Feel And Heal

     I have found transparency and vulnerability to be such gifts. It’s terrifying, the idea of opening up and letting anyone take a look at your insides, at all the ways you fit into yourself. Pointing a flashlight at all the cobwebs, in all the dusty corners. All the things that you’ve tried to clean up but no matter how hard you work at them they just won’t go away. It’s a huge blessing to find release in art because it gives you ways to be okay with all that you are. You get to learn that it’s not so much about cleaning up all that mess but opening doorways and windows to let more light in, to shine some clarity in the space and see that… it’s not really not that bad. It’s livable, and that’s a fact that you become surprised to learn even though this whole time you HAVE been living in it. Through honesty in art you get to learn that the things you used to be so scared and ashamed of are actually structures that shape you into who you are. And while some things DO ne...

       For as long as I can remember, there has existed a “Before” and “After” timeline in my mind. The “before” was me being fat, uneducated, unloved, unfunny, poor and just generally physically uncomfortable. The “after” would be the complete opposite of that! I LOVED letting my mind wander into the “after”. I would be 25 always. I would get older, of course, but pretty much just stay looking and feeling 25. I would be thin but not too thin. I would have a cute apartment in a cute red brick city like Pittsburgh. I would have a cute little animal friend, maybe two. I would have a real life, serious boyfriend who I may or may not have known in my “before” days but that wouldn’t matter because this is “after” and I would be perfect. In the after I would be famous and my job would be to inspire people with my bright cheerfulness.            I do not remember the exact thing that caused me to start thinking of my life in terms of befo...

Breakup letter to 2018.      2018, thank you. I truly do thank you, from the deepest darkest bottom corner of my heart.      You taught me to be selfish. I think even now you’re still attempting to teach me this, even though your time is done and you should relax and let 2019 take over.      I’m glad you’re done. Your lessons were painful and I wish I would have known just how bad they would be because I might have wanted a different teacher. One with an easier, softer teaching method.      I had to learn to be selfish because otherwise I would have burnt myself out. I would have used all the energy in me to fight events that were doomed to happen anyway, and I would have done that until it killed me.      It was during your time, 2018, that I began learning that it is not my duty to save my sister. It is not my duty to save anyone, that I could grasp, but I was not able to let go of the res...

I stand in a pool of liquid gold.  Over time the tide has risen  and the shimmering fluid is nearly  at my waist.  It is not solid, nor does it impede  my motion. In fact as I walk it flows slowly, gifting me with new grace.  When I gently toss bits of it here and there,  helping to fill other pools,  mine gets brighter and the call for more rises in strength.  It pulses, and dances,  and swirls through my form and it is beautiful.  With hands raised in open prayer I hear it. My vision catches up to my hearing  and I am able to see it.  A bright funnel, a mass of lights and sparks, races the stars towards me.  It descends and envelops me,  lifting me higher in its wind,  spinning me in delight,  kissing every inch of me.  I am washed in gratitude,  softened with love,  dressed in blessings. 

            A few years ago a friend set me up on a blind date and during the course of that date I came as close as I ever want to be to joining a cult.      She had been visiting a guy she was dating. She told she happened to be using their computer and commenting on some post or picture of mine on Facebook, when her boyfriend’s uncle looked over her shoulder and expressed interest in me. She told me he was 35, Haitian, and new in town. I was single and bored that summer, so I said why not? I didn’t think this would be my true love, but at least I would be wined and dined and end up with a story.      I had a pretty dress that had a high-ish collar but with a lil boob window cut out. Fixed my hair cute, put on some red lipstick and soft flats. A little spritz of perfume and some coconut oil applied to my inner thighs--my strongest and most dependable way to fight chafing--and I was ready t...

     One time my family attended an event. I don’t remember exactly what it was but there was music, people were dressed up and plastic tables strained to hold up enormous amounts of food. So it could have been a wedding reception, a baby shower, or a dinner after a prayer meeting. We had taken both cars there at separate times, and my mother arrived later than the rest of us. When she got there she had changed into bright and silky Rwandese robes, she’d put on makeup, and her hair was up in a tight bun. You could almost see each strand of hair stretching back across her scalp towards a shiny mass at the base of her skull, her whole head wanting to show off her face. She was beautiful, and I told her so. I even threw in a little joke about how she was more dressed up than I was. Because somehow everything was a competition with us, to the point that I didn’t even know it when I was thinking in those terms. In this moment she appeared to have won and she made sure everyo...

     I am a 28 year old virgin. There. I SAID. IT.      Now let’s talk about that shit. I was 21 the first time it occurred to me that men might want to sleep with me, in my current body. I was at a group therapy session and a tall, bigger woman was called on to share. She was angry, shaking in either fear or fury as she told us, her voice climbing higher and higher, “I feel fat and gross and like men only want me for SEX!”      I was stunned. ONLY?? Like the sex…was an option?? Fucked me up entirely. I could think of nothing else the rest of the day/my life.      I grew up with perfectionist, abusive parents. It’ll probably always be a little hard for me to label it as that but that’s what it was. I can’t remember a time when either of my parents weren’t displeased with the way I look. And I just *knew* that, from a young age. I knew it when we were living in Rwanda and they would tug me away from the dessert tab...