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If you’re new here. This is a way out. A stream started in the peak of grief. the most recent additions are at the bottom. It’s a scroll through the tunnel. I’m not on the other side yet, doubt I’ll ever be. Take or leave what you will. Sending love to you fellow human, we got this 🙂 Also the photographs breathe better in laptop view. All copyrights reserved.

“The most beautiful part of your body
is where it’s headed. & remember,
loneliness is still time spent
with the world.” 

– Ocean vuong

I sit, at the beginning of the rest of my life. Somewhat directionless, often restless and mostly fearful. Words have always been my refuge. Pictures have been the God of words, because they say things better, clearer. This page, visitor, is just a collection of written thoughts and wordless meditations conjured from deep within someone trying to find a bridge.

The lump that’s never really gone away from the first day you raised your voice at me, and as I, a perplexed toddler  ran towards your calves you plucked me off of you like flicking a lady bug off the palm of your hand – the gesture being so magnified by the victims lack of control.

Tonight as your eye lids drooped back into place covering your shame and smudged mascara – I was reminded about how quickly I had forgiven you back then. By evening I fell into a Narnia type slumber on top of your rising and sinking chest with the television now watching both of our silhouettes like a black and white classic silent film. In reflection I wonder to myself, when did I lose the reflex I had to forgive? When did we learn to keep a tab for the unpaid bills that float above the heads of people we claim to love.

Sitting next to you tonight – I cringe looking at how long the bill sitting above your head goes on for. Some things costing more than others, some being charged twice or even thrice, some justified, some ludicrous, some unavoidable. I want to nudge you awake and wash your feet or at the very least give you a hug but as the impulse to do so awakens in me – so do you. suddenly alert with your eyes blood red you  start cursing something under your breath with the most vehement of efforts. You stare through me and your lips clap hands with each other sending waves of fermented yeast to my nostrils as I try make out who you’re cursing or why you’re so angry. You stop abruptly, smile sadistically  and drop your head back to your chest. Your jaw seems tired as you adjust it momentarily smearing the red lipstick that now looks an off pink. Again you smile to yourself and I see your face the day we fetched you from rehab. Beard trimmed and mustache tucked tight. Me in school uniform, ashy knees and an imaginary permanent marker in hand. As you sped towards me with confident hope arms wide heart raw – I approached you with an eager outstretched arm sending it directly past your intentions and straight to that bill above your head. In capital letters I removed your smile and we stood in silent acknowledgement of what had been lost and what won’t ever be found again. I think that’s when you developed the habit of muttering.

So now years and miles and tears and pounds and permanent markers and chapsticks later – my lips have an urge to clap their own hands – mutter their own transgressions as I sit next to everything that is you. In the city of dreams I look down at her feet, our nail polish matching deep maroon in color-  my elbow begins to tick with a familiar impulse it throbs with a simple wish: If only I was brave enough to apologize before it was too late.

Her gut had its own way of going about things, and she was used to its executive decisions; the feeling of immediate safety some people gave her, and, conversely, the nausea others induced.

Zadie smith, on beauty

To see you again is to be reminded about my capacity for love. I have fields and fields of room to hold a heart in. I’m floored by you.

To live every day as if it had been stolen from death, that is how I would like to live

Garth Stein

“Do you remember being born? Are you thankful for the hips that cracked the deep velvet of your mother and her mother and her mother?
There is a curse that will be broken”

Beyonce, sandcastles

I wish you strength, pray for peace – send you light, when darkness schemes. For all our nights were sweet with glee, I pray (s)he brings you love that’s real

Langa Mavuso

Sometimes a useful delusion is better than a useless truth

Colson Whitehead

A woman thrice my age sat placing torn pieces of magazine into plastic bags and shaping them into small sculptures that she would then stuff securely into her bra -letting them soak in the sweat beads between her aged bossom and her torso. Teeth dangling like defense lawyers desperate for a reason their client hadn’t cared to take the right precautions for covering up the mess they had made of themselves, she salivated and smiled and made me remember a time when… My life had no reason to need reason. Aged 10 dirty fingernails from licking the tips, picking up ants and eating them like the spicy bottom bits of a packet of crips. Hair ballooning with an echo of “who do I need to be tame for?”. Dry knees, pink tongued, leaping over my two year old niece. White panty exposed every time I tempted fate and flung my round self over her future – there was no questioning my reasons for waking up that morning – that was the next best thing to do in the world ALWAYS. It trumped sleeping. Tomorrow was a “pass the parcel” gift – with layers and layers of wrapping paper and the music always stopped when I opened my eyes and it was in my hands. As she reached back towards her breasts she pulled out the recently wrapped sculpture, unravelled it and  began unconsciously attempting a new design. I envied how she seemed to have no recollection of the previous offering she had birthed into the world, she had nothing to compare her new work to. She had the liberty and freedom to risk failure because she didn’t know it’s consequences. Perception. I sifted through my memory for a time when that was my reality. When I too saw forward as if I had blinkers on my heart and the opportunity to create again was untainted by a doubt to deliver. Pained by something in her neck, perhaps a nerve, she flinched and jerked her hand up behind her head. Immediately her eyes lifted off the premature sculpture in her hand and scanned her view to see who was looking or maybe what had caused the sensation. Returning to the bag she paused. Looked up again. Looked down and scrunched up the potential masterpiece. Her next flinch, even more violent than the first, disrupted my trance and had me rummaging through my bag for dollar bills I had less need for than she. And as I did so, my thoughts followed suite and rummaged into my past collecting up images of times I knew I had more to offer but instead settled to please the onlookers who discredited my offering with their reluctance to understand difference. Onlookers with an intolerance for those who refused to assimilate towards their kind. Without choice or petition, we are thrust into life, like dropping an ice cube onto hot gravel. Soon after that we are maybe spat on for a few moments in an effort to keep us as cool as we can be kept before we lose hold of our design and reach far and wide for a reason as to why we were put here in the first place. Like plastic bags eager to be chosen for the next sculpting – we parade and parade and parade ourselves around and around and around , spiraling inward until we reach a place within ourselves that seems far more alluring to stay engulfed in than to wake up on a morning like this and attempt to reason with life again. I zipped my bag closed and clutched the dollar bills in my hand. Sweat beads from my palm rapidly soaking into these coffee machine tokens. My heart now fully exposed looked left and right at the onlookers who would bear witness to this gesture but my biggest fear was of the defense lawyers dangling before me. I didn’t want them to release from their captivity words of rejection. I didn’t want the truth to be spoken. I didn’t want this women thrice my age to tell me her life was just fine without my change. I didn’t want her to remind me that she never asked for it. I didn’t want her to break it down to me how much more fortunate she was in her bag lady world than I could ever hope to be in my Starbucks one. Ide hate hate hate for her to mock how dependent I am on these bills in my hand that I should really in fact be making sculptures out of. I shook in anticipation of her biting back and exposing my shallow life for what it is. And I knew she would. Her eyes twitched with a knowing that was gut wrenching and profound. I had to look down. And pause. I lifted my eyes, stood up and walked straight past her and her cart and her sculptures and back into my life. Hitting the pillow that night a surge of pain dashed through my neck, I rubbed the area and tried hard not to think about how I should have given the woman thrice my age money for bread. I closed my eyes and prayed that when I opened them there would be a parcel in my hands ready for the opening. I prayed that after all these years the music would have picked me again and stopped because it was my turn to play.

Breathe

Please understand that it’s not that I don’t care, but right now these walls are closing in on me. I love you more than I love life itself, but I need to find a place where I can breath.

India ARIE – BEAUTIFUL

….. Men too scared to stop acting like boys thinking we can love away their scars so we take the lashes of the insecurities they pour on us and lick our wounds in quiet mourning of the little girls we lose by the minute.

Mayda del valle

Do not grieve in isolation

“Take a shower. Wash away every trace of yesterday. Of smells. Of weary skin. Get dressed. Make coffee, windows open, the sun shining through. Hold the cup with two hands and notice that you feel the feeling of warmth.  You still feel warmth. Now sit down and get to work. Keep your mind sharp, head on, eyes on the page and if small thoughts of worries fight their ways into your consciousness: threw them off like fires in the night and keep your eyes on the track. Nothing but the task in front of you. Get off your chair in the middle of the day. Put on your shoes and take a long walk on open streets around people. Notice how they’re all walking, in a hurry, or slowly. Smiling, laughing, or eyes straight forward, hurried to get to wherever they’re going. And notice how you’re just one of them. Not more, not less. Find comfort in the way you’re just one in the crowd. Your worries: no more, no less.

Go back home. Take the long way just to not pass the liquor store. Don’t buy the cigarettes. Go straight home. Take off your shoes. Wash your hands. Your face. Notice the silence. Notice your heart. It’s still beating. Still fighting. Now get back to work.Work with your mind sharp and eyes focused and if any thoughts of worries or hate or sadness creep their ways around, shake them off like a runner in the night for you own your mind, and you need to tame it. Focus. Keep it sharp on track, nothing but the task in front of you. Work until your eyes are tired and head is heavy, and keep working even after that. 

Then take a shower, wash off the day. Drink a glass of water. Make the room dark. Lie down and close your eyes.

Notice the silence.

Notice your heart. Still beating. Still fighting.

You made it, after all. You made it, another day. And you can make it one more. You’re doing just fine. You’re doing fine.

I’m doing just fine.” 
― Charlotte Eriksson, You’re Doing Just Fine

I took up boxing as a form of grief therapy. My body loves it. My mind thrives and the tick in my spirit stills with the concentration of a sport so violent that requires you to stay calm and breathe. The violence of the last few beats of my life, I’ve done everything but breathe. My body has chosen, on my behalf, to take in air to keep me moving. Boxing is teaching me how to volunteer my breathe again. And how to allow violence to be rooted in purpose – that hope is in discovering your strength. I have never considered myself an athlete, but admired what a true athlete is. A physical fighter – someone viscerally in pursuit of a dream. They physically remind themselves daily why they were put on the earth. Their heart rate matches their desire to be the best or better at something. The discipline is incredible. I wish I discovered this sport earlier. I feel like it could have saved my life sooner. But maybe I needed the years I had with the little oxygen I had, maybe my life support machine arrived at the perfect time.

“If there’s magic in boxing, it’s the magic of fighting battles beyond endurance, beyond cracked ribs, ruptured kidneys and detached retinas. It’s the magic of risking everything for a dream that nobody sees but you.”

MDB

“To make a fighter you gotta strip them down to bare wood: you can’t just tell ’em to forget everything you know if you gotta make ’em forget even their bones. Make ’em so tired they only listen to you, only hear your voice, only do what you say and nothing else. Show ’em how to keep their balance and take it away from the other guy. Then you gotta show’em all over again. Till they think they’re born that way.”

MDB

“Instead of running from the pain like a sane person would do, you step into it.”

Million Dollar baby

A sigh of relief. Landing in a city, in a home, with as little expectation as there is clouds in the sky. You know when you know. I breathe easier here. I am more of who I am. What a privilege, to enjoy ones self.

The image of two black women on top of the world has recently been singed into my memory. There’s something truly profound about seeing my people, those who have been birthed and raised in a societal arena that has done everything in its power to suppress us, rise anyway. There’s something about watching us overcome, and stand boldly in a light we have conjured from deep within our pain, our loss and our perseverance. We defeat odds and that’s why they will continue to try and trip us , because surely in their mind it just isn’t a fair race. There must be something that gives us a genetic advantage, there must be some secret we are keeping from them. I can neither confirm nor deny.

“black women breathe flowers, too.

 Nayyirah Waheed, Salt

“No one born into the minority has the luxury of giving up, even if we do not win enough of the time.” 

Stacey Abrams

Chin Up Bdoll

DLS

有没有你。 我甜蜜的爱，我能量消耗的快乐球，你是礼物。 我不知道为什么我被选来照顾你，但我很高兴有一艘船，通过它你照亮了别人。 你可以进入我内心最深的金库，我很震惊地知道它的存在。 你帮我疗伤，帮我笑。 当你离开的时候，我非常想念你，我知道我可以在我的每一次呼吸中接近你。 我想做正确的你，我奉献了我生命中的一大块在狂喜中一起玩。 我很感激你选择了我。 我们玩吧。

Fellow orphans, have to re-define their relationships to one another. What used to be your sibling becomes a mirror or a solution that can be used to sift out parts of yourself that have never served you. They become adults and human beings who also realize that as much as you’re all that is left, they show you just by standing that losing more isn’t something to fear. The peak of grief is almost a catalyst to risking more, loving harder and taking less bullshit. Parentless, You have to make a new pact, you in?

“I don’t talk like you. I don’t walk and I don’t move like you. Peace be still the thoughts in my mind I don’t think like you, you won’t find me in the crowd. On the moonlight you won’t see my reflection in the water. I’m burning down my dreams unit they fly, like ashes in the wind with no direction. Quiet the monster in me. I still need you, but you’ve been watching from a distance, too afraid to speak your mind, I’m still smiling at all reasons – there’s a space where we survive. Time is racing, we’re becoming who we are – if there’s growth in our resistance then there’s freedom in our fall.
Quiet the monster.”

Liberation era

I dreamt there was a thirteenth month of the year. It did not disturb the order , it did not add or subtract from the New Years resolutions and December family time. It floated in between and gave me a chance to escape. It held me and my rejection better than the floors and walls that had witnessed my grey year flicker off. It sat with me and around me and blanketed my restlessness with a care that said “I’ll take it from here – let go sweet girl, let go and breath”

I’ve never seen a life flicker shut so abruptly as that cctv showed. But is there a grace to the immediacy of the ending. The lack of struggle, of uncertainty, of waiting. In the 13th month, I got to taste being on the other side of the bullet. It gave me time to reconsider how early I set my alarm for. Being allowed to let go fully, makes the insides of my palms want to hold on tighter and with better purpose.

” A disparate and privileged homelessness that mirrors the life of the mangrove tree with a root and vine system that operates simultaneously to settle and move on.” – Afrocartography

I am growing increasingly restless at being a nomad. My feet seek to be soaked in love that holds me accountable – my years seek to have more to look back on. That 13th month pricked my soul a bit – told me to face my silence and unstable hope, and for a change keep the eye contact and tell it where I need to be come May. We just don’t have that much longer. they do.

All Copyrights Reserved………. and if I die, one of them own em