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.
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.
You grow and change but some things stay constant. My writing still is for people who’ve felt invisible at some point but more than anything I want it to be obvious that for me, that demographic is black women. Man, it’s mad how aware my nineteen year old self was. This excerpt is a smack in the face, proof of how powerful my subconscious is. I may have figured out which group of people I want represented in my writing, but my sexuality has freshly become a riddle I’m extremely hesitant to solve. Because when I said queer, I thought I meant weird. But now, I am not so sure.
I lie prostrate on my bed, my whole body engrossed in the act of waiting. Idle hands trace patterns on my quilt while listening in to the conversation going on in the living room. My room is dark and quiet. I try to pace my stuttered breathing with the ticking of the hands of the alarm clock on my bedside table. A memory replays in … Continue reading Dad, the misnomer
This post was supposed to be a review of the Handmaid’s tale but due to my laziness and Kindle’s unlimited terms of use, I was unable to finish the book. So now I have nothing written and I’m incessantly mildly emotional. You know if you love me you’d buy me this book. Essentially, that’s been the theme for my last few months. Continuous, mild (not … Continue reading Books as mirrors.
It’s Monday. Another blog post is due. But your girl has a nasty cough, a congested chest, a ringing in my right year, a painful growing molar and a headache. Yeah yeah, it’s a standard cold(and some more.) I feel like a disgrace either way. Since when do Africans let a mere cold stop them from doing things? Where I’m from, colds aren’t even considered … Continue reading Bits
You were nine when he cornered you and made you show him your vagina. He said the only way he’d stop nagging you to go play with him and his brother was if you showed it to him. You were exhausted and creeped out by how he kept showing up in your room. More than anything, you just wanted to go back to reading your … Continue reading Issue 1.
Clarie's Ramblings 