we don't need things like memories

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about me

✯ keely
✯ 28
✯ they/he
✯ writer & cosplayer & game enthusiast
✯ favorite food: eggy rice
✯ current concern: i'd like to grow another half inch to be exactly 5'2.
✯ current fandoms: haikyuu, legend of zelda, genshin impact, fire emblem: three houses,
league of legends/arcane, hunter x hunter

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FICS

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poetry portfolio

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EVENT/ZINE EXPERIENCE

ZINES

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OTHER EVENTS

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— photo credits —first row: 1-2 @erikwphotography, 3 @a.elizabethphotos, 4 @cosplay_kaysecond row: 1-2 @kna.artistry_cosplay, 3 @seelomiguenphotosthird row: @a.elizabethphotosfourth row: 1-2 @seelomiguenphotos, @kna.artistry_cosplayfifth row: 1@sweetiemmphotography, 2 selfie

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ko-fi commissions

Currently: CLOSED

if you bought me a ko-fi—first of all, thank you so much! below is a pricing chart and some guidelines/information about what i will and won't write.

I will write
✯ fandoms: haikyuu, legend of zelda: breath of the wild,
fire emblem: three houses, arcane/league of legends (caitvi ony)
✯ sfw & nsfw
✯ fluff, smut, angst
✯ most ships (see below)
✯ most AUsI won't write
✯ the following ships: oikage (haikyuu), kuroken (haikyuu), claude/lorenz (fe3h)
✯ heavy gore or horror
✯ eating disorders, suicideDM me before asking me to write
✯ rule 63
✯ nsfwyou can reach me on twitter or tumblr!

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WINGS

They ask me how far I wandered. I will tell you—I wandered for thousands of years,
into the highest echelons of being, where everything is white and gold
and the very sight of me would make a mortal dissolve in fire and sparks.
There, I am loved and feared.
My brothers and aunts and cousins are my friends no longer,
using me and my wings to bear their words to each other. There,
my arrival means bad news. There, I am a hurricane.I wandered into the depths of darkness, where
the rivers burn and slice like paper cuts torn open by a razor blade,
and standing in one place for too long would drag a mortal to the very edge
of madness.
There, I am dreaded. The boat waits for all, yet they beg me
not to take them,
to turn around and deliver them back to the light.
But I cannot. My uncle waits for me, for them.I wandered across continents, through homes and temples
and down streets—streets that grew wider, longer, smoother, busier.
I wandered into cities that grew every time I saw them next, into
the business districts of New York, Shanghai, London, Rome.
There, I am everything and nothing.
I saw the men in the suits conduct their doings and watched over them all.
Sometimes my hand slipped and their pockets would be lighter.
Feared, loved, unknown, forgotten.I wandered through those old temples
and watched them crumble as people’s memories of me faded, watched as they replaced
my statues with a man nailed to a cross. I wandered
until my sandals wore down and the caduceus grew heavy in my hand.
My brothers and sisters have gone to sleep. The people have cut me out;
they go to casinos without me
and they pray elsewhere before kickoff.
Wall Street will cast a bull and a girl in bronze
but not me.
Prometheus is honored for stealing fire
but I am not honored for any of the things I stole.But I am still young,
young enough that the businessmen give me a second look
when I walk into their coffee shops.
I am beautiful enough that they let me into Burberry, Armani,
into the place they named after me 180 years ago,
before I have to ask. I am quick
enough to take myself from pole
to pole
in seconds. I am wild enough
not to think before I run.So still I wander.

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the years i knew you, and the years i did not.

i do not know an existence without you.
i only know summers spent beneath
the shade of ripe apple trees,
winters by the fire as we
watched the dark green sea churn against the rocks
below,
autumns holding on
before the work began.
i only know stuffy formal dinners
spent communicating through taps of feet and carefully placed
silverware,
trotting at your brother's heels and learning from the best,
tea taken ensconced in the hydrangeas in your father's gardens.
i only know a soft bed by a window
with our books scattered across the covers,
and us, sprawled out,
exhausted in the late spring afternoon.
i only know narrowed eyes,
amber like the tea you loved,
scoffed out affections and blushes to the tips of your ears.
i only know rough lips,
curious hands on silks
and navy hair like the sea on my pillow.
i only know promises,
solemn vows made in childhood gravitas
on a frigid ethereal moon night.
i only know a boy, there
through my apple-red summers and green-water winters,
there through six long war-torn years.
i only know you, in the corners of every memory.three years.
there were only three years i did not know you,
for you weren't yet alive.then i learned something new.
i learned to exist in halls without your ringing laughter
or your scoffed admiration.
i learned of stuffy formal dinners where i sat
at the head,
with no feet to tap or
friends to sit with.
i learned that writing letters to you, letters that went
with no response,
hurt
worse than were you to run me through with your own sword.
i learned about the nightmares,
new and worse and still terrifying at
twenty-six.
i learned that sometimes, i cried out for you in my sleep,
and my maid would wake me in the night to find
tear tracks
on my cheeks.
i learned what the word 'other half' truly means.twenty-four years. twenty-four
years i did not know you,
for i did not know if you were alive.

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himawari

these, the days of himawari,
purple and yellow blooming in the grass
and raindrops on white-tipped hair
and sodas half-drunk and
mud on our shoes.
i remember the sound of your mother’s voice
at the door as she called you home, and how
your shoes were never clean
no matter how many times you washed them.
things last forever in the summer.
like golden week,
like the last rays of sun blinding over the mountains,
like the long nights of fireflies and sweaty
hands and grass-stained shorts,
like himawari.
like you and me.
we will, won’t we?

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A SMILE LIKE THE SUN

You alone know my voice.You have heard me in the quiet of the night,
under blood-red moons and rushing waterfalls,
in ruins of temples of ages long-past
and in the depths of the castle, by candlelight,
when I see you off to bed and you beg me to stay up with you.You have heard me in the misty forests,
under thunder-heavy skies and rain lashing against
the windows of a hillside inn,
in the bitter winds of the mountains.You have heard me in every corner of this land,
under mountains raining death and in the bone-dry sands,
on crystalline balconies and in an archery range so cold
we saw our breaths.You have heard me in the open air,
in sunrises
so early that even you are too tired to speak,
and under sunsets spent on top of our world.You have heard me in the golden fields,
sunflowers bright and waving in the early afternoon breeze,
when you said you wanted apples from the trees lining the river.I like it best in the wild.
Here, I breathe—
I fill my lungs with untainted air
and out come words.
And you laugh, joyous and untamed,
happier than the stray dogs
of the castle town when I sneak them spare meat.We stopped, that day,
for apples and flowers. You found a baby owl
in the weeds and picked it up. You cradled it in your hands
and promised it a new home,
and I didn’t have the heart to tell you your father wouldn’t allow it.
You laughed when I used my sword to cut you a sunflower
and put it behind your ear, tucked it into your soft hair.Did you hear me, then,
under that petaled canopy?
Did you hear me tell you I would stand before swords and arrows
without a thought
for you and you alone, that I would
even if it weren’t my sworn duty?
Did you hear me tell you I have long admired your easy grace,
your effortless radiance?
Did you hear me tell you how lucky I know I am,
to bask in your light
and spend my life beside you?I couldn’t find the words.Still,
I hope you heard me.

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kill

kill me sweetly, darling
let me go with a smile and a
kiss on the back of my shoulder
to remind me you always loved me
as much as i loved you.or kill me slowly, baby,
draw the knife out so that i feel
every inch of the blade, and watch my blood
drip silver onto the floor
tracing veins into the wood.or kill me quietly-
with a whisper of the morning breeze
so i don’t even know what you’ve done
until it’s done
and i hate that i can’t fight back.or kill me fiercely,
almost—almost—like frenzied lovers
who know their time is up
and still refuse
to let their last night be a quiet one.kill me any way you can
i don’t care how
kill me before i
kill you
i just know
i always knew
one of us
had to,
in the end.

house edge

The house
always wins,
or so you’ve heard.
The tricks are textbook. Avoidable.
As old as gambling itself.“Deal you in?”
He smiles, teeth blinding, lashes fluttering.
Chips stack neatly
atop worn green velvet,
hundreds—thousands—of dollars
in plastic.
Shadowed eyes purse,
waiting
half a second.
Flop.
Ace two jack rainbow.
Someone frowns,
folds, hastily.
Turn.
Queen.She laughs, loud,
loud like the crystal
chandeliers floating above her head.
With a flourish,
there they roll,
twin spotted butterflies taking flight.
One stops,
tilting,
on the edge of a victory—
Not today.
But it’s all right! she says,
You can try again. One more time.
Clink go the chips.
Always one more.The dealer has an Ace.
He’s the only one
to beat.
Easy. Sure.
He leans back, muscled chest
visible through the thin shirt.
Someone hits
on seventeen.
Bust.
She wears hearts and a Mona Lisa smile,
winks once,
and slips beneath the deck.Evens, odds—blacks, reds.
Thirty-eight pockets
all empty but one,
soon.
She blinks slowly, waiting—
it’s hard not to sigh. These
people have such faith
in their luck.
Silver and lacquered wood
turn in time,
against time,
harmonizing as the ball
rests at last.
So many ways to gamble,
on this one shiny orb.
She drops it once more.You could lose everything,
in this place. Some already have.
Quit while you’re ahead,
you think,
but the king smiles,
and you surrender your chips.The house
always
wins.

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fifty

I have been young and beautiful,
in the way a bright-eyed prince
is young and beautiful,
in the streets of cities that cared
not for either.
I traded and sold and
lost until my youth
and beauty were spent,
washed away in the gutters
with the other refuse.I have been a starving songbird,
kept in a gilded cage and
given a winter nest,
to whom nobles would
flock to gawk at in person.
I was a siren in white, with
lips and nails and eyes of red,
leered at by land-longing sailors.I have been an entertainer, a
gladiator for the inglorious,
brawling with the basest.
Coins were tossed at me, tips
for a fight well-thrown,
and my knees were bruised to
match my bloody knuckles.I have been a shadow of a scholar,
breathed in the parchment of
ancient tomes, and slept
surrounded by the shelves,
until they, too, deemed me filthy,
too dirty to soil their sacred
halls. It was only a matter
of time.I have been a gardener,
a friend and a liar.
I have broken the trust of
someone who knows not of
my betrayal, who only remembers
me as a companion. She
has no idea
that the one who
planted her favorite roses
is the one who would have
held a dagger to her throat.I have been a leader,
a beacon for the hopeless and the
lost. I have been a swindler, a
gambler, a killer,
deadly and docile,
a virgin and a vixen, and
long ago, once, an
honest man.I have been everything
to
everyoneexcept
myself.

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405

some nights,
i dream of a different us.your hand,
sticky with sweat and
ice cream
tan from a western sun
grain between our palmssand kicked into my eyes
and you would laugh
a kill, neat in the lines
and your hair —
long now
maybe in your eyes
— smelling of coconut and
shea butter.smiles bright
better than the movie stars
washed in neon
lights of a new city
we could make ours
one day
slamming brakes
traffic up the interstate
new words
in old accentsfire, embers now
callus-tipped fingers on steel strings
a quiet melody
of somewhere new,
a different us.

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the love song of d. alexandre blaiddyd

let me go to find my peace
where the voices whispering to me might cease
living may yet come to be worthwhile, one day
let me go, perhaps i’ll find that bitter end
and what then? will i say
“old ghosts, away, you’ll torture me no more”
and they’ll retreat into cobblestone halls
silenced at last, to finally allow me to live
or will the madness persist?
to taunt the barely alive with spirits’ words
oh goddess, please, let me wake
lie to me, i cannot bear it.

* written for this poetry month prompt

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lightning

lightning strikes the unprepared,
while they occupy themselves with the mundane
living on, unaware their lives will come undone.
lightning struck me on a rainy saturday,
as i watched a star fall—
or no, you flew—before my very eyes
and i had to live on, knowing i’d been
struck. seared by the lightning, the timeless brilliance
of a celestial being
to change my course to follow this blazing star.
one day, i wish to think, at
last, i will call my star by name.

* written for this poetry month prompt

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ume

one day, it rained pink.
we stood outside the school gates, you and i,
on a cold day in march;
it smelled sweet, like plum blossoms.
and you pulled me under a sakura tree that had yet to blossom.
why here?
you laughed that day, laughed like you always did,
and for once, i laughed with you,
for i did not know when i would get to laugh with you next.
i would have to know hallways, classrooms,
a team without you.
i would have to know lunches
and practices without your voice.
i would have to know an ace without an emo mode.
what would such a life be?
but you laughed, loud and bright,
warm like cocoa on a winter’s day.the petals were soft as i brushed them off your shoulder.
you told me not to cry or miss you.
i hadn’t planned on crying, but i knew i would miss you.
how could i not?
imagine the sun disappearing,
no longer to grace the earth with light and warmth,
to leave behind a frigid floating rock.you told me, once, to ask for the things i want,
because i never asked.
oh, how i wanted to now.
but such things would have been unfair to ask.
so i stayed quiet.then you took me by the wrist,
guided my hand
to the trunk of the tree.
the bark was rough under my fingertips.
who gave you the knife?
you flicked it open, plunged it into the bark.
i remember i winced, but i watched,
watched you draw lines and curves and
write our names beneath an umbrella.
my name and yours,
together.
would it be us?
you asked, because you always asked.you tasted sweet, like plum blossoms.

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lighter

some days i handed you a lighter.it's sort of a funny thing,
isn't it,
how i literally
handed you
fire. how i invited you in,
to warm me or burn me or
ignite me.but some days, you didn't even take
the spark.

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house edge

The house
always wins,
or so you’ve heard.
The tricks are textbook. Avoidable.
As old as gambling itself.“Deal you in?”
He smiles, teeth blinding, lashes fluttering.
Chips stack neatly
atop worn green velvet,
hundreds—thousands—of dollars
in plastic.
Shadowed eyes purse,
waiting
half a second.
Flop.
Ace two jack rainbow.
Someone frowns,
folds, hastily.
Turn.
Queen.She laughs, loud,
loud like the crystal
chandeliers floating above her head.
With a flourish,
there they roll,
twin spotted butterflies taking flight.
One stops,
tilting,
on the edge of victory—
Not today.
But it’s all right! she says,
You can try again. Once more.
Clink go the chips.
Always one more.The dealer has an Ace.
He’s the only one
to beat.
Easy. Sure.
He leans back, muscled chest
visible through the thin shirt.
Someone hits
on seventeen.
Bust.
She wears hearts and a Mona Lisa smile,
winks once,
and slips beneath the deck.Evens, odds—blacks, reds.
Thirty-eight pockets
all empty but one,
soon.
She blinks slowly, waiting—
it’s hard not to sigh. These
people have such faith
in their luck.
Silver and lacquered wood
turn in time,
against time,
harmonizing as the ball
rests at last.
So many ways to gamble,
on this one shiny orb.
She drops it once more.You could lose everything,
in this place. Some already have.
Quit while you’re ahead,
you think,
but the king smiles,
and you surrender your chips.The house
always
wins.

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vermillion promises

did you see it?
when i stood over them,
over the ragdoll bodies so fresh and red,
when i bared my teeth
and smiled, all fangs and wild eyes,
more spider than human?did you see it?
sitting there at the bar,
whiskey lacing your words
and twisting my mouth into shapes of
vermillion promises,
while the city sparkled beneath us?did you see it?
when gold and ink mixed,
cherry heat simmering, ready to blow,
with your knife
kissing at my neck
like i wished to kiss you?did you see it?
because i did.i saw it
when finally
you stood at my door,
one foot over the threshold,
crimson dewdrops
raining from your fingertips,
scarlet staining my welcome mat.and i saw it
when your rage flamed black,
an angel’s fallen halo,
your eyes burning bulletholes into me,
through me, leaving only the embers.and i saw it the night
when ink and gold mixed,
those vermillion promises
bitten to fruition
between lips moon-pale and
glittered pink.i saw it.
and i saw you.
didn’t you see
me, too?

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