Because I think apocalypses, more than anything, are personal. I survived my apocalypse. I’ve held my heart in my hand and watched the sun rise and for so many mornings, the universe’s utter indifference to my pain hurt so much, I thought it would kill me. Because why would the sun continue to rise when my world was ending? But beauty? That shit is relentless. And my heartbeat? It’s the most beautiful thing I know. Continue reading My little life.
So there’s that—harrowing grief that stretches and swallows me whole. I feel really small in the face of it and I’m running out of emotional real estate to house it. But there’s also progress. Sometimes I think of a pun and it makes me laugh so hard, my teeth hurt. Sometimes I catch myself talking to myself, and it feels like I’m high-fiving myself. Everyday I catch glimpses of myself and it reminds me that I’m here; that I am present; that I am getting back to myself. Continue reading Some things I know for sure:
Andy wavers between the Citi hoppa and KBS bus; which one he should board? It is 10pm on a cold Thursday night and Kencom is relatively empty. Behind him, a homeless man laying out cardboard, settling in for the night. Andy considers giving him his jacket but changes his mind, thinking, everybody got problems. I don’t have a job and he’s homeless. The universe, man. … Continue reading Nairobae(an excerpt from Equipoise)
In holding my breath I have learnt that I can hold my ground. I used to think of myself as a panicked, flailing kind of person. I’ve learnt that I’m a lot calmer than I realise. I think of myself, holding my breath, staring at the ceiling, trying to see how far I can count until my chest burns, or my vision blurs. I just lie there, not gasping, perfectly at peace. Partly because of this, I know that if need be, whatever else life throws at me, more often than not, all I’ll ever have to do is hold my breath, and lie perfectly still until it passes. Continue reading Taking stock, 2020
Sometime last year, my cousin was driving me to a doctor’s appointment. While we searched for music for the road, I mentioned that I’d never listened to a single John Mayer song and he sought to change that. We listened to an entire album that I couldn’t tell you anything else about other than it has a song about slow dancing in a burning room. … Continue reading Burn it down.
And then there are cracks. Moments that should ordinarily be a quick tear when I encounter something that moves me but my body malfunctions and my grief flows out in barely contained guttural screams. It’s contained quickly. But it’s still a swollen river: it can only deviate from its course; fuck some shit up. Continue reading Little sorrows
Meditation on (the catharsis) of violence and punishment/(as) justice. Klaus, The Originals, has uttered variations of this title numerous times. I think I, like a lot of people, are drawn to powerful characters because there’s so much that is out of our control in our daily lives. So many indignities and violences that we can’t do anything about. So a character like Klaus provides that … Continue reading “I will condemn you to a fate far worse than death.”
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about community. In little blocks. Lately, it’s been a building block of community— friendship and trust. The cyclical nature of friendship and trust. How trust is implicit in building a friendship and later in maintaining it. It’s almost like, the earning of trust is beside the point, giving it is where it’s at. I don’t know, there’s an earnestness … Continue reading Isn’t that how love works sometimes?
I oscillate between an arrogance about my survival and a debilitating awareness of my life’s precariousness. It’s increasingly more of the former now. A year ago, it was only the latter. At my most precarious, I ended up isolated in a hospital room, immunocompromised and on the verge of malnutrition. I’d barely eaten in three weeks and by this point, I couldn’t keep food down … Continue reading Rest in kindness Naphtaly.
For Catapult, I wrote about our mothers, the terrible marriages they are in and the things they tell us bout surviving those marriages. “I wondered if part of surviving your husband’s betrayal is assuming that of all the women, you had to have been the smartest; you had to have been the one he was most honest with when it came to money; that you’re … Continue reading Do not marry a politician and other kitchen table things.
