i don’t know what living a balanced life feels like
when i am sad
i don’t cry i pour
when i am happy
i don’t smile i glow
when i am angry
i don’t yell i burn
the good thing about feeling in extremes is
when i love i give them wings
but perhaps that isn’t
such a good thing cause
they always tend to leave
and you should see me
when my heart is broken
i don’t grieve
i shatter
Favorite Quotes
“If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat. It is an unnecessary insult.”
"Be the change you wish to see in the world."
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
"...I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you; we are in charge of our attitudes."
“There is nothing more rare, nor more beautiful, than a woman being unapologetically herself; comfortable in her perfect imperfection. To me, that is the true essence of beauty.”
“Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.”
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Rupi Kaur
They Went Home by Maya Angelou
They went home and told their wives,
that never once in all their lives,
had they known a girl like me,
But... They went home.
They said my house was licking clean,
no word I spoke was ever mean,
I had an air of mystery,
But... They went home.
My praises were on all men’s lips,
they liked my smile, my wit, my hips,
they’d spend one night, or two or three.
But...
Insomniac by Maya Angelou
There are some nights when
sleep plays coy,
aloof and disdainful.
And all the wiles
that I employ to win
its service to my side
are useless as wounded pride,
and much more painful.
Saturday, April 27, 2019
Black and White: Choice
My victim story is powerful, vivid, well-rehearsed. It is mutating, evolving, expanding and expanding. It overshadows me. I am traced in it, overwhelmed. I am trapped in it, overpowered. I am trampled by it, overlooked. I am lost in its arrogance and redundancy. I retch self-doubt and loathing because of it. I keel over, dripping anxiety, entrenched in fear, and losing my wits.
Am I the victim or victimizer?
I want there to be gray, but, in fleeting moments of clarity, the story is silenced and truth is free to speak. "You recoil from and embrace pain. Hurt is your native language. It is as familiar as your flesh. It is as comfortable to you as home. In your experience, you are equal parts protagonist and antagonist. You are quell and rampage."
I listen, rigid from my desire to detach from and cling to truth. I sit. The conclusion comes to me as if it were an outsider and not a part of me all along. I accept. "Whether I betray myself or save myself, I'll face pain anyway." It is not the experience of pain I should focus on; it is the outcome. Hurt to hurt, or hurt to heal. Hurt to remain bound, or hurt to become free. Hurt to hold on to victimhood, or hurt to grasp victory.
Monday, April 22, 2019
Welcome to Holland
"And for the rest of your life, you will say, 'Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.'
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away…because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.
But…if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to go to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things…about Holland."
-Emily Perl Kingsley