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Melissa Cosgrove

@melissacosgrove.bsky.social

690 followers 1.9K following 810 posts

Writer & Systems Thinker Developing The Care Paradigm—a framework and blueprint for building a world rooted in care. Based in Chicago. https://cosgrove.substack.com/ | https://linktr.ee/melissacosgrove

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Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · Sep 11

New here? Welcome!

I’m Melissa — writer, philosopher, and systems thinker. Disabled, AuDHD, and chronically ill. I write about care, rupture, and repair across disability, parenting, culture, and politics. I say the quiet parts out loud and make patterns visible.

Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 7d

Life keeps committing to the bit: rupture, repair, repeat.

A few days ago, someone with a platform told me I didn’t belong in the conversation. Today, my first paper was accepted — anonymously peer-reviewed — for an academic conference on feminism and myth.

Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 10d

That’s okay, I don’t need you to. 👍

Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 10d

I write a Substack, my dude. I was adding my two cents to the conversation. Since you’re not engaging with the argument and seem more focused on discrediting me, I’ll take that as confirmation the piece struck a nerve.

And to answer you, yes, I wrote it. Not that it seems to matter, apparently.

Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 10d

Ironic, given the essay’s about projection.

Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 10d

Exactly. She’s not MAGA — she’s Method. Every reaction is part of the show. I wrote about it in depth in my essay → bit.ly/48XsG6O

Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 10d

The Atlantic calls it commerce. I see recursion. Taylor is performing the cycle of attention and appetite that defines modern art itself. She’s not the product; she’s the proof. My essay → bit.ly/48XsG6O
cc @theatlantic.com @skornhaber.bsky.social

The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · 11d

Taylor Swift’s new chart topper is an achievement of e-commerce, not music, argues @skornhaber.bsky.social:

Buy This Album. Now Buy It in Green.

Here’s how Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl just shattered sales records.

bit.ly

Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 10d

Defector calls Showgirl bad because it’s “about greed.”
Of course it is. It’s about us. My essay → bit.ly/48XsG6O
cc @mckinneykelsey.bsky.social @defector.com

Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 10d

Everyone’s dissecting The Life of a Showgirl like it’s confession.
It’s not. It’s confrontation.
→ bit.ly/48XsG6O

The Mirrorball Cracked

On the Life of a Showgirl and the Collapse of the Crowd

bit.ly

Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 16d

If Glass House I was about being seen,
Glass House II is about what sees us back.

A reflection on light, distance, and the transparency of the universe; how the cosmos itself is a kind of relation.

🔗 bit.ly/4nCrCtx

A deep-space image of the Horsehead Nebula, with clouds of purple, blue, and amber gas illuminated by distant starlight. The title text reads “Glass Houses II: On light, relation, and the cosmic continuity of seeing.” The image evokes transparency, scale, and the shared architecture of illumination across the universe.

Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 17d

Every revolution needs at least one Roxanne. The rest of us can bring snacks and spreadsheets.

Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 17d

We think of being seen as vulnerability, and seeing as power.
But what if they’re the same thing?

Glass House I explores the quiet reciprocity between sight and exposure — the way illumination reveals us all.

🔗 bit.ly/4mNGO5S

A woman stands in a dimly lit room, looking upward toward soft light streaming through a round window. Dust and mist catch the light in visible rays, surrounding her in a quiet, reflective atmosphere. The image accompanies the essay “Glass Houses I: What happens when sight becomes relation” on cosgrove.substack.com.

Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 20d

News about the Flotilla today is not just geopolitical — it’s temporal. This is about who claims time.

I wrote The Tempo of Relation to name precisely that: how dominance accelerates fracture, how relation returns time to us.

🔗 bit.ly/3IRQy10

Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 22d

Hahahaha.... to the psych I would say that pattern recognition across disciplines is a special interest of its own. 😉

Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 22d

Duct tape on glasses. A broken laptop screen. A frayed charger. Sometimes survival and creation share the same tools.

A pair of lavender glasses held together with silver duct tape rests on a rose-gold laptop. The laptop’s screen is cracked and frayed at the edges, glowing with a blurred music app in the background. Soft light falls across the scene, emphasizing the sense of makeshift survival and persistence.

Reposted by Melissa Cosgrove

Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 22d

Since the Ezra & Ta-Nehisi discussion is still happening: the main point I think most are missing is that Klein is saying the role of the journalist-intellectual is to do strategic politics, whereas Coates says the role of the journalist-intellectual is to tell the truth

190 1.1K 6.8K

Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 22d

This is amazing — your resilience is inspiring, Amanda!

Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 23d

I've also been unemployed since then (though still working on personal projects) as well. My advice is this: you are not the problem. You are probably an excellent hire, but the truth is that this is the worst market in our lived history. And they don't want us to know that, either. Stay strong!

Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 23d

The arc doesn’t bend on its own — true. What bends it is often the unseen labor of care, rupture, and repair. That’s the part of justice I’m writing to name.

Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 23d

Today’s writing partner, Archer. 🐈‍⬛ 📝

Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 23d

More modern art. 🖼️

www.tiktok.com/t/ZTM2vjo5D/

Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 23d

I’m writing this in the dark. Our power was shut off today with a $602.19 price tag to turn it back on. This is what collapse feels like in real time.

🔗 bit.ly/4mQTlG0

Today Without Electricity

The day my book proposal went out and my power went off

bit.ly

Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 23d

Hehehe I suspected as much. No worries! 😌

Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 23d

This is modern art.

Steve Marmel @marmel.bsky.social · 23d

ICE attempted
and failed to disappear a food delivery guy.
It needed to be scored.

Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 23d

Yay chronic illness, amirite??

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Melissa Cosgrove @melissacosgrove.bsky.social · 23d

I been sayin’ this 😭