it’s the way the most recent 5 years have had me in perpetual sankofa. the ways you sometimes have to return to where you come from to remember what it is you’re working for. to remember all the reasons you left in the first place.
MOON 2009
leaving can be a part of the healing, but it can also so easily turn into running. to its own form of escapism. I left to heal. to see myself through clearer lenses, away from the many overwhelming, but well-intentioned, views of my family. it’s always been a search for home.
but what if home isn’t a place, rather a state of being. even this body can never truly be home because I have always known it to be a temporary dwelling. a much smaller, limited rendition of who I, the spirit/being, am. yet there is a gift in creating comfort in even the most temporary situations. and I am grateful to the ones who have taught me this skill.
some of my worst crimes are the ways I’ve rejected vital parts of myself because of how they lead others to treat me. the ways I’ve exchanged my natural rebelliousness for quietude. sometimes out of fear, but more often out of exhaustion. I have never lacked the ability to stand out or stand up for myself while doing so, but fuck, sometimes I just want peace. the ways I trade the softness of my natural femininity for the cold, hard, unyielding characteristics we too often confuse with strength. to avoid the stares of cis/het men. to protect myself from unwanted advances. and in the process becoming a mere fraction of myself. undeniably unattractive for the mere fact of inauthentic presentation.
dishonesty gets you nowhere.
MOON 2009
these fears are “irrational” on the surface, but trauma has a way of muddying our truth. shattering the whole and casting fragments to the many corners of our past. my sankofa is more than a learning from the ancestors, it is a recollection of the best parts of who I used to be in hopes of creating a better now. a shedding and rebuilding. capricorn hands toiling in the dark through rain/tears watering old seeds. praying scorpio songs that they still remember how to grow.
☽