Julia Figliotti Riley (she/her)
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juliafigliotti.bsky.social
Julia Figliotti Riley (she/her)
@juliafigliotti.bsky.social
61 followers 110 following 200 posts
writer, poet, singer, songwriter, optimist, activist
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juliafigliotti.bsky.social
I've learned to listen when the Universe speaks to me.

#poem #poet #poetry
A dark blue-to-violet gradient background with a waving trail of sparkling light that begins at the top left of the graphic and travels downward to the bottom center. A poem attributed to Julia Figliotti reads: “At a time when I was low / laden down by questioning doubts / the Universe sent a piece of itself / to me / (who is also a piece of the Universe) / herself carrying certainty in a small frame / wrapped in flowing curtains that sparkled / like her very presence // And she greeted me like an old friend / and shared her recent stories / her favorite lessons / from her time on this plane // And then she fell silent / her eyes stilling on my form / and she leaned in and / focused the piercing purity of her energy on my smile / like she knew how each inhale had been / accompanied by a thin blade / sharp and grating // And she said / with the conviction of an undying star: / "Your instrument is all of you." // And I breathed free / and I believed her.”
November 14, 2025 at 8:01 PM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
"Lists" (excerpt)

#poetry #poem #poet
An overhead shot of a desk with a notebook, fountain pen, mug of tea, and a pink rose. The notebook has the following poem, attributed to Julia Figliotti, written on it: "Small tasks mingle with / defining moments / 'laundry' written down before / 'submit to publisher' / because I run out of clean underwear / faster than I'll ever run out of words"
November 13, 2025 at 5:54 PM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
Keep going
Keep growing
Keep glowing
November 10, 2025 at 4:02 AM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
Mary Oliver’s questions have been on my mind.

#acrostic #poem #poetry #MaryOliver #Poem133 #TheSummerDay
A hand holds a small yellow flower in front of a blurred verdant background. Overtop, an acrostic poem attributed to Julia Figliotti titled “One and Wild and Precious” reads: “Only in the quiet moments, the / Naked emptiness of tasklessness, do my / Eyes glaze over with cosmic sight // And the truth floats to the / Noxious surface of my polluted mind / Dispersing the detritus for the instance that is now // Weariness welcomes this whisper of reality / Invited always into consciousness / Logic and responsibilities be / Damned // And it settles comfortably / Natural as an underlying certainty / Daring to remind me once again // Perhaps this time the message will take hold / Right in the very bones of my soul, that the / End, the one we all know about, / Comes for each of us / In turn, and that / Ours are lives to live with glorious joy / Urgent in our celebration of whatever time we may / Still have left”
October 16, 2025 at 8:34 PM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
Sometimes it's a roller coaster, sometimes it's a fright fest. You're still the one I wanna go through time with <3
October 13, 2025 at 10:09 PM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
Lookin' at you, most world "leaders"

#haiku #poem #poetry
A haiku, titled “poor substitute” and attributed to Julia Figliotti, is written overtop the a grey canvass background: “too often, power / sidles in to fill the need / for human greatness”
October 9, 2025 at 6:35 PM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
Don’t shut it out. Feel the fury and sorrow and pain. But find joy, too.

#poetry #poem
An overhead view of a bowl filled with balls of yarn and pinecones. The following poem, titled “Knitting” and attributed to Julia Figliotti, is written overtop the image: “Humanity is collapsing / and I’m winding yarn into a ball / soft and warm like the lamb it was shorn from // It is a passive choice / when activism weighs heavy / and hope dribbles out of soul-deep wounds / carved by the very knives meant to feed us // My hands follow a pattern / craving the balm of creation in quiet form / built up row by row / the way I keep expecting my tolerance to be / when one more horrific act / (and then another, and another) / brings me to my knees // Is it cowardice to shut it out / and focus on bringing to semblance / the heroes of the seas / the singers of the depths / as though that’s any real substitute / for my own action / my own voice?”
October 5, 2025 at 2:27 AM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
This change of seasons is a big one for me. After 8 years in many roles, I'm leaving the Americans of Conscience Checklist. Gratitude to the wonderful folks I’ve volunteered with, the celebrations & rages we’ve shared, & the countless actions we’ve crafted & amplified to empower a kinder nation. (🧵)
October 1, 2025 at 4:44 PM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
This is the affirmation that opens Assata Shakur's brilliant and lyrical autobiography, "Assata."

May she rest in power. May we continue to believe.
September 26, 2025 at 6:25 PM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
"to love oneself enough to change is a higher form of living than obstinate stagnation"

You matter more than they could ever understand <3

#TransRightsAreHumanRights #TransLivesMatter #poetry #poem
A painted scene of clouds and stars reflected in calm waters with colors that reflect the transgender flag. The following poem, titled “Transcendent” and attributed to Julia Figliotti, is written overtop the scene: “Darling / you who know yourself / more deeply than they could ever comprehend / are the beauty of enlightenment embodied / forged in discovery / beveled with unrelenting truth and / quenched in authentic existence // Your undeniable brilliance / is not what blinds them — / they do that with their own blunted tools / embarrassed, for some reason, / to not understand / that to love oneself enough to change / is a higher form of living / than obstinate stagnation / rusting and sheathed in stone / waiting to fall free / instead of finding the strength / to release themselves / from the prison of the stories they believed / when they didn't know any better”
September 20, 2025 at 3:25 PM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
Aw, hbd LJ <3 (even if I totally forgot about you)
September 15, 2025 at 3:02 AM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
Recorded tonight's #poem because I want to remember how I feel right now

#GoBills #poetry
September 8, 2025 at 5:51 AM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
My Therapist Has a Garden 💚

#acrostic #poem #poet #poetry
An acrostic poem attributed to Julia Figliotti titled “My Therapist Has a Garden” that reads: “Maybe I just never expected to know / You beyond the careful compilation of regular hours // That could be why my / Heart dazzled at the / Even delivery of this absolute / Revelation, minuscule / Admission thought it was / Personal to the smallest degree, arguably / Inconsequential, a / Silly / Throwaway nicety // How I marvel / At the time I / Spent not knowing // An earth-nurturer has been sitting on the other side of the screen // Growth is a specialty of yours, I know / And perhaps I should have / Realized how / Deep that would /Extend into the / Natural world”
August 27, 2025 at 8:24 PM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
Last week I was pulling weeds when my client, a lovely elderly woman, asked me to check the time. I reached around to look at my phone and saw a #monarch #butterfly. She landed on the milkweed plant growing right behind me and laid a single egg on the underside of a leaf.

#acrostic #poem #poetry
An acrostic poem attributed to Julia Figliotti titled “Witness to a Bead of Wonder” that reads: “Wriggling my fingers into a dry garden bed / I / Turned at the call of Grandmother Time to find / Nature / Ethereal and floating save for a / Single instance of / Stagnant creation // Taking a breath and holding it, I became an / Onlooker to a miracle birthed // And I never thought I'd have that chance in all my years to come // Before my focused / Eyes / A new existence was ever-so gently / Deposited under the shadowed canopy of sustenance // Oh, how my mind became clean / Faithfully attuned to the moment // Within a blink it was over, the / Only evidence left behind a / Nestless egg / Darling in its isolation, the / Embodiment of the / Regality of the skies”
August 11, 2025 at 6:14 PM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
@hcrichardson.bsky.social writes us letters every night. On Monday I wrote her an #ode.

Background photo by Urs Lendermann

#poetry #poet
A poem attributed to Julia Figliotti titled “In Gratitude to Heather Cox Richardson” that reads: “Her voice is like the steady knell / of buoys on a rising swell / a gentle gong that vibrates song / to keep sea-farers strong // She shares a message every night / to guide us through surrounding fright / a calming tone that carries home / the evening's heavy load // Through history she tells the truth / of actors both brave and uncouth / and ties it to the daily news / I cannot bear to view // And even on my darkest days / I find my aching, weary way / back to her door to beg for more / of what we're fighting for // Without her strength I would not stand / so I shall seek her open hand / and lift my bones to face the cold / and hear what must be told”
August 1, 2025 at 5:48 PM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
I will never apologize for loving myself deeply.

#poem #poetry
A poem attributed to Julia Figliotti titled “My Love” that reads: “Sometimes I call myself ‘baby’ / like when I’ve done a good job / or made myself proud / or when I need someone who cares for me / to tell me it’ll be alright // And I’m reminded, when I do, / that no one will ever be able to love me / as well as I love myself // And my lonely heart breaks a little / to let go of the desire for such adoration / from outside my own shell // But I tell myself / ‘It’s okay, baby’ / and / ‘I’ve got you, sweetheart’ / and / ‘I love you, darling’ / and my lonely heart mends a little / to bask in such adoration / from inside my own shell”
July 26, 2025 at 5:03 AM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
Exploring the value of insignificance in this week's #acrostic #poem.

#poetry #poet
An acrostic poem attributed to Julia Figliotti titled “I Am a Speck in the Universe” that reads: “In moments of despair, my worth vanishes // Amid the magnitude of All, I am a / Mere mote of matter, infinitesimal and unseen // And yet // Stories exist in me / Precious and waiting to be / Exhaled into the / Cacophony of the never-ending tumult / Kindred to humanity yet all their own // Images bleed from my / Nascent dreams into pages and melodies and sounds // This minuscule particle that I am / Houses life so vibrant / Ennui evaporates out of the cup it would spill from // Understanding comes in waves / Never staying too long, lest / It comfort me in contentedness unearned / Vulnerable as I am to the / Ego of importance / Resistant as I am to / Solemnity for / Extended periods of time's construct”
July 23, 2025 at 6:26 PM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
This is the best "you sound just like #StevieNicks" comment I've ever received and the user deleted it after a couple days 😭 So glad I snagged a screenshot!

#FleetwoodMac #FleetwoodMacTribute #TributeBand #songbirdsWNY
A screenshot of a YouTube video titled "'Sara' Fleetwood Mac cover performed by Songbirds: A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac" with a comment that reads "The lead singer has mastered the vocal technique of Stevie Nicks which I always described as spot on pitch and singing through an electric fan with the microphone behind the fan. Hey don't get me wrong, in 1980 I named my daughter after this song."
July 23, 2025 at 3:13 AM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
#AndreaGibson has been spilling into the crevices of my mind for a week.

I will be forever grateful for their #poetry, their humanity, and their authentic presentation of life in all its the moments.
A poem attributed to Julia Figliotti titled "For Andrea, Again" that reads: "If I could hand the microphone to anyone / clear the stage / aim the spotlight / it would be you / let the glory of your words echo / through the canyons of our gasping souls / let the softness of your / reaching connection / leave trails of goosebumps along / the touch-starved flesh of our flesh-eating species / I would open the hollow veins of our / listless brethren / that they might feel / the aching love / thundering / with each remembered beat / of your glorious heart / and the world would burn / in the radiance of your goodness / screaming in gratitude / for this caustic healing / so long overdue"
July 22, 2025 at 5:44 AM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
Yesterday was a Big Cry™️ day.

#poetry #freeform #poem #poet
A poem attributed to Julia Figliotti titled "Reality Check" that reads: "Do you ever decide to let reality in? / Let it wash over you in growing waves that have been patiently confined to a tank in your mind just so you could get through moments and hours and days? / Do you ever decide to try to feel it as deep as your combined humanity and self-preservation will allow? // Do you ever wake, suddenly, and weep? / Eyes stinging as the sins of your species pour down your cheeks, as the cruelty sinks in with untouchable speed? / In all of the suffering that surrounds us, does your undeniable comfort ever call you to scream out how you haven't earned this, don't deserve this any more than those who bleed themselves dry just trying to stay alive in a system constructed on breaking their stride? / Do you curse yourself for surviving or thriving or abiding by the rules set by soulless fiends, driven by greed and content to watch us perish by the tides of rising seas? // And then / once it has washed through you / (did it take a minute, did it take ten?) / do you dry yourself off and breathe it all out / until reality is on the outside again?"
July 18, 2025 at 2:02 AM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
A #sonnet from a Saturday long past.

#poem #poetry #poet
A sonnet attributed to Julia Figliotti titled “Never Will I Ever” that reads: “It is what is untouchable that tries / the limits of our self-imposed restraints / and whether we'll resist the echoed cries / of sirens in a dark, familiar lake // It is what is unthinkable that creeps / unbidden to the loneliest of thoughts / a question undeserved and over-steeped / that won't belong but cannot be forgot // It is what is undoable that squirms / beneath the outer layers of the skin / an exile from a palace strong and sure / with walls built high to keep the monster in // It is what is uncertain for all time / a mystery forever undefined”
July 3, 2025 at 1:53 AM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
Sometimes I add little Easter eggs into my #FleetwoodMac tribute band's social media posts and photos to make people laugh, and a lot of those times they're so subtle that no one notices and I feel sad.

Anyway follow @songbirdswny on lotsa platforms.
A photo of the band members from Songbirds: A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac. In the background is a stop sign with words added above and below so the whole thing reads "DON'T STOP THINKIN' ABOUT TOMORROW"
July 2, 2025 at 11:37 PM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
Since I started #writing daily #poetry, I've consistently dreaded Wednesdays — #limerick day. For such a simple formula, they baffle me. I've started leaning into my dislike & looking at it as a day of rest where I can phone it in. It's a good reminder not to take myself too seriously as a #poet.
A poem attributed to Julia Figliotti titled "limericks, amirite?" that reads "there once was a poet elated / to write in a style that she hated / for despite all its flaws / an obvious draw / was how quickly the task was complated"
June 25, 2025 at 11:15 PM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
We did it! Way to go, team 🤘

Thank you to everyone who helped these two WNY Music Makers raise $405 between sunrise and sunset on #TheLongestDay, for a (current) total of $2,060 raised to #EndALZ!
June 21, 2025 at 2:34 AM
juliafigliotti.bsky.social
Thank you VERY much for the two donations that got WNY Music Makers to 20% of our team's goal!

I def thought we'd have more than just the 2 of us on #TheLongestDay which is why the goal is soooo out there 😂 but we have til July 31 to raise $10,000 so we're gonna try!
June 21, 2025 at 1:17 AM