Mowgli: Wardrobe Disappearance Deemed “Spiritual Sabotage.” Issues Formal Statement on “Emotional Architecture.” Refuses Floor-Based Living. Curses Sausage Austerity. Broods in Velvet.

Akela: Renames Coat Pile ‘Fort Vengeance.’ Declares Self “Exiled Empress of the Top Shelf.” Rejects All Contact Except Through Lint-Based Oracle. Tail Now a Weapon.

Poe: Initiates Blanket Coup. Claims Pillow “Found Unoccupied,” Despite Evidence. Launches Strategic Biscuit Diplomacy. Seen Whispering to Heating Vent. Suspected of Prophecy,

This Week in Underland:

• Wardrobes, Wind, and the Weight of the World:
  Furniture disappears.The cats remain judgmental. We’re holding the line—with packing tape, barely-attached sanity, and righteous indignation.
• Crack Smoke, Candied Ginger, and Celia in the Spotlight:
  Our neighbour’s backyard is a crime scene. Cardiff was kind. Newport had tacos. Celia’s interview drops June 14th—expect poetry, politics, and possibly mentions of Mowgli.
• Romanticising the Past: Gatekeepers Mistake Nostalgia for Literary Criticism (Again)

This week in Underland, the dismantling has officially begun. The house looks like a bomb went off—but we’re calling it “organized chaos” for now (though, let’s be honest, the emphasis is still very much on the chaos). We intend to clean. We really do. But writing together is so much better than sorting through dusty drawers or trying to remember where the hell we put the packing tape.

The cats are next on the list—or rather, they’re always on the list. Figuring out their move has been frustrating and, honestly, a little scary. It takes a staggering amount of trust to hand your babies over to someone else and just hope they make it safely across the world. We’re doing our best to stay calm and advocate for them like the anxious cat parents we are. The stress of it all is kind of unbelievable.

We went to Cardiff the other day, hunting for candied ginger. If you’re ever at the market, there’s a stall there that sells the absolute best stuff—zingy, full of flavour, addictive in the best way. There’s also a little Greek place that makes amazing gyros. Highly recommended.

We also stopped in Newport to see one of Celia’s good friends and grabbed tacos in the city centre. I always love seeing my wife in her new/old places—it feels like getting a little window into the life she had before we met.

Work-wise, I’ve been slogging through a fairly dull temp gig. We’re hoping that once we’re in Thailand, things will start to open up again—creatively and professionally. Right now it feels like we’re just holding our breath.

Celia was recently interviewed by Spillwords, that interview will be published on June 14th. Check back here and on our other socials we will be sharing. This is the interview link for when it does go live!

Oh and, our neighbours aren’t helping. Whenever the son is over, he sits out back smoking crack. It smells awful. We’re worried about how it’ll affect the cats, and us. It’s gross. We can’t wait to move.

In the meantime, we’re pouring everything we’ve got into Salt in the Wound. It’s been one of the only things keeping us grounded while the news from the United States, from Gaza, from just… everywhere, continues to spiral. The world feels borderline apocalyptic right now, and while we can’t control much, we can write. So we do.

We’re watching the LA protests get misrepresented by mainstream media. We’re reading thinkpieces with absolutely appalling takes on Gaza, written by people who have never once been at risk in their lives.

So yeah. Overall, we’re still stuck in this weird purgatory. It’s not the worst, but it’s not great. We’re just ready to begin our life outside of the US and UK. The sooner, the better.

-River

Well, here we are again. Time is frankly pissing me off. There’s just never enough of it.

It’s been a bit of a week, all in all.

Went to Cardiff. Dismantled the wardrobe. Had a job interview (we’ll see). Argued with the pet transporter over a rabies booster. Set an appointment with the vets. Dreading that visit already.

Started writing sonnets. Don’t even ask. We were scouting on Medium and stumbled across two articles lamenting the so-called decline of modern poetry. The usual: if it doesn’t rhyme, it’s not real poetry. Full of Wordsworth, Keats, and enough thesaurus entries to bruise a bookshelf. One article even claimed that modern poets are too focused on identity—“navel gazing,” I believe the term was. As if the beloved Romantics weren’t staring at their own bellies between opium binges. Imagine it. People writing about their own lives. How outrageous.

So, we wrote a defence.

And then, naturally, we wrote a sonnet about censorship. Then another about the bromance of the century taking a rocket dive. And another about late-stage capitalism disguised as a sandwich (maybe).

Mowgli calls it “revenge rhyme.” He sighs whenever we open the laptop, like our muses are on trial for crimes against rhythm and metre.

In the meantime, we’re still living in semi-packed chaos. Half the books are boxed, none of the socks match, and every time we touch the suitcase, it delivers a gut punch. It’s hard saying goodbye to a place while still trying to live in it.

But we’re trying. We’re writing. We’re resisting. And we’re holding on to the little joys—candied ginger, a cat on your lap, and the defiant pleasure of writing the kind of poetry the self-appointed gatekeepers hate.

Hurry up, Thailand. Please.

—Celia

Genocide.

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Poetry Collection, ‘Is this all we get?’

Prose Collection, ‘ Fifth Avenue Pizza’