juxtaposition

juxtaposition

/ˈlɪm.ɪ.nəl/ adjective between or belonging to two different places or states

sleepovers always come with a specific atmosphere of surreal. the night ends with quiet whispers and sleeping in an unfamiliar bed. the mornings begin with you stumbling around the house, almost stuck in time as you brush your teeth in front of a new mirror. you part ways with the host and have to face the nostalgic feeling of leaving that little world.

sometimes my own room seems like a liminal space. i look towards the clock and “it's midnight already?". i remain frozen, suddenly aware of time passing as if it's gently grazing my skin. i'm tired but i push myself to stay awake just so i can live in that moment for a little longer, so i stay up until i can effortlessly drift off into sleep. the next morning i deal with the melancholy of a wasted yesterday, a difficult today and a distant tomorrow.

—liminal, by kian

—collage, by ally

Poetry lied in the streets,

where an eternal spring bloomed under the flickering lights of neon, and where flowers seldom grew among the alleyways that saw war;

where there roamed no better poets than those who owned nothing. Them who wrote with words that belonged to no language and them who carried souls that belonged to no home.

No home, for most lived in the prose unwritten and the artwork still blank. They lived midst the gravel roads and the liquor stores and the little worlds they created of imperfection; halo-less angels standing guard of their much ridiculed paradise.

And perhaps heaven was never Eden to begin with, but rather an idea; A feeling Dramatized Exaggerated adorned with elegance, and only elegance.

Yet, what is more elegant than chaos, more beautiful than distortion and fault. And what is more romantic than the streets, where one becomes both Poet and Poetry.

—THOSE WHO GLIMPSED ELYSIUM IN MOTEL ROOMS, by amanda

--juxtaposition, by amanda

You know when you feel roller-coaster floating and sun-warm with your eyes closed? Kissin’ you feels the same way. Feel it long after, stomach-sinking. Metal hand-bars and sore feet. Though, I’d rather take my chances on lap bars than you because I know you’re gonna kill me first. Man builds better than themselves, safer than themselves. Still. I love a gutsplit-open-I’m-gonna-die-and-thank-you-very-much kinda thrill. Don’t close my eyes at the wheel but wonder about how the crunch would feel. Sharp laughter and screaming and popping-in-your-mouth candy. I don’t want to die, but sometimes I wouldn’t mind if something else did it for me. So. Come over. Come quietly. Leave me weightless. I’m so sick of feeling how heavy I am.

—roller coaster, addison

who built the sea? what wanderer, creator, philosopher, knew the way to paint destruction in the waves. what intellect mapped out the mathematics in the fish, the creatures that can survive in something that is deadly to us. it could have been a writer whose words fell off the page and created worlds that we’ve read but have never traveled. it could have been a scientist, one who mixed chemicals like baking ingredients, one who let the vile bubble over and explode into a mess of sea.

who built the fisher? what being told man to tie a string to a stick and a hook to that string, what told man to stick that in the water, what told man to pull it back out once the string was yanked. what told man to cook and eat that creature that man had never seen, but trusted nonetheless.

who built the storms? the ones that rip the breath out of lungs, the ones we can’t survive because we’re just minuscule creations in such a mountainous world. we hide, we pack ourselves in to avoid these terrors of beauty that could pull us apart until we’re just simplistic organisms, no longer breathing or working or living.

who built the sea? what wanderer, creator, philosopher; what being knew how to create something so wild that even the reckless- the daredevils- fear exploring.

—who built the sea, by syd

playlist: beautiful problems

by nicole

hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like to me to have but i have it—lana del rey

my life in art—mojave 3

when the party’s over—billie eilish

hot knifer—peach pit

persephone—the tragic thrills

beautiful people beautiful problems—lana del rey feat. stevie nicks

merry christmas mr. lawrence—ryuichi sakamoto

lovely—billie eilish, khalid

unrequited love (& other cliches)—breakup shoes

buzzcut season—lorde

I was born into a world in which I was taught to be grateful. Be grateful for the roof over your head, the food on your plate, the education you receive, the safety bestowed on you. Be grateful for the devices you carry, the clothes you get to wear, the shops you can enter. Be grateful, because this is what your parents and your grandparents have toiled and worked hard for - they’ve earned dollars and cents for all of us to spend, to lead comfortable lives.

I am grateful, of course I am. But I’m also anxious. At what cost have I received these things? What do we pay to earn the privilege to buy?

The haze-filled skies and the overflowing landfills of plastic waste are glaring symbols of what we’ve raided from the earth. We amass things and trade in our planet like it’s some currency to be dished out, without realising it’s not a very wise idea to buy a bed if you don’t have a house. Even the paper money we

throw around - our world, with its finite resources, will run out, run dry. And then we’ll be left with nothing.

You and me – we see this, we understand it, we want to change it. In comes the zero waste campaigns, vegan movements, environmental activism; championed by the very youth often dubbed “lazy” and “entitled”. Meanwhile, older generations adamantly refuse to cut down on single-use plastics, consumption of meat, or – shudder – attempt to recycle.

This is not some movement to segregate the young from the old, merely a trend I can’t help but point out. But when the baby boomers look back, will they realise what they’ve done? The thirst for economic gain and material success have irrevocably damaged the earth. And now we’re left to pick up the pieces.

When the planet gets run down, who’s going to suffer? Us, the youth, but also the generations after. Now do you understand why we’re doing this? Why we speak to you about “carrying around a tote bag and a reusable straw”, or protest against the corporations and their wasteful ways? This is not some hippie movement. It’s a plea to do something before it’s too late.

Adults will tell us that we have it so much better than they did back then, and I don’t disagree. Yet what’s the use of having material things, having a great education, having decadent dishes, if we’re not going to live to enjoy the fruits of their (and our) labour? Humans broke the feedback loop when they ignored the negative externalities, broke it when they tried to stretch the boom and bust cycle into a single arrow of growth. Before it plunges straight down into the ground of no return, let’s give the generations after us something to be grateful for.

—when the baby boomers look back, by nicole