sometimes I fantasise about disappearing. not death.
just checking out. take to my cosy cottage in the shadow of a mountain.
grow pumpkins and squash. swim in a lochan daily.
write that novel. for me. not caring if anyone reads it.
i’m {BEING} on my own time.
slipping under a liminal moon. free.
I love me a good crime novel. Or even a romance. I’ve loved them from time. I’ve used them as escape, distraction, research even as I’ve always harboured desires to write them. I’ve been on a reading spree this autumn and these genres of fiction have been my go to. Devouring them in a matter of days.
Now I see how I’ve been checking out. I’m not dissing the genres, the writing, the individual books. But I am dissing their intention. Yes they’re for escape but they are also there along with consumerism and mainstream media to numb us. To help us stay muddled in thought and actions, propping up the racial capitalist system.
I’m taking back my time and attention and I’m starting my personal study curriculum.
Continued over on Patreon, check it out
I’m back into Patreon. I need to have another notebook, a place to joint downs ideas, mull over readings as I dive deeper into fugitivity with a personal curriculum around black study.
What does this mean? Well it means I’ve going back to my roots in more ways than one. Read W.E.B Dubois, Frantz Fanon, Sylvia Winter etc . Those who are named as the foundations of black study. Who rendered our stories and drew inspiration from Africa and the Caribbean. Those who looked beyond Western disciplines and knowledges to explore black livingness.
Anyway, I need to continue to feed my own disruption from white supremacy culture/ racial capitalism. I need to keep the flames alive of believing and practicing other ways of {BEING} as it hard trying to make a way out of nowhere in the edges. It’s hard.
Check out Patreon here.
I’m trying here. Really trying to look after myself. To rest when I need to. To eat well. To move my body. To protect my mind, body and soul. To make a way out of nothing. Protect my energy. From what I hear you say?
Vampires. Blood fucking sucking vampires. I’m not referring to the Count here. I’m referring to those people who treat others like a puppet or pawn ( insert whiteness/ white people here).
All paternalistic, thinking they’re doing me some kind of favour when they take my ideas and run with them and then come back to me ( that is if they do) and present some kind of gig/job/role for me to carry out sometimes for free( sometimes for a fee) and think/expect/assume that I’m okay with this. That I’d jump at the chance of doing this shit for them on their own terms with them assuming all the control and power when I’ve been doing this shit by myself for others for as long as time, without shit from them.
Exploitation. Extraction. White supremacy culture comes to mind. Comes to heart here.
No discussion. No seeking permission. No asking if this is okay. Nothing.
Except the conceited, privileged, racist assumptions/ take over that this is something I would do and not refuse to do because … that I need them? Or that I need the money or the exposure? That this is the only way to do it? Or what?
I don’t know because they didn’t see fit to talk to me about it.
So many things are wrong about this situation. The whole concept. The timeframes. The costings. The language used to describe my people. My community.
Not to even mention that they spelt my name wrong throughout the whole fucking ‘proposal’.
I don’t think they know who they are dealing with. I don’t think they really know who I am or have been listening to me all along. Really listening to me and understanding who I am and where I’m coming from.
There’s blood in the water.
The sun has broken through the dark.
Vampires are not feasting on my fucking soul anymore.
I sold my soul once before and it didn’t turn out well for me.
With soul and dignity and integrity intact I’m not about to surrender them again for jackshit. For someone who does not hear/ value/ see me.
I refuse.
Jog on!
i am enough
i am love
i am a spark of the divine
i ain’t smiling and that makes me smile from the inside out.
there are tasks i want to {BE} and do and there are tasks i do not want to {BE} and do.
leaning into those take that bring me joy is what i {Be} and do today and the next day. and the next.
that’s all a bear can ask for. that’s all i want. and {Be} and do.
i ain’t smiling. but i’m wide arse, teeth shining, smiling for me – on the inside.
liminality
in-between spaces
lingering in the midst flight
fugitivity
nowhere at all
the potential of edges
black captives trapped at sea
zones of non-being
“Wherever blackness dwells—slave ship, spaceship, graveyard, garden, elsewhere, everywhere—those captives accessed what Spillers calls a “richness of possibility.” Hortense Spillers quoted in La Marr Jurelle Bruce, How To Go Mad Without Losing Your Mind: Madness and Black Radical Creativity.
retro disco. good tunes. way back to our youth. we’re dancing. enjoying the tuuuunnnnneeees.
i kick off my shoes. barefoot in the grass. the cold september grass.
i look around. blond woman staring. pointing at me. talking to her man. me and my bare feet. laughing. i know she’s not saying anything good about me.
i stare back. she sees i see her. she tries to cover her tracks. too late. bitch. i see you.
before. i’d smile. make it appear as all is well. while i bleed from another wound inside.
before. i’d smile. make her feel better. while i die another death inside.
tonight. i ain’t smiling. i give her cut eye. i stare her down. she looks away first.
i continue to dance barefoot. smiling inside.
i’m protecting my peace so i have the energy for me, to {BE} in service for we, the we that looks/{BE} like me
this is all becoming clearer now
i’m not expending or wasting any more time, energy, attention on those (white) people who do not see me. or when they do see me, they do not see me as human
as Akwugo Emejulu says, the black woman can never be a human being
for decades i’ve spent time, energy, attention, through my practice and day to day life, trying to convince others ( white people) of my humanity. i would bend over backwards trying to get accepted, recognised, cherished as a fellow human being
look, please, i’m human. look, please, i feel, i hurt, i bleed. i breathe
no more. i am no longer prepared to play that role. dance this stupid dance. as i will never be accepted, recognised, loved as a human being. the system won’t allow it. (white) people won’t allow it
i’m no longer wasting my energy on proving jackshit
i’m refusing what has already been refused of me ( fugitivity)
i knowing who i be. i am smart, i am kind, i am important ( The Help). and i don’t need/want/entertain any (white) person to tell/grant/recognise me as such
and i’m no longer apologising/ playing it down or safe/ tempering for how i feel/act/ {BE} about this situation
as that just expends/takes/sucks out of me a whole heap and of other energy
i ain’t smiling.
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