During my time of hibernation, (have I mentioned that here?) I’m resting of course but I’m also writing and dreaming and catching up on the things I want to do with my time and energy.

Another one of my abstracts was accepted for a special publication by Demeter Press around mothering and life writing. I completed an essay in 2023, around my Black Matrilineage and last year I complete an essay around Black Mothering and Creativity. This is probably going to have to be redrafted this year, but in all honesty I was just happy to submit something, as I had a major block around this essay. I think it was because I allowed my creativity and energy to be sucked into other people’s creative dreams and lost sight of my own last year. So when it came to writing the essay my well was dry.

Anyway, I’ve started the reading and writing around my third essay now which is all about Black mothering and fugitivity. I love fugitivity and it is one of the supporting words for 2025. As I mentioned before, I’ve been exploring fugitivity for the last few years and what this means as a practice. So I’m mighty pleased in having the time and space to explore it further and deeper through writing this essay.

While going over my abstract again and riffing off from it, I remember my creative non-fiction novella I created called rubedo. I think this came out in July 2016, after the 2015 shit hit the fan episode in my life. rubedo was my exploration of this time in my life and how I got through it. It was through finding myself after years of repression and not listening to my inner wisdom that I came to be who I am today.

Anyway, I revisited rubedo with this chapter/ essay in mind, realising that 2025 is 10 years since this episode in my life. It sometimes feels as if it was just yesterday. I know I felt it keenly last year when Darkling came out. Darkling is my first poetry collection since Laventille (2015) and the shitstorm episode. And to tell the truth, I’m waiting for the the shit to hit the fan again, as I’m sure there are people picking their way through Darkling as I type to try and find evidence of plagiarism again. As they say once a plagiarist always a plagiarist! It’s not a term or label I identified with then or do now. As that’s not me, that’s not who I am but that didn’t stop people then or now from looking for the evidence to prove/support it.

But I’m not here to talk about that. What struck me about rubedo is the raw honesty of it all. And how writing, writing it all out literally saved my life. I’m so grateful that Ian brae enough to pick up my pen and writing through the shit to now.

Here is what I wrote about my capacity to love no matter what:

“But something does inside die this day. And the days that follow. Something
inside of me, the capacity to have patience and make allowances for other
people’s bullshit was destroyed during this lynching. No doubt, using the term
‘lynching’ will invite criticism. I know when Andy Croft my publisher used the
term to condemn what was happening to me on social media he received a
fair amount of criticism. But I do not use this word lightly.

Ironically, in the months leading up to my death by social media, I was
researching and writing poems about lynchings in America. I was referring to
the postcard images that were collected as souvenirs by the spectators of
lynchings at the time. There were those people who got their hands dirty
during a lynching, who actually tied the knot of the noose, beat the victim,
mutilated the bodies. And there were those who came along to watch the
spectacle. Viewing the death of another human being as just another social
event, a festival, something to be enjoyed. Both killers and spectators relish
the sport.

This in my opinion is what happened to me. A public lynching and
souvenirs where taken. One person on Facebook, joined in the thread of
conversation with a comment as a means of marking it. This person was
rubbing their hands with relish, saying that they didn’t want to miss a thing as
this spectacle was just too good to let pass by.

When I died this cruel death something inside broke. I’ve recently come to
realise that is was my heart that broke that night. I’ve been visualising my
heart with a rose in the centre. This rose is closed. This I read as a symbol of

me shutting down, dying inside, shutting off the natural flow of love from my
heart for my family, friends, for the world around me. My heart was broken, so
I have been denying myself and others love. I’ve been living in fear, fear of it
being hurt again, fear of my heart being broken again, fear to love.
In a way, this had to happen to me. For one, I’ve always disliked that capacity
in me to keep forgiving others, letting them back into my life when they’d let
me down and not lived up to my expectations. I’ve taken on board the
responsibilities of others, thinking I’ve had too high standards and I’d been
unfair. That capacity has been obliterated. I can’t take anybody’s bull shit
anymore. But at the same time, this capacity to forgive is part of my large
capacity to love. And if this is who I’m really are , then I shouldn’t fight it any
longer but accept it.

My true self is my capacity to love, to love fiercely and powerfully. I accept
that now and I’m no longer blocking up my love. I can’t live in constant fear of
being hurt, of getting my heart broke again because then I would not be living
true to my capacity, true to me. I would just not be living at all.“

I’m so pleased that since then I have found others, such as bell hooks and Joy James, who write about revolutionary/ radical love and validate my ways of loving, which at times hurts me but also brings me a while heap of joy also. You can’t love without the expectation or knowledge of getting hurt.