say word. too nice, too sweet, too giving. broadcasting in different frequencies that when overlaid only cause a jarring cacophony. in sync, they would create a divine symphony. don’t act like you don’t deserve me.

i was starting to feel comfortable in that universe. but then everything shifted, constellations rearranged, points of reference transformed. things that i had once believed are no more. no wonder my nails are bitten down again. nervous characteristics, reflected in the physical.

i’m starting to sound repetitive. same patterns of shifting happening once more, think that should be telling me something. when i can’t trust what i’m being told, it’s time to bounce. thankfully, so far you’ve been honest, but i should learn to not believe the initial, the superficial. should remain elusive until the surface is scratched through and through. i wasn’t the one who talked about blood. wait a minute, i did, and i wasn’t talking about mine.

trying to examine motives, can only come up with a need to co-create. not good enough for me, i’m not looking for a future bird’s nest type of arrangement. old-fashioned romanticisms and paralyzing fears around loneliness. i’m a teamplayer, y’all. might not have learned how to share but i’ll be damned if i’m on a solo mission for this destination. think twice before you end up stuck with me.

the earth-energy dreams have been coming back again and the clock ticks louder. a return to those old spanish island prophecies – some of them might have been lost in translation, but they haven’t gone away. i should stop fighting the preparations, ochun’s in my ear saying ready or not. (i hear you loud and clear, ma, but i’m not ready to stop being wayward. bear with me a little longer, please?). one way to fight that destiny and somehow, i’m not down with the self-deprivation. i’m not naming it, not putting it out there in the universe like that, not leaving a record, just in case it chooses to manifest too soon for my own schedule.

Them eyes are gorgeous
I must advance
I don’t check for no superficial
It’s got to be beneficial
These sonic fruits
These sonic fruits
Sight

- even after all, finlay quaye

***

Title reference: Sexy Cinderella, Lynden David Hall (RIP), 1997.

The last line from A Novel of Thank You by Gertrude Stein is: “This is the difference between this and that.”

Already I can feel this shift. From waking up this morning with a feeling of everything’s all right, this afternoon has been good and promising. Despite the piling mounds of work, looming deadlines and the feeling of faking-it, I feel true happiness to be where I’m at right now. This morning, I’ve removed the barriers, letting that joie seep into the other aspects of my life.

I didn’t mean to push against you so hard. Do you understand that my reaction stems from feelings of insecurity, from desire to have you be my everything? I now understand that at this moment in time, you can’t be what I would like you to be, you can’t give me as much as I greedily want. But it’s all right, alright? The second you make the choice I hope you will, I am – we are – going to be so amazingly fine. Hang in there love, and get ‘er done. I’m waiting patiently so we can start creating together. Only if it’s meant to be, time will let us know. Life has finally taught me at least one brutal and violent lesson about patience. I can be it now – watch, you’re going to be proud.

Cognitively trying to map out my life, my world. Locating myself spatially, in this plane and others. Coming to realise that existing in other planes doesn’t preclude survival in the real, and the real’s not as scary as I thought it was. I’m dipping my toe in now and the water feels warm. Reassured with knowing that I can’t possibly mess up anymore I don’t think. So it’s time to start coping with repercussions and consequences cheerily.

I want to be one of those people who are a joy to be around. I want people to light up when they see me, and not inwardly groan at whatever new drama I find myself in. I used to be like that, not too long ago. I’m through with all the unnecessary, cutting it off bit by bit. Also conducting a dramatic post-mortem, trying to find out how I ended up in certain situations, why I was complicit in the amount of strife and bs that happened this year. Not being too harsh on self, but just checking in and identifying destructive behaviours. I’m tired of trying to cope in an unhealthy way, crutches can only carry you so far before they’re a hindrance to survival.

On my way somewhere today, I realised that I had also cut myself off from the city – ironic because the entire rest of my life is going to be involved with urban space. I’m being pushed back in faster than my legs can carry me, and I need to be more involved in witnessing how the city around me changes with all this new learning. It’s all so breathtaking, I need to once again make a choice to consciously witness, my surroundings this time.

Time to walk around again with MF Doom in my ears, writing storylines in my head while I wait on street corners for the light to change.

the dreams have come back also when i’m awake. unmoored needing to find some way to balance before i sink. performing stability on point. this post is a resolution a promise to self that from now on here there will be peace or some modicum of it. unusual that transition is so difficult that’s why energy is needing to be back on again. but with the final full stop in this paragraph i’m starting ain’t nothing to it but to do it. trying to balance a couple of life changes finding it hard to maintain. stir in some confusion about may possibly affect another huge life decision no wonder i’ve got my back up against a wall. and that was the final full stop

***

the myth has disintegrated into dust trying to turn it into clay. listening hard for whispers now but they’re drowned out in the sound of my own voice shouting. don’t like being where i’m at now surrounded by distorting fog. part of the new resolution is looking for a guide that’s internal.

it’s all in the words. and they’re changing shape on me forming containers for emotions i don’t want to hear. building up behind lips until they give like a dam that has just had enough. need to learn a new vocabulary with words that are too rigid for different shades of being. trying to communicate only in singular morphemes no possibility for extra layers of nuance there.

***

i’m out and about again in the city after seasons of rarely venturing out of my hood. city blocks can be so insular. but this new movement is refreshing, there’s a whole world that exists beyond the boundaries of my gentrification-in-progress part of town (apparently, freshii’s moving in. if the starbucks, exclusive nightclubs and overpriced farmers markets were the beginning, that has to be the final nail).

***

the new venture’s got me in a whole new universe. this level’s way beyond me, and for the first time in my life, i’m overwhelmingly anxious and unsure about my ability. imposter syndrome hitting me hardcore. it’s been seeping into other aspects of my life too, my relationships, my creative work.

in amazing positive news, being in an atmosphere of learners is refreshing and energising. i wake up every morning anticipating the new knowledge i’m about to acquire, anticipating the conversations that are going to teach me something new about the world and by default, myself.

***

movement is happening. other cities are calling to me, and i can see myself in several other places before the year is over. points of contact in other networks are reaching out to me, and each time this happens, so does movement. i haven’t traveled much this year at all, not like i usually do. it’ll feel good to meet a new place, see how it affects me.

there have been a few trips – mainly involving the open road. the roads help me think, clear my mind and reset. i’d like to send a shoutout to the prairies in gratitude – their scenery soothes my soul.

Summer 2009

standing on the edge of a precipice looking down. m. told me i should jump, over a decade ago. nehal, carpe diem, she said. i’ve never met anyone who needs to jump as much as you, she said. i’ve never jumped, not then, not now. i’m just standing here, looking over the edge and seeing the bottom. zoning out, playing fantasy house in a safe, locked room, separate from the real. the real’s down below. anticipating the vertigo build-up, waiting for it to hit me so i can jump back in a sketchy panic. like that time i went on a journey with you in another plane, woke up disoriented not remembering where i was, and the claustrophobia shoved me out of the car trunk so fast, i think i kicked you in the stomach trying to get out. it’s like that again, and just as metaphorical. this time though, the pain from the blow to your gut isn’t going to fade in a few minutes.

the scar on my psyche is a keloid tattoo. a scratcher job done in a living room somewhere out west, one november many years ago. it hadn’t started snowing yet. last night had it flaring up again, and speaking of pain, mine hasn’t faded. i can’t do anything like that again, burned once and fearing fire. air feeds the flames and i don’t have the reserves to put them out.

i get dodgy when i’m afraid. pattern-making, nervous irrelevant gestures start controlling my life. i had to stop myself from counting birds, i had to step on pavement cracks on purpose. working it out through writing. it feels weird to be writing like this during the day, this should be for the night.

everything else apart from yesterday’s pain and today’s whimsy is irrelevant. i thought my memory was an unreliable narrator. oh lordy pick a bale of cotton, oh lordy pick a bale of hay. getting on my knees and picking that white oil that grows in the homeland. but chocolate-covered cotton balls are still indigestible.

it’s hard to zip one’s self up in a straitjacket – i’ve been trying for weeks. came to the frightening realisation that i’m ready to sing jennifer lopez tunes for the rest of my life. except her duets suck.

***

bang bang he shot me down
bang bang i hit the ground
bang bang that awful sound
bang bang my baby shot me down

- bang bang, nancy sinatra

bukowski, that is.

“…
they’re gone forever, no
paper, no sound, no
fury, no placenta
and then
just a clean screen
awaits you.
…”

the trash can, Charles Bukowski

trash can free, balance is now elusive. a weekend to end all weekends, beginning with a manic high, ending with an intense physical and mental exhaustion. who am i to complain though, i don’t know tired like other people know tired. all i’m experiencing is a taste of weariness, most of it the fault of my own lifestyle choices, poor decisions and an urge for indulgence. the rest of it comes from engaging in emotionally intense draining situations that i wasn’t ready for, but still wasn’t ready to walk away from.

dealing with too many new ways of being. roles in personal and professional life have switched, knew this was happening, didn’t realise it was happening now. trying hard to maintain, thankful for how i’ve been able to. all in all, i’m in a good headspace. the summer’s wrapping up, and i’m aight. tomorrow though – new faces, lessons, experiences. beauty rest should help with that.

as my life shifts gears, a new one comes into my world. this is uber-exciting, i can’t wait to meet this new little buddy so i can pour my heart into him/her. i’ve got plenty of love left in me to give, i believe my love supply is infinite. i can only pray that i’m right, hope that no-one is able to kill that in me. sometimes i talk too much.

on a mission to not get caught up in petty. taking the time to put it out there: i’m serious about me, my family (blood and acquired), friends and community. and i’m expecting that they’re serious right back.

on a switch-up-step-up-help-me-get-my-leg-up.

other:

i’ve been watching my acquired writing structure fall apart, my own true voice come through. are you watching this? this evolving transition becomes me, i become it. soon, there’ll be nothing of the old left, pay close attention to the new right. i’m evening, and you shouldn’t be either. what i create is a reflection of who i am, a process that passes through and changes me. don’t act like you didn’t know.

mad tired delirious about to fall asleep right on top of this silver laptop.

Riding a creative high all day. On this streak about nature and spectacle, but enough about that. This post’s purpose is to slow my pace down, give me something else to write about. Been grazing to satisfy hunger, so in my search for a decent meal, ended up at the 24-hour grocery store. Walking through the fluorescence, I momentarily snapped back into real and realized that I looked certifiable. Hair all crazy, over-sized sweater, flip-flops and frayed, stained, dirty jeans. Not to mention the glazed eyes and the frantic gestures, as well as the utter hopelessness when I can’t find what I’m looking for. Thank God I live where I do – you can only get away with looking and acting like this when you’re surrounded by artists or students. The unkempt, borderline-homeless look (sometimes accompanied by dubious odours) is an accepted norm in this part of town.

It’s a full moon tonight, but I seriously doubt that this is what’s driving today’s impulse. Not discounting it as a contributing factor, it’s just not the defining one. I’m feeding off a seemingly unending amount of energy and it feels good. I know exactly where this drive, motivation, is coming from, and I’m not sharing. It just feels so good. I’m sure those who understand my Scorpio nature can guess.

Stimulation’s been coming from all over, and today the dam burst. Feeling so re-invigorated, it makes all those horrible overwhelming downs worth it. Today is why life is beautiful. Today is a reward. Today is why I endure Darkness.

On a different tip, there has been a lot of confusion surrounding me. Personally, I’m not confused, I’m only a witness. Or, I’ve made a conscious decision to witness rather than participate. Contradictory messages, bombarded by conflicting words, thoughts and actions. I’m waiting, time reveals all. And sticking to being guided by my hip-hop era mantra: Word is bond.

Also, my daily is about to change in pursuit of a major life goal next week. I can’t afford to get caught up in trivialities. Watching and waiting patiently, to see if what’s going on around me is bluff or truth. I’ll only know when the dust settles.

new focus, re-orientation. what you thought were neurotic behaviours are really cultural characteristics distorted in this cold land. my need to clean isn’t obsessive, it’s rooted in an artificial way of being.

shifting my energies. drew them inward, focused on my centre. gathering and re-charging. now i’m getting to a point where i’m ready to start scattering them again. most of it will be focused on the immediate life endeavour – the rest, not so sure. feeling new things out, cautiously, i’ve already learned way too many lessons this year. trying to attract light, rather than dispel it.

safety’s now a priority. huge for me to understand. been questioning my motives driving my choices. just figured (literally, minutes ago on a freestyle flow) that it’s always been about safety, something that i had been exploring intuitively through my body. taking my cues on how to act from how my physical was responding. hadn’t failed me yet, but now i understand just a little bit more.

looking at s/p/l/ace – where i need to be, where i want to be, where i belong. where i want to occupy. don’t want to battle for it, however I am armed.

***

you change time, make it elastic. i’m transfixed, in awe of this talent, of how easy you seem to make it. i want to learn, but i’ve seen the price you pay. you’re looking for something in me, showing me your parlour tricks, i’m not going to be your legacy for that. i need to know your magic, your spells, your enchantments. i need to know you.

next time you come to me, please take me away with you. i just need an invitation.

***

the act of naming. power, ownership, possession. lovers invent names for their other halves – what  happens to those adorable names once the relationship dies? ending up in some kind of name purgatory – an abundance of the generic – “baby”, “darling”, “kitten”, “love” – with a sprinkling of the custom – “lura”, “k’teen”, “moosh.” i can see a pet name cemetery in my head, complete with gravestones:

“Here Lies Ma Petite FouFou, December 2003 – May 2007. Rest In Peace, Never To Be Called Again.”

and then there are the names-bestowed-by-lovers that are re-claimed, re-purposed. the ones granted a second life as pen names, stage names, handles. their origins kept private, the emotional attachments erased, deleted for the name’s newly re-defined role. those names, the re-used ones, seem like an in-your-face to their ex-lover originator, a removal of the sacred from a dead relationship’s corpse, a symbol for the complete absence of nostalgia.