self-care

Giving Myself the Right to Refuse – Day 24

| Sheree

I give myself

the right to refuse.

The right to refuse

what has already

been refused to me.

These rules, standards,

boundaries and barriers, I refuse.

I’m taking myself

outside.

I refuse to be labelled

and placed in one

of your boxes. I refuse.

And when I think about it, from being a child,

asking questions

and taking the beats for them questions,

I’ve always occupied

this refusal, but I never

had the words for it,

the language to hold

it up to the light

and investigate.

To amberfy it.

Until now.

Thank you Fred.

Thank you Saidiya.

Thank you Dal.

I refuse to take up

the subservient position

of ‘black’, to play

the good slave,

to kiss your boots

that continue

to kick me in the face.

Nah man! I refuse.

I refuse the choices

you offer me

and I carve out my own. I refuse

your parameters

and (re)imagine

other possibilities.

I’m tapping into

my own desires

which you could

never claim

or tame. I refuse what was refused me – rights,

responsibilities, respectabilities,

and stepping into

the rapid rivers

flowing fugitivity.

I’m ceasing up my body and running,

outside,

escaping

your oppressions.

Ode to Kiwi – Day 23

| Sheree

Kiwi, my love. Let’s celebrate the love we have for each other.

Just over a year together and we have been places. Seen the seas,

oceans, mountains and streams. Moonrise and sunrise, we have

witnessed with each other. Thank you my love, for allowing me to ride by your side.

We’ve both seen some years play upon our bodies. We are both

worn and rusted. Speed will hear us protest loudly, as we ricket

over potholes and obstacles. But neither stop us.

I’m learning to read your sounds, your warnings. Creaking while

stationary, rocking to and fro when I walk within you, and then

you roll back. Handbrake on truly on.

Rattling while climbing a hill, crawling almost on out knees, slip

back down a gear and then we cruise. I hear you humming,

singing all the tarmac and I feel your joy, matching mine.

Kiwi, little sage in colour. My love. Maybe this is a colour I would

never have fallen in love with. Too pale, too fickle. And yet on

you, I accept it all. Got a lot of extra paint to touch you up when

you fall and scratch yourself. Of rather me. I’m sorry about that

lamppost. To be fair, I couldn’t see it around your fat arse. But I love

your behind, your front, your sides and all.

I love everything about you Kiwi, because I think through our time

together and I adventures, base and far, I have learnt out to

navigate this big and ugly and brutal world with you. And

because of our partnership, I have grown in confidence and wisdom.

Daily, when we go outside to there, as one my love, I learn how

to appreciate the beauty of this world, once more.

And I can only thank you for this realisation.

Thank you Kiwi.

How to Create a Ritual for Writing(Springtime) – Day 22

| Sheree

Play Love Devotion on repeat as I (re)enter the world from sleep, with gratitude and grace.

Welcome.

Open the email from Lemon Grove Writers.

Read the inspiration for the day’s prompt.

Breathe.

Listen to the birds.

Allow the morning air to chill my cheeks.

Smile into the feeling.

Allow it to cascade over my whole body.

Joy.

Read a suggested poem.

Take a word, a structure, a spark.

And jump. Write off and out from there.

Allow the energy to flow through me. Onto the page.

Read over it.

Redraft with a light touch.

There. Right there.

Something Spot lit. Post.

Dear Future Self – Day 21

| Sheree

Dear Future Self

I hope you are well. Or as well as you can be, as I know you have a tendency to fall out of love with yourself. Waste time on not looking after yourself and beat yourself up for it too.

I just hope you’re learning because, at the moment, I think you’re doing remarkably well. You’re still here aren’t you? You’re still smiling? So you must be doing something good.

And even if you’re not, just remember that you are good. Good enough just the way you are. For reals.

And I know you have your current worries and concerns. No doubt worrying about where your next pay check is coming from and do you have to compromise your integrity to get it.

But listen, I know you and I know you always find a way. Because you are a fighter. You’re resourceful and determined and you love life far too much to just give up on it. To just give up on yourself.

I just love how you’re living your life on your own terms not being worried about what others think about you or what they might say.

I just love how you’re striving for what makes you happy to hell with everyone else. This is inspiring. This is you.

This year has seen you really lean into a morning routine to set you up for the rest of the day. And it’s been rewarding to see how this has helped you to move forward.

I say continue on this path of making sure your needs and wants are met each and every day first as this puts you in the best position to then help and support others.

Simple small things like enjoying that first cup of coffee. Listening to Love Devotion on repeat in Insight Timer. Small things that might seem insignificant but actually remind you that you are loved, loving and loveable by yourself, first and foremost.

And then look for that love from others as it is there. The love. It’s always there. Love.

Keep following those sparks that reveal joy. Which make you light up from the inside out. Solitude and quiet, just as much as company and music. Getting out in nature and moving that wonderful body of yours.

Someone said to you recently that life is long, instead of thinking of life being short, too short, so seize the moment now. And that still holds true but to think of life being long is to not only savour it now and to be grateful for it, it also means that we never really leave or die. We just transform and transcend into someone or something else in time. Over time. Through time.

This opens up whole new portals and possibilities and is exciting. Therefore, no need to panic or rush or run around like a chicken with no head. You’re okay resting, taking that afternoon nap, without fear of missing out.

Everything goes into the mix to make up this weird and wonderful life. You’ve just got to remain open, baby. You’ve just got to keep that beautiful heart of your open and welcome whatever comes your way. The good, the bad and the ugly.

Everything of this beautiful terrible life is welcome here because it is yours. Your terrifyingly beautiful life.

So go live it now hun. Go {BE}.

Love you

Sheree

Driving Bodies for Profit, A Narrative Poem – Day 19

| Sheree

Black women’s bodies could be speculated on.

Prime hands. Breeding bitches.

Their owners were interested in their reproductive capacities.

Examinations were necessary. Teeth, back, bellies and vaginas.

Wide child bearing hips were a bonus.

Clean them up good to catch a higher price.

Healthy took on a whole other meaning

during these times, these cruel times,

when monsters sold humans for profit.

The birth of children was essential to the growth

of the Southern economy once slavery became illegal.

Anything could be mortgaged on the backs of those children.

Children that were never meant for Black women to mother,

to love and see grow up.

They say that there was a second middle passage

as prime Black women were shipped around

from one plantation to another, sold, driving a profit,

driving their bodies for more and more bodies

for labour and babies.

Sakura – Day 16

| Sheree

At the tail end of winter,

loaded with blousy, pink,

double flowers with frilly edges,

are Japanese blooming cherry

trees. At mere sight,

I become mooncalf,

mooning over their delicate

blooms. Reborn.

For a few weeks at least,

hope trembles through

the boughs.

The present moment

like each pink, soft cluster,

is cherished.

An ars poetica poem* – Day 15

| Sheree

“I write only because

There is a voice within me

That will not be still.” ― Sylvia Plath

Poetry is where we are ourselves – Elizabeth Alexander

i try to connect beauty using words as healers of possibilities from the state within, the voice, a teacher, a sage, where my poetry winters, where I can see the ‘I’ like a clearing through the trees, where imagination lingers inch wide mile deep, conjuring for change and connection. i try language, not to trick or demonstrate my intellect, but to spark simple, stretching blossoms into ‘we’ rather than ‘them and us’. from the state without, i’m a beast, caged and muzzled. swallowed. cornered and supposedly cowered, i come out writing, wading into dangerous waters, owning my imagination to practice potential futures.

*“An ars poetica poem is a poem examining the role of poets themselves as subjects, their relationships to the poem, and the act of writing.” —Poets.org

Tell me what you’re looking for in a relationship in one sentence – Day 14

| Sheree

Ohhh good question.

Laughter and fun, with trust and communication, honesty and commitment but not in a heavy sense but much love and affection and respect and joy, I spent a long time in a relationship that wasn’t joyful and really what’s the point, life’s too short to waste time and energy on people who don’t treat you right or who aren’t happy in themselves, I want to be with someone who makes time for me and us, just like I make time for them and us, hey I get it, people are busy, leading busy lives but I’m of the belief that if you want to be with someone you make time and effort to be/do just that.

Fugitive Practice

| Sheree

For those of us who live at the shoreline… Audre Lorde

It will be 10 years this August that I started my visual journaling practice.

Then it was called Dreaming on Paper, as I completed the course of the same name by Lisa Sonora.

I needed a safe space to explore the tumult of my feelings and thoughts. I was going through a traumatic experience of escape really. Escape from the life I’d spent the past 12 years building up, that was took away in the flick of a Facebook post.

I ran away from the public, the writing community, my home as I travelled into the Scottish Highlands and Islands. To heal.

Visual journaling helped me heal. Helps me continue to heal.

Overtime, I’ve come to understand my visual journal practice as a fugitive practice. Within these paints, images and words, dreams of freedom are planned out and eventually come to fruition. Projects, happenings, events – all on my own terms.

I mean, the whole point about escape is that it’s an activity. It’s not an achievement. You don’t ever get escaped. – Fred Moten

Within these visual journal spreads, I work out how to escape, how to get outside white supremacy culture while still having to be living on the inside. Coming to terms with the thought of that the outside can only occur from the inside. Being here.

Visual journaling is me trying to create an opening, a break in the fabric in which to slip on through into the otherside/ outside, into the woods running between the trees with the dogs barking at my feet. Creating beauty, creating a beautiful space in which to linger in while the terror rages around me.

Visual journaling is a safe space, is a nurturing space, is a free space.