nd ALL TIME FAVE) - John Green

5) Looking For Alaska - John Green

6) The Witch of Blackbird Pond - I cannot remember the author's name...

7-9) All 3 Splintered books - AG Howard

10 - 14) The entire beautiful creatures series - I can't remember the authors' names

15) A book my boyfriend has been writing but has not published any - My boyfriend.

Significance behind my username: I actually did a post about that a while back so, I'll just put the link for it. Link: https://theprose.com/post/350485/nickname

Stupid quote I like: (This is a vague paraphrasing because I don't remember the exact quote) "Vulcan! I can't be the son of Vulcan! I don't even like Startrek!!" - Leo Valdez Or he says something along those lines.

How I define my current writing style: Chaotic. I don't have an exact style. I don't think so at least... I don't know... It's just all over the place, like my mind...

Is it my set style or is it evolving: I guess evolving?

Favorite songs/Favorite sings to listen to ironically: My favorite songs are always changing but there is one that ALWAYS stays my favorite. Photograph by Ed Sheeran. I LOVE it. But as of right now, my favorite songs are Photograph by Ed Sheeran, Forever by Lewis Capaldi, Be Alright by Dean Lewis, Unforgettable by Project 46, Bruises and Bitemarks by Good with Grenades, I Am Machine by Three Days Grace, Angels Fall by Breaking Benjamin, and more. I honestly don't know what is meant by the irnoically part? I guess that it'd be ironic that I listen to it? Well if that's the case then it'd be Bruises and Bitemarks by Good with Grenades and really any heavy metal song... At least in my opinion. I've been told I seem rather shy, innocent, and quiet... And I honestly feel that way all the time. I don't know though, it'd be better to ask my boyfriend.

Common writing error/trend that is annoying: Improper spelling. I'm not talking about like a miss - spelled word here and there, no I'm talking about like every other word seems to be spelled wrong, almost as if the writer does it on purpose.

Do pineapples belong on pizza: No. Absolutely not. Pineapples are gross. Why would you put something gross on a PERFECTLY FANTASTIC piece of food! Are you trying to go to war with over half the world? I have tried pineapple pizza and I gagged.

i. The days of nonstop rain is the only sign of the end of the world.

We watched as water slowly filled the roads,

struggling home as our shoes got drenched and the wind made us shiver.

It wasn’t a flood, or a thousand strikes of lightning that told us we were done for;

the largest rainstorm that has every graced the planet was

gentle.

There was no drowning, no pain;

just the steady fall of rain.

ii. I used to think we’d go out in fire and flame,

burn ourselves out like the dead stars we look up to each night.

The stars have been hidden for weeks but the air has never felt cleaner.

You used to whisper the stories of constellations on quiet nights

when we both pretended life was kinder to us that it was.

Look, you’d say, Cassiopeia, the vain Queen watches the world turn without her.

Look, you’d say, Andromeda, the chained maiden punished for the crimes of another.

The sky is filled with monsters and victims and we stared up at a sky full of ghosts,

wondering which ones haunt us so long after the dead have been buried.

Stars and fire and a waiting hell --

who would have thought we’d die to the rain?

iii. This world will continue without us.

We know this.

We’ve always known this.

That doesn’t make it hurt any less;

the long nights I held you as you wondered if anyone would miss you,

the days spent with our mothers’ disapproval scarring us endlessly,

the knowledge that we will be forgotten faces at the end of it all.

I loved you in the sunshine and the hail, through every storm we weathered.

The thunder drowns out your cries but the lightning illuminates mine.

iv. The power goes out and doesn’t come back on.

Even without working clocks, we know when we’ve entered the final hour.

You stepped out into the rain in nothing but your nightgown

letting the storm baptize you anew.

Here in the storm, I follow your silhouette through the empty, flooded streets

I’d follow you to the ends of the Earth.

Cassiopeia and Andromeda, you say when you finally turn to me,

Do you think they ever found forgiveness?

Mothers and daughters carry the same scars that marred their skin centuries ago.

Lovers ease the pain, but only enough to stay alive.

They found their way to the stars, isn’t that enough?

Your smile is small but I see it through the rain anyways.

I reach for you through the storm--

you reach back.

The rain stops.

v. On the other side of this stygian storm,

I’ll find you in the light.

Before I go into my questions, I’d just like to address something that I’ve noticed during my (admittedly short) time at prose. If you’re going to head straight to the comment section to write something demeaning this trend, let me ask you this: does putting down the WTW sub-community give you gratification in any way? Do you think you are somehow above us because you are more ‘exposed’ to this platform? Does being on Prose for longer mean you are a better writer or have more life experience than us?

As far as I know, the WTW-ers flocking to Prose have done absolutely nothing to offend you, and if reading our friendly replies or responses to each other makes you sneer or give you the urge to comment something belitting, maybe you are the one that has to reconsider themselves and how you are acting. If I were to give you a slight explanation: some things happened on WTW to make us come here. in a sense, we came here seeking ‘something better’. We’re very tight knit, and many of us have justifiable reasons for why we aren’t ‘getting out more’ on Prose—as if that’s good enough anyways.

If you are going to look down on me as an individual for addressing this or simply existing here, I do not mind—though I haven’t a clue why. However, this is a trend started by and carried on by my fellow WTW-ers, and I will not tolerate anyone disrespecting @paperbird or anyone else responding to these questions in any way just because they belong to our lively sub-community.

Obviously, if you haven’t been doing any of these things, I’m not referring to you. I’m excited to be here, and I plan on staying even when I have aged out of WTW. Y’all are truly great. Thank you for being so understanding.

Now, onto the questions.

1. what got you into writing?

-ever since the second grade, i’ve planning storylines on cheap blue-lined notebooks and sketching them out. ‘comics’ if you would. however, it was only in the fourth grade when there was a sort of school district-wide competition for writing. somehow, i won first place in my school and fifth place overall, and that really gave me both the inkling that

“wow, i can do this” and the motivation to keep going. that ‘winning’ essay is still hanging outside my parents’ office by the way.

2. outside of wtw/prose, who are your biggest writing influences?

-i think i only really started developing my writing style when i joined wtw, hence most of my writing influences being from there. however, when i first started writing short stories, i think Rick Riordan was a big role model.

-from a purely conceptual and storytelling standpoint, i was highly influenced by the anime, manga, and vocaloid that i consumed. they had complex storylines divided into ‘arcs’ and even the vocaloid songs had something incredibly rich to them. i also love listening to video essays about a multitude of topics. i admire how video essayists can explore themes of racism or loss of identity through the analyzation of their source material—or the other way around. it’s lead me to have a deeper respect for certain authors and screenwriters. additionally, listening to people bash books, movies, or people is just plain cathartic.

3. what’s the significance behind your profile picture(s)?

it goes with my username. i used to have this rather dreary picture of a bunch of chrsyanthemums, but i changed it with the coming of july. *if you don’t know if an image is good for reuse, you should probably filter your results under ‘tools’ and ‘usage rights’.

4. top fifteen favorite books - go. (if you don’t know what exactly are your favorite fifteen, just name twenty you like.)

i’m going to extend ‘books’ to manga and translated novels because i can and i honestly don’t read that much on paper anymore.

-Mao Dao Zu Shi aka Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation aka Founder of Diabolism aka mdzs by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. has excruciatingly human characters (even the heroes are not blameless), angst (so much), and favorite character of all fiction. oh, and it’s gay. has smut too. canon smut. “everyday means everyday”.

-Life As We Knew It series by Susan B. Pfeffer. dystopia but sickeningly realistic. could very well happen tomorrow. hugely underrated.

-The Astonishing Color of After by X.R. Pan. synesthesia, grief (*main character loses her mom to suicide), and reclaiming a lost past and culture.

-Crowfeather’s Trial by Erin Hunter. simp for Crowfeather because he’s so damn angsty. actually well written family and storyline (unlike new books).

-Toilet Bound Hanako-kun by Iro Aida. ghost, spirits, and oh so much angst. also, the artwork is so damn cute i can’t even.

-Tsubasa Chronicles by CLAMP. a fricking journey. bled my eyes to finish this complicated-ass manga. oh but it was all worth it.

-Haikyuu by Haruichi Furudate. got me playing volleyball. ’nuff said.

-The Giver by Lois Lowry. how could i have not put this on. everyone knows this book, but i’ve reread this like a million times and it’s worth it ;)

-A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. my childhood. don’t really like the ending, but the series is absolutely fantastic.

-Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan. i personally prefer the HOO but both series are good. need i explain? moving on.

-Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa. oh god this. THIS. the holy grail of manga. it’s an excellent gateway into manga. i’m down on me knees; please read. hard ‘magic’ systems and plot and suffering. 

-A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult. tries to explore both sides of the abortion debate with a gripping conflict.

-Assassination Classroom by Yūsei Matsui. life lessons, assassinations, and humor. i cried at the end.

-Caddy’s World by Hilary McKay. this book holds a special place in my heart, and probably the first chapter book i’ve ever read. absolutely stunning.

(most of my experience with books is limited to my school library. don’t judge, okay? i’ll get to the ‘good’ books when i can get out of my house.)

5. what’s the significance behind your username?

-my wtw username is chrysanthemums&ink. for chrysanthemums, in a nutshell, childhood nostalgia—tea and iconic drinks and such—and funeral flowers. they do also symbolize joy though.

-ink because i was in a fountain pen frenzy around that time. still am, just not enough to make my username end with ink.

-mnemosynink because mnemosyne is a greek goddess of memory (learned that from jetpens video), and the way they pronounced it make the ‘ink’ at the end basically unegotiable (couldn’t completely erase my identity after all).

*hehe i’m kind of known for hard to spell usernames so here ya go.

6. any particularly stupid quote that you nevertheless love?

″“Hug me!” “I am hugging you!” “Hug me tight!” “I am hugging you tight!”″ from mdzs because this is a confession except it’s literally in the middle of the final battle with people

actually dying around them, and also the person that says the second and fourth lines is sort of a hardass, so it’s absolutely hilarious. and it’s gay.

7. how would you define your current writing style?

realistically, it’s a bit unrefined and inarticulate. i think i tend to reuse a lot of phrases, so there’s a lot of similar language in all of my works. a lot of imagery, a bit gritty? i don’t think i write ‘pretty’ things very often, or perhaps i haven’t tried yet. just a conglomeration of unorganized pieces of a whole. literal imagery.

do you think this is your set style, or are you still evolving?

i went under a massive style change a few weeks back. inferiority complex hit like a bag of bricks, and i just was not satisfied with anything i was writing. after writing a particular piece in a completely different style—which is on this site by the way, butterflies—i got comfortable with that. i’m still trying to improve certain parts of my writing, but i’m pretty satisfied with my style as a whole. until the next time i go into a ‘reinvention frenzy’ aka feel bad about everything i’ve been writing, maybe i can work with this.

8. favorite song(s)?

god, this is a hard question. i basically cycle through songs i regularly listen to like every month. songs listed might not be my favorite per se because i listen to too much and the lines get blurred. but let me try to Attempt the Impossible with this incomplete list:

-First Love by BTS is something i only allow myself to indulge in at special times. i’m afraid that if i listen to it too much, it’s meaning might decrease. i also cried while listening to this. i personally identify with This Is Home by Cavetown—uke original only—but i prefer Poison over it. another song that hit too close, Wait For It from Hamilton kinda summarizes my feelings towards a lot of things.

-to write to i usually like non-english songs—though To Each His Own by Talos is definitely the exception, love that song—and i like amend and bloom by j^p^n to set the mood. hana by eevee too (i wrote heat. to it). i also write to Hatstune Miku Medley by Kihimi (wonderful medley of hatsune miku’s famous songs. beautiful tuning.)

-for vocaloid i like Huma and Nism by HaTa which is a philosophical battle between two goat lolis (it’s good, i swear), Goodbye Semi-Sparkling Girl by Hihumi (their tuning of Hatsune Mika is fricking sinful i actually can’t-), Wondertaker by PowapowaP (please pay your respects), Leave by Akagami (gorgeous tuning of gumi), and March Rain by Ming Guang (chinese and all the right bits of sorrowful).

favorite song(s) to listen to ironically?

i must apologize but Green Light by Lorde (another writer actually introduced me), Echo by CrusherP, Goodbye and Last of Me both by VocaCircus. yes, those vocaloid songs are depressing but those were from my angsty preteen days and i can’t help but to laugh a little now. good for setting the mood though.

9. a common writing error or trend that annoys you?

weird formatting for absolutely no reason. making your letters do the gravity bounce ain’t helping your poetry, i promise.

10. should pineapple be on pizza?

an odd thing, really. the first time i saw something like that, i was fascinated. basically, no. would eat it, but it’s not going in my order anytime soon.

1. what got you into writing?

writing warriors cats fanfiction when i was in elementary school. no, i'm not kidding. of course back then i didn't even know what fanfiction was, i was just writing about my cat characters and happened to set the stories in the warriors universe because it was conveniant. that's also how i started drawing. so... i guess i have warriors cats to thank for being the person i am today? i really don't like that thought.

even once i had branched away from fanfic, i mainly wrote fantasy YA stories that were inspired by (read: rip-offs of) warriors cats and wings of fire. i only started writing stuff outside of that, and writing poetry, once i joined write the world.

2. outside of wtw/prose, who are your biggest writing influences?

so many? let's see. markus zusak was definitely one of my biggest stylistic influences because reading "the book thief" really changed the way i thought about writing and language, and then most of the books that i'll list in #4 are also big influences on me. i've only started reading poetry in the last year and a half or so, and i have richard siken and mary oliver in my bio but i'll mention them here anyway, but anne carson and pablo neruda are really good too. i have a whole list in my notes app of random poems that have really touched me.

outside of actual writers, i get inspiration from music a lot, especially arcade fire and elliott smith and sufjan stevens. i think most of how i get my inspiration is just from a Vibe, or ideas from random poems and articles and things people have said to me that i can't get out of my head.

i will take a moment to shout out to the podcast welcome to night vale, even though i'm pretty sure everyone that follows me already knows i love wtnv because i mention it in every Q&A ever, but it's seriously a huge influence on me and i have no idea what person i would be if i hadn't listened to it. it's so oddly nostalgic and existentially terrifying yet comforting, and i'd never really read or seen anything like it before or felt the emotions that it made me feel until i listened to it.

3. what’s the significance behind your profile picture(s)?

it's a goat (i call him marvin) standing in front of a rainbow background with text that says "i commit crimes." it's significant because i drew him? no deep meaning other than that.

4. top fifteen favorite books - go. (if you don’t know what exactly are your favorite fifteen, just name twenty you like.)

ok, in absolutely no order:

1. the book thief by markus zusak.

2. to kill a mockingbird by harper lee. when i first finished it, i immediately started reading it again because that's how good it was.

3. i'll give you the sun by jandy nelson.

4. the haunting of hill house by shirley jackson. a classic even if you don't like horror.

5. the perks of being a wallflower by stephen chbosky.

6. aristotle & dante discover the secrets of the universe by benjamin alire saenz.

7. last night i sang to the monster by benjamin alire saenz. i'm putting him twice on this list because this was just such a cathartic book to read.

8. the secret history by donna tartt. quite possibly one of the weirdest books i've ever read. it was on so many dark academia reading lists that i thought it would be some sort of pretentious college coming-of age book, and it was, except it was a pretentious coming-of-age book set at a liberal arts school in vermont in the 80s rather than oxford. there are a lot of drugs, messed-up cultish murders, sleep deprivation and fevers, gayness that's not exactly subtextual, and a main cast of characters that may or may not be metaphors for the seven deadly sins. reading it is an Experience because it starts out so normal and slips so gradually into more and more bizarre and twisted territory that you don't even realize until you close the book and think "OK... what was that?" it's definitely thought-provoking.

9. the catcher in the rye by j.d. salinger.

10. murder on the orient express by agatha christie. i annoyed my whole family by not letting us watch the movie until i had finished the book, but it was worth it.

11. turtles all the way down by john green.

12. the picture of dorian gray by oscar wilde. i read it while staying in this creepy cabin in the middle of nowhere with no cell service, and the bedroom i stayed in had a lot of freaky paintings. i think you can infer what that experience was like.

13. the harry potter series by ** *******

14. the eyes of the dragon by stephen king. not a horror book; i can barely remember what happened in it, but i remember finishing it and thinking that it was really fantastic so i'll include it here.

15. the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy by douglas adams.

5. what’s the significance behind your username?

sonder- the realization that each passerby has a life just as complex as yours. and then i chose rain because i like the rain? honestly i can't really remember my thought process behind my username.

6. any particularly stupid quote that you nevertheless love?

"alligators. can they eat your children? yes." from welcome to night vale. i've never seen a noah centineo movie but his twitter account makes me wheeze- "love you? i am you." "just because we've learned to count to 4 does not mean we can understand infinity."

7. how would you define your current writing style? do you think this is your set style, or are you still evolving?

my current writing style is basically just me turning on a post-rock youtube playlist, typing stream-of-consciousness for ten to twenty minutes/typing up things i wrote in notebooks, and then spending an hour deleting and re-adding the same comma six times and/or clicking around on thesaurus dot com trying to find the perfect word i'm looking for even though it's probably an exact synonym for the word i already have.

8. favorite song(s)? favorite song(s) to listen to ironically?

i've been listening to sufjan steven's new single "america" on repeat ever since it came out, and then i also can't stop listening to the three singles from the killers' upcoming album; all of them make me feel like i just stole a car and am leaving the small town that i hate for the first time in my life (if you don't have the patience to listen to all three i recommend "caution" since it's the best out of them). last night i stood outside listening to a whole chorus of owls hooting, and then listened to cage the elephant's "melophobia" on vinyl, and today i've been listening to the strokes and florence + the machine.

i'm not sure if i listen to anything ironically anymore. i started listening to orville peck (the anonymous country singer) ironically but his music is actually pretty good so now i listen unironically. one thing that i absolutely love, for reasons i can't explain, is listening to covers of pop songs by alternative artists, like hozier's covers of demi lovato and ariana grande on youtube. the tracklist for sufjan steven's upcoming album says that he has a song on it called "run away with me" and i can't stop thinking about the distant possibility that it might be a carly rae jepsen cover.

also, i think everyone should listen to the live version of "iris" by the goo goo dolls where they're performing in the rain on the fourth of july: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HZM0QiuUS8

9. a common writing error or trend that annoys you?

for some reason it really annoys me when people use bold letters instead of italics in fiction books. i don't mind it in poetry or non-fiction, but it just feels so out of place when it's in an actual novel, especially when they could just italicize the word or even write it in all-caps.

i don't find it annoying, but honestly i'm not that big of a fan of fantasy? or, i should say, YA fantasy; it feels like every book has the exact same plot and characters and covers and even titles. of course, there are exceptions, but yeah, not my favorite genre. also, when people write female characters, LGBT+ characters, characters that are POC, or otherwise diverse characters into their stories, but it's painfully obvious that they're doing it for brownie points and they don't care about the characters at all, and end up casting them aside and not giving them satisfying arcs at all (*cough* star wars sequels *cough*).

10. should pineapple be on pizza?

i don't know, i've never tried it. honestly the only pizza types i eat are cheese pizza and this one pesto-potato-cheese pizza that this local place has.