#bettertogethermke — Public Fediverse posts

I crashed for most of today.

Emerson has surgery in a couple of hours, so I am probably going to try to get some sleep, if I am able, then see him off if I can wake up for it.

I had a great time facilitating Better Together, though. I gave everyone a prompt about coded language in poetry and everyone took it in WILDLY different directions. It was great.

-Allēna

I crashed for most of today.

Emerson has surgery in a couple of hours, so I am probably going to try to get some sleep, if I am able, then see him off if I can wake up for it.

I had a great time facilitating Better Together, though. I gave everyone a prompt about coded language in poetry and everyone took it in WILDLY different directions. It was great.

-Allēna

It is storming outside and Emerson taught me how to play dominos today.

It was pretty fun although he kicked my ass.

I also saw this prompt about small spells to do on your birthday, and half of an enormous poem formed in my head while I was taking my 30 minutes of boredom based on the suggestion to write a letter to yourself a year ago even though it isn’t my birthday. So I’m going to post it here for posterity’s sake.

“annus epilepticus”

you don't know this yet
but the premonitions you've been having of
your own death are true
and a mere few weeks past your 28th birthday 
you will die - just enough - to touch the 
robe of any god you know 
when the subtle fire you've always been 
strikes you back 
and strikes you back again 

you will hang on for just long enough 
for your kind partner to burst into the room
cradle you in his arms 
and guide you, screaming in mortal terror, back into the light 

you have never been good at dying 
but this will take you a hair’s breadth from death
and you will bear the scars on your temporal lobe 
(and speech pattern) long afterwards to prove it

and whether it is by fate or some wild magic 
this will save your life in more ways than you will
know 

for most of July, you will not be able to speak
coherently. you will eventually choke out 
your suspicion that the seizures induced 
Wernicke's aphasia, and everyone who knows 
you will agree with you, a cruel fate for 
you, but more importantly, you will come back…
changed. 

you will start writing better poetry. something 
about the way your brain burned and cracked 
will allow you to see things from a different angle,
to look askance at language in a way you 
never did before. 
the partner that saved your life will convince you 
to start attending a poetry workshop held in a coffeeshop that july. the rhythm of writing and 
performing regularly amongst very talented 
wordsmiths will help break you out of your 
agoraphobia. 
one of them will take notice of the way you
perform, noting its similarity
to Shakespearean acting and encourage you to attend the open mic he runs. 
so you start performing at Linneman's Riverwest Inn again for the first time since 2023 at his 
personal request. 

you will somehow muddle through your divorce 
proceedings on july 23, five years and 13 days 
since leaving your ex husband, and it's a miracle 
you will be able to do that since even getting 
out of bed to use the bathroom still feels like running a marathon, but you're so hell-bound 
and determined to get rid of this man that 
when the judge asks if the marriage fell apart 
due to incompatibility of temperament, you will 
shout ABSOLUTELY loud and clear as day into
the microphone. (you will also show up hours 
early to the hearing. you don't want to miss this
for the world.) when your ex husband replies, it's the most defeated you will ever hear him. 
spite has always been your strong suit. 
the judge will finalize your divorce, and 
then the question arises of who you will
marry next. 

you will leave the answer up to the two people 
you consider yourself married to 
already, a man who cannot lie 
and a boy who cannot tell the truth. 
in a rare show of generosity, the liar boy
will concede to the honest man. 
he will live to regret that decision. you, however,
will not. 

as the months progress, it will become increasingly clear that despite your love 
for him, your relationship with the liar is built 
on sand. surviving your seizures will leave 
you with a new perspective on life and 
precious little patience for wasted time or 
undue stress, and the liar will waste your time
and mess with your head. 
you will tell him he is killing you. he displays no 
remorse. you will scream, beg, plead, and stop 
short of borrowing and stealing to get him to
listen. 
despite his damn near single-minded obsession 
with you that will make you feel like you're
emotionally his hostage, he will not care about
the affect he's having on your other relationships 
or your well being. 

one very early fall morning, after you've spent the 
entire night in the emergency room with him and 
your fiancé, “heat above” by greta van fleet will 
come on. your fiancé will remark that it feels as though you are driving into a different 
timeline as dawn breaks. you, spiritual and full of subtle fire as ever, will respond that you feel it, too. your liar will 
say nothing. 

finally, in november, after 
months of suspicion that he's cheating on you (despite being polyamorous!) 
he will get sloppy and you'll catch him when he
forgets to turn his location off. 
this is your red line and you will dump him over it. 
to add insult to injury, he will tell you you're 
overreacting. 
you will know better than that by now. 

despite your heartbreak, you will feel more 
free after leaving him than you have in months. 
you will compile a dossier of evidence against him
and publish it to the world. 
this is when the mask and gloves come off and it 
will spark
a months long battle of he-said-she said online. 
he will slander both you and your future husband. 
you will have even fewer regrets about leaving 
him. 

one of the final acts you will do before moving 
out from the apartment you and your fiancé share with your liar
is a manifestation ritual that will make you feel 
powerful beyond imagining - you will gaze into 
a mirror with your future husband while “heat above” plays in the background. you will picture yourself in red sunglasses driving down water street with more money and fame
 than sense, husband 
next to you. you pass your former lying flame on 
the street, roll down your window, wave to him like a queen, and ride on 
as if he had never meant a thing to you in the 
first place. 

you will choose “heat above” as the song for your
intentions for the year to come after how that ritual made you 
feel. 

on January 5th, you will feature at Linneman's, your poetic home. 
you will write a brilliant bespoke set for the 
occasion, combining music, poetry, and 
references to shakespeare at the 
host’s request. the audience is small, but they are
so engaged that they offer you a standing ovation at the end.
you have nothing prepared for an encore, so you
will offer them a story about your eccentric 
great uncle. 
it will go over the time limit, but not a soul will 
care. 

you will marry your husband on January 23rd in the 
same coffeeshop that helped you work through 
your agoraphobia. the wedding will be incredibly 
small, but it will be the finest wedding either of 
you have ever attended. the poet who runs 
the workshop that got you writing again will 
write a special poem for the ceremony. 
your friend and frequent collaborator will travel
all the way from Madison to attend. your 
husband's best man will travel all the way from
iowa. your “gentleman of debauchery”, as they are called, is your dear friend who you will 
date a few months later. 

you will wake up the next day in the fabulous 
hotel that your best man and 
a friend of yours who you met 
by chance arranged for you and your husband 
to find that one of the videos you posted from 
the wedding is going viral on instagram. 
it is your first look video, and no one, friend or foe, 
will quite know what to make of it. 
within days, it will amass millions of views.
you will keep posting. 

you will start to get inundated with direct messages from people who are fascinated with 
your body after you get an idea to post videos of
yourself in lingerie that your husband found 
for you at a clothing swap, and because you are
struggling financially, you will decide to start talking 
about your Patreon more. 
to no one’s surprise but your foes, you will get 
subscribers, enough to make hundreds of dollars 
in the first two months you talk about it. 
in the meantime, you will keep going viral. 

a few weeks before your next birthday, on 
your regularly scheduled Internet travels, 
you will come across a creator who found out 
that she copes with mast cell activation syndrome 
and that she has been taking H1 and H2 inhibitors 
for it. you will tell your husband what you saw, and seeing as you've already been taking H1 
inhibitors for some time, he will find you H2 inhibitors. 
you will take them as an experiment, and the 
difference is like night and day. you will feel as 
though you are emerging from a decade in a 
long, dark cave. 

the change will frighten you. 
you will keep going anyway. 

you don't know it yet, but despite everything - 
you will do more than your best this year. 

Allēna 6/5/2026

It is storming outside and Emerson taught me how to play dominos today.

It was pretty fun although he kicked my ass.

I also saw this prompt about small spells to do on your birthday, and half of an enormous poem formed in my head while I was taking my 30 minutes of boredom based on the suggestion to write a letter to yourself a year ago even though it isn’t my birthday. So I’m going to post it here for posterity’s sake.

“annus epilepticus”

you don't know this yet
but the premonitions you've been having of
your own death are true
and a mere few weeks past your 28th birthday 
you will die - just enough - to touch the 
robe of any god you know 
when the subtle fire you've always been 
strikes you back 
and strikes you back again 

you will hang on for just long enough 
for your kind partner to burst into the room
cradle you in his arms 
and guide you, screaming in mortal terror, back into the light 

you have never been good at dying 
but this will take you a hair’s breadth from death
and you will bear the scars on your temporal lobe 
(and speech pattern) long afterwards to prove it

and whether it is by fate or some wild magic 
this will save your life in more ways than you will
know 

for most of July, you will not be able to speak
coherently. you will eventually choke out 
your suspicion that the seizures induced 
Wernicke's aphasia, and everyone who knows 
you will agree with you, a cruel fate for 
you, but more importantly, you will come back…
changed. 

you will start writing better poetry. something 
about the way your brain burned and cracked 
will allow you to see things from a different angle,
to look askance at language in a way you 
never did before. 
the partner that saved your life will convince you 
to start attending a poetry workshop held in a coffeeshop that july. the rhythm of writing and 
performing regularly amongst very talented 
wordsmiths will help break you out of your 
agoraphobia. 
one of them will take notice of the way you
perform, noting its similarity
to Shakespearean acting and encourage you to attend the open mic he runs. 
so you start performing at Linneman's Riverwest Inn again for the first time since 2023 at his 
personal request. 

you will somehow muddle through your divorce 
proceedings on july 23, five years and 13 days 
since leaving your ex husband, and it's a miracle 
you will be able to do that since even getting 
out of bed to use the bathroom still feels like running a marathon, but you're so hell-bound 
and determined to get rid of this man that 
when the judge asks if the marriage fell apart 
due to incompatibility of temperament, you will 
shout ABSOLUTELY loud and clear as day into
the microphone. (you will also show up hours 
early to the hearing. you don't want to miss this
for the world.) when your ex husband replies, it's the most defeated you will ever hear him. 
spite has always been your strong suit. 
the judge will finalize your divorce, and 
then the question arises of who you will
marry next. 

you will leave the answer up to the two people 
you consider yourself married to 
already, a man who cannot lie 
and a boy who cannot tell the truth. 
in a rare show of generosity, the liar boy
will concede to the honest man. 
he will live to regret that decision. you, however,
will not. 

as the months progress, it will become increasingly clear that despite your love 
for him, your relationship with the liar is built 
on sand. surviving your seizures will leave 
you with a new perspective on life and 
precious little patience for wasted time or 
undue stress, and the liar will waste your time
and mess with your head. 
you will tell him he is killing you. he displays no 
remorse. you will scream, beg, plead, and stop 
short of borrowing and stealing to get him to
listen. 
despite his damn near single-minded obsession 
with you that will make you feel like you're
emotionally his hostage, he will not care about
the affect he's having on your other relationships 
or your well being. 

one very early fall morning, after you've spent the 
entire night in the emergency room with him and 
your fiancé, “heat above” by greta van fleet will 
come on. your fiancé will remark that it feels as though you are driving into a different 
timeline as dawn breaks. you, spiritual and full of subtle fire as ever, will respond that you feel it, too. your liar will 
say nothing. 

finally, in november, after 
months of suspicion that he's cheating on you (despite being polyamorous!) 
he will get sloppy and you'll catch him when he
forgets to turn his location off. 
this is your red line and you will dump him over it. 
to add insult to injury, he will tell you you're 
overreacting. 
you will know better than that by now. 

despite your heartbreak, you will feel more 
free after leaving him than you have in months. 
you will compile a dossier of evidence against him
and publish it to the world. 
this is when the mask and gloves come off and it 
will spark
a months long battle of he-said-she said online. 
he will slander both you and your future husband. 
you will have even fewer regrets about leaving 
him. 

one of the final acts you will do before moving 
out from the apartment you and your fiancé share with your liar
is a manifestation ritual that will make you feel 
powerful beyond imagining - you will gaze into 
a mirror with your future husband while “heat above” plays in the background. you will picture yourself in red sunglasses driving down water street with more money and fame
 than sense, husband 
next to you. you pass your former lying flame on 
the street, roll down your window, wave to him like a queen, and ride on 
as if he had never meant a thing to you in the 
first place. 

you will choose “heat above” as the song for your
intentions for the year to come after how that ritual made you 
feel. 

on January 5th, you will feature at Linneman's, your poetic home. 
you will write a brilliant bespoke set for the 
occasion, combining music, poetry, and 
references to shakespeare at the 
host’s request. the audience is small, but they are
so engaged that they offer you a standing ovation at the end.
you have nothing prepared for an encore, so you
will offer them a story about your eccentric 
great uncle. 
it will go over the time limit, but not a soul will 
care. 

you will marry your husband on January 23rd in the 
same coffeeshop that helped you work through 
your agoraphobia. the wedding will be incredibly 
small, but it will be the finest wedding either of 
you have ever attended. the poet who runs 
the workshop that got you writing again will 
write a special poem for the ceremony. 
your friend and frequent collaborator will travel
all the way from Madison to attend. your 
husband's best man will travel all the way from
iowa. your “gentleman of debauchery”, as they are called, is your dear friend who you will 
date a few months later. 

you will wake up the next day in the fabulous 
hotel that your best man and 
a friend of yours who you met 
by chance arranged for you and your husband 
to find that one of the videos you posted from 
the wedding is going viral on instagram. 
it is your first look video, and no one, friend or foe, 
will quite know what to make of it. 
within days, it will amass millions of views.
you will keep posting. 

you will start to get inundated with direct messages from people who are fascinated with 
your body after you get an idea to post videos of
yourself in lingerie that your husband found 
for you at a clothing swap, and because you are
struggling financially, you will decide to start talking 
about your Patreon more. 
to no one’s surprise but your foes, you will get 
subscribers, enough to make hundreds of dollars 
in the first two months you talk about it. 
in the meantime, you will keep going viral. 

a few weeks before your next birthday, on 
your regularly scheduled Internet travels, 
you will come across a creator who found out 
that she copes with mast cell activation syndrome 
and that she has been taking H1 and H2 inhibitors 
for it. you will tell your husband what you saw, and seeing as you've already been taking H1 
inhibitors for some time, he will find you H2 inhibitors. 
you will take them as an experiment, and the 
difference is like night and day. you will feel as 
though you are emerging from a decade in a 
long, dark cave. 

the change will frighten you. 
you will keep going anyway. 

you don't know it yet, but despite everything - 
you will do more than your best this year. 

Allēna 6/5/2026

I had no idea that it would be so difficult to write from  a prompt based off of my own songs…

We wrote from a prompt based off of my song “A Weapon”, and it was simultaneously surreal and like pulling teeth to write anything because I feel like I worked with any sort of metaphor involving my body – or really anyone’s – being a weapon nine years ago. I also don’t feel like my brain fully turned on until close to the end of workshop, so could have been part of the issue, as well.

Something to keep in mind if I ever run a workshop based off of my work… Huh…

-Allēna

I had no idea that it would be so difficult to write from  a prompt based off of my own songs…

We wrote from a prompt based off of my song “A Weapon”, and it was simultaneously surreal and like pulling teeth to write anything because I feel like I worked with any sort of metaphor involving my body – or really anyone’s – being a weapon nine years ago. I also don’t feel like my brain fully turned on until close to the end of workshop, so could have been part of the issue, as well.

Something to keep in mind if I ever run a workshop based off of my work… Huh…

-Allēna

I had this odd realization during my post-writers group smoke break today.

I think I – as well as my system as a whole – approach making art the same way that jazz musicians play music. I was thinking about this because the piece I ended up writing today in group pulled heavily from “My Island” and yet putting an entirely different spin on it, and it got me thinking about all of the different times that I’ve done that while making music especially.

And honestly, if I had to sum up my approach to just about everything in life, I would say that I approach most of my crafts like a jazz musician even though I don’t technically play jazz. I don’t believe in just one final product or making a recording or a piece the be all, end all. A single song can inspire me for over ten years and I’ll keep coming back to it lyrically, musically, poetically, even, in a sort of self-referential game of call and response, making something new with each iteration and reexamination.

In the process, I’m building a recursive universe the longer I make content and art.

I fucking love jazz.

-Allēna

I had this odd realization during my post-writers group smoke break today.

I think I – as well as my system as a whole – approach making art the same way that jazz musicians play music. I was thinking about this because the piece I ended up writing today in group pulled heavily from “My Island” and yet putting an entirely different spin on it, and it got me thinking about all of the different times that I’ve done that while making music especially.

And honestly, if I had to sum up my approach to just about everything in life, I would say that I approach most of my crafts like a jazz musician even though I don’t technically play jazz. I don’t believe in just one final product or making a recording or a piece the be all, end all. A single song can inspire me for over ten years and I’ll keep coming back to it lyrically, musically, poetically, even, in a sort of self-referential game of call and response, making something new with each iteration and reexamination.

In the process, I’m building a recursive universe the longer I make content and art.

I fucking love jazz.

-Allēna

“still life (2019)”

“untitled still life (2019)” 

I don't want to give names
to your fistfuls of hollow 
coffee cup still half full, overturned
baroque broken words, reaching for something
that forever seems older 
than you or I in every language 
well run dry, and yet 
despite yourself 
each moment in atemporal space
teeming with life

when we met, I 
wanted to drink myself into the ground,
an inelegant death like hemingway perhaps 
after bleeding worlds onto ten thousand pages
inspired by black coffee and gin 
I'm sober now and you're still empty glasses, 
the smell of pages, wine
and cigarettes after two years of silence 
I can still vanish into the liquor darkness of you
without ever tasting a drop
I don't want to die anymore 
(most days) 
and perhaps I am a fool
for wandering through your still life fortress of 
melancholy 

but you keep coming back to me, 
three hundred year old moment 
or perhaps you are a memory 
I've never been good at untangling how I feel
and some days I feel like I am made of iron
but today I feel like nothing more than glass - 


Allēna 3/1/2026 

“still life (2019)”

“untitled still life (2019)” 

I don't want to give names
to your fistfuls of hollow 
coffee cup still half full, overturned
baroque broken words, reaching for something
that forever seems older 
than you or I in every language 
well run dry, and yet 
despite yourself 
each moment in atemporal space
teeming with life

when we met, I 
wanted to drink myself into the ground,
an inelegant death like hemingway perhaps 
after bleeding worlds onto ten thousand pages
inspired by black coffee and gin 
I'm sober now and you're still empty glasses, 
the smell of pages, wine
and cigarettes after two years of silence 
I can still vanish into the liquor darkness of you
without ever tasting a drop
I don't want to die anymore 
(most days) 
and perhaps I am a fool
for wandering through your still life fortress of 
melancholy 

but you keep coming back to me, 
three hundred year old moment 
or perhaps you are a memory 
I've never been good at untangling how I feel
and some days I feel like I am made of iron
but today I feel like nothing more than glass - 


Allēna 3/1/2026 

I wrote this at workshop today.

I am the candle you allowed to go out
you would bind yourself to me but you’d never
bleed for me
and if you had fifty million words to say what you
meant
or anything at all
you’d ramble on, talking in circles
and in your haunted sound and your fury, you’d say
nothing –

did I ever mean a goddamn thing to you?
was I nothing more than another withering body in your bed,
another meal, another drink, another drug,
another stepping stone in your unanswered,
unmatched ambition?
there’s no way to tell now in this optimized
emptiness, is there?
I’ve tried to see through the cage of your lies
one too many times
so now I go about my petty tomorrows and you go about
yours on opposite sides of this compound fracture town
we are all bleeding at the seams
at the end of the day, aren’t we?

I don’t think fate was involved anymore
only hunger clawing at your insides
and when you finished devouring me in your
desperation, you corroded your soul
with something and someone else
another victim wrapped too tightly in your spell
who are you drowning with now?
of course they won’t see that the cords wrapped
around their neck aren’t love until far too late
of course they won’t have words for how you’re drinking
them dry, and
of course you won’t tell me their name
but I’ll hear their screams through
the grapevine anyway

out, out
brief candle
again and again
oh, that I would have
died hereafter
after what you did to me
but
watch me rise like the morning star
instead
burn out
shimmer and fall
knowing you can never again
touch me

-Castor 2/1/2026

“supplication”

you have taken the world that I was
and left me empty 
craving 
longing
is there anything that I can use to fill the chasm 
on the side of the bed where you once slept 

I stumble home 
if I can even still call it that 
for in the taking, you 
took more than just yourself 
you took everything that meant something to me
from this space and left it ruined 
just like me 

now even the flies are starving

sobs wrack my threadbare chest 
everyone that I once knew is turning
away from me and into their own personal 
darkness, tired
can you come back and give me anything 
even undo me again
please 

-Allēna 1/11/2026

We wrote object poems in workshop today.

faceless blessings in disguise 
looking askance at gift horses
with bejeweled eyes
are they empty or full to the brim
do I hoard them 
or do I give them away 
is it finally my time to come out of hiding
after all the time that was stolen from me 
this little thing is winking at me offscreen 
I think it's telling me everything is gonna be alright 
but that's what they said before 
and if I stuck them in a lineup their dead eyes would all glint the same 
people told me when I 
got up from the piano bench that fame 
would be inevitable 
I was always going to be someone 
I was always going to do something 
(as if I wasn't already a gift)
time after time I tried to run 
time after time I tried to just be 
dissolve into winter nights and simply be 
unremarkable with the man I swore I had chosen 
but what I know of myself is in the doing 
all I know of myself is in what I choose to give
away 
I let the rest of myself die 
collapsed into dead star self hatred 
lost somewhere deep in kaleidoscopic shadow 

-Allēna 12/21/2025

I went to the poetry workshop with Emerson again today and as such, I come bearing gifts.

This was the result of a TTRPG roll and it’s called “everything’s coming up lavender”

i was 17 when you first came to me
mind threatening to unravel in shades of crimson

now i swear everything's coming up lavender and
golden brown, i'm much madder now and 
while i can't say things are fine in this pit 
of snakes we live in, at least i feel
somewhat safe now that i found the melody i
was looking for 

the problem is that i sought you high and
low in all the wrong places, wrote my best songs
and lines to all the wrong people
it's sad to say that you found me at my worst, but
you loved me anyway

i'm a stubborn piece of shit and i know 
you know that, so are you
that's part of why i love you so fucking much
neither of us know when to quit when we know exactly what we want

so are we living the dream? maybe not yet
but do we have the grit to get there?
absofuckinglutely. and one thing's for certain
i know i will never be bored again

so thank you. thank you for not
giving up on this raging bitch 
thank you for sticking it out because
i loved you endlessly then and i love you endlessly now

-Allēna 8/3/2025

Here's the TTRPG if you want to snag a copy for yourself!

#bettertogethermke #Emerson #gay #lovePoem #poetryworkshop #queerjoy #QueerLove #synesthesia #t4t #transjoy #transmasc #transpoet #transpoetry #TTRPG #TTRPGCommunity

I went to the poetry workshop with Emerson again today and as such, I come bearing gifts.

This was the result of a TTRPG roll and it’s called “everything’s coming up lavender”

i was 17 when you first came to me
mind threatening to unravel in shades of crimson

now i swear everything's coming up lavender and
golden brown, i'm much madder now and 
while i can't say things are fine in this pit 
of snakes we live in, at least i feel
somewhat safe now that i found the melody i
was looking for 

the problem is that i sought you high and
low in all the wrong places, wrote my best songs
and lines to all the wrong people
it's sad to say that you found me at my worst, but
you loved me anyway

i'm a stubborn piece of shit and i know 
you know that, so are you
that's part of why i love you so fucking much
neither of us know when to quit when we know exactly what we want

so are we living the dream? maybe not yet
but do we have the grit to get there?
absofuckinglutely. and one thing's for certain
i know i will never be bored again

so thank you. thank you for not
giving up on this raging bitch 
thank you for sticking it out because
i loved you endlessly then and i love you endlessly now

-Allēna 8/3/2025

Here's the TTRPG if you want to snag a copy for yourself!

#bettertogethermke #Emerson #gay #lovePoem #poetryworkshop #queerjoy #QueerLove #synesthesia #t4t #transjoy #transmasc #transpoet #transpoetry #TTRPG #TTRPGCommunity