My mother says she was in labour for seven days before giving birth to me. I don’t know. Guys, is this plausible? Anyway, I was the first of my mother’s three c-sections. The year I turned seven, my sister and I had a joint birthday party. Her birthday is two days after mine. All the children except three at the party were her friends. My … Continue reading Birthday Blues.
I am excessively aware and terrified of my heartbeat. The strength of it; the fragility of it;the aliveness of it; the finality of it. How it sums up the seemingly shrinking but yet expansive ordeal that my life has been this past year. Whilst people can gesture and make lists, I only have to sit really still for a moment. Everything that I am, everything … Continue reading My heartbeat and I, we got this.
Once your death sits on the floor with you, it never quite leaves no matter how hard you scrub the floors. I am constantly out of breath. I will always be out of time. Continue reading But at what cost?
We often think that going through life-altering things is an all-consuming endevour. We think people with terminal diseases just sit around waiting for death. Continue reading You know what’s funny? I can’t feel my tears.
In fact, you can read February’s list here. It’s unlocked and everything. Just so you know what you’re signing up for. Continue reading March: great writing all around.
Survival. I love the word survival, it always sounds to me like a promise. -Audre Lorde. A few weeks ago, I cried. Like, really cried. It is a Saturday evening and I’m scrolling down my Twitter feed, distracting myself, trying not to cry. I have been dangling tears since I left my surgeon’s office. The doorbell rings, and I hear my aunt’s voice asking … Continue reading Survival.
You have friends that will stay on the phone with you for eight hours. No V, our relationship isn’t telepathic, but thank you for calling when you did. You have friends that will offer to pay and accompany you to a therapy session. You have friends that won’t let you forget you matter even when you’re being an incredibly pessimistic piece of shit. You … Continue reading 22 things to remember when you’re incredibly annoyed by your continued state of aliveness.
There is a tiny little matter called bodily autonomy: the idea that your body belongs to you and you can do with it whatever you want. It also means that you get to decide what is done and isn’t done to your body. It’s why you can’t be forced to donate blood or an organ; it’s why dead people are buried with organs that could be useful to people languishing in hospitals; they did not consent to have their organs donated. We get that, right? So how come we don’t get that the choice to abort, or not, should entirely be a woman’s; that the only way the government and other people should be involved in this, is if they are providing legislation that makes safe abortions every woman’s right and minding their business respectively. Continue reading Yellow.
My second memory, is me throwing up in the toilet after a whole day of running around, moving into this house. My college was in a very hot and dusty town. This town along with school, killed my already elusive joie de vivre. Even now, fifteen months after I officially left school, there are parts of me that are yet to be reawakened; anxieties to be rationalized. By the time we got our house in livable condition, I was so exhausted and dizzy, throwing up was more logical a reaction than any. Continue reading The way music stays with you.
And then Drake’s Hotline Bling happened and I was done. That song destroyed the goodwill I still had left for hip-hop in me. Because on the surface it’s a sad, albeit catchy, song about heartbreak, but then you think about it and it’s the kind of subtle misogyny that makes you want to crawl up in a fetal position and weep for days. Continue reading Drake honey, your misogyny is showing.
