Physically starving, as I haven't eaten yet. But this poem is filling my mind.

I signed up for a daily poem to come to my email.

Today, I received this.

I'm not gonna comment on it.

Food for thought, for us all.

A post that is not a post, per se. I just wanted to share. (I've decided I need to share more, if even to readers whom I've convinced myself exist.)

I've been home since August 5.

Home truly is a balm for me (minus, of course, the fact that I'm persona non grata whenever my mum isn't here), because time literally slows down, and I can breathe, in a way that I can't in Kingston.

It is August 26, and if we're going by day and not date, today marks a year since my uncle passed away.

I watered his grave last year with (what I thought was) every tear in my body. I wondered how the hell I was supposed to resume my regular life without one of its pillars (who, incidentally, I was to have seen the day after he died).

I spent the rest of 2016 on a knife's edge, wondering if the universe could have possibly flung a bigger, steamier, nastier handful of shit into my face. (Pro tip: the answer is yes. The answer is always yes.)

But the months passed. Some of them crawled. Some raced by like the devil was giving chase. The months passed, and eventually the pain faded. It hasn't disappeared completely, and it possibly never will, because he was my favorite uncle and...he just...you know.

Now a year has passed, and Digicel has given his number to someone else, and I haven't heard his voice, or seen him, or anything. I still have yet to visit his grave, because I still remember the face I saw in that casket and it wasn't the him I knew in life. I have to tell myself that the him I knew is somewhere I cannot yet follow. He is beyond my reach, but he is all right, wherever he is.

I'm telling myself that, in the hopes that one day I'll believe it.

I go back to Kingston on September 3. I'm not looking forward to it.

It seems that my demons are strongest there, where I have no shoulder to lean on, and I can't randomly go hug my mother when I need it.

But, you know, school is a necessary evil.

I've been contemplating finding a therapist somewhere there, but I dunno what my final decision will be yet.

In the eternity that I've been here, I haven't cried once, haven't experienced the urge to self-harm. In fact, I've been attempting to self-care, eating better (and more, lmao), listening to more music, reading more. (Actually, I'm almost positive that I've damaged my eyes even more with all the reading I've been doing.)

This greatly abridged summer holiday is just what the doctor would've ordered.

Reopened Wounds and Changing Bandages

I reopened the wound. Scraped off the scab.

Now I have to sanitize it - because I don't want sepsis, see - and cover it with a newer, thicker bandage.

I think, in order for it to really heal, I need to stop worrying at it. I should just cover it with a nice, pristine white bandage, and forget about it.

But that, ladies and gentlemen, is much easier said than done.

Chance the Rapper said in his song "All We Got" (ft Kanye West) that at the end of the day, music is all we got, and he was right.

At the end of the day, when I can't sleep and I'm lying on my back staring at the ceiling, and trying not to cry, and failing miserably; or I'm lying on my stomach staring outside, again trying not to cry, again failing miserably; or I can't take the weight of the silence anymore and decide to ignore my shitty vision and go outside and sit under a streetlight because that's the only way I can convince myself that maybe I'm not all alone in this bleak black world

At the end of the day, when my people cup is empty (although to be honest there's rarely anything in there at any point) and I go to a corner and wish I could perform a Disillusionment Charm on myself (yes, I love Harry Potter, thanks) and blend into my surroundings so no one will see me sitting by myself and feel sorry for me because oh, she looks so lonely, because I actually really really am but you don't need to know that because I'm already sorry enough for myself as it is, thanks

At the end of the day, when my best friend has most likely gone to bed and I forget to be annoyed at the other best friend for still not letting me know that he's back in Jamaica, when I lie to my mother and tell her that yes, I'm okay, because she has enough to worry about without adding to the list her child's constant depression and anxiety and an ever-strengthening urge to just topple my king and tell God, or whoever the fuck I'm playing against, that You fucking win because I'm just too damned tired to play anymore

At the end of the day, when I've bathed away the dirt of the day, scrubbing my skin until it's a raw red, when I've washed away the evidence of my tears and ignored the sting of the cuts on my forearms or legs

At the end of the day, music is all I've got.

--

I'd like to thank everyone who has recommended to me an album or an artist. But most specifically mandevillegirl because she always comes through. ALWAYS.

Thank you all -- but especially you, mandevillegirl -- for the love songs, the sad songs, the happy songs, and all the others.

A reflection on the difference ten years can make, and what ten more years can do. (Not the best title I could come up with, but then my titles are rarely good anyway.)

i.

I was nine, and already excited about turning ten. It was June, and I would not be ten for another four months, but I woke up every morning and glanced at my calendar to see how much closer it was to November, how much closer I was to being ten.

I still thought I was beautiful. I was happy in my skin -- except for the times he lined that skin with licks that left marks I had to explain away. I had a lot of friends, I was at the top of my class, and my family was still whole and functional.

I was still an only child, but I'd learned to ignore those little twinges of longing I used to feel when I saw my friends with their little siblings, because my parents "can't afford another child right now". And he told me I wouldn't dare bring a dog or a cat into his house.

I was nine, and my world was still hued in shades of red, green, blue, and yellow, with barely any black therein. My smiles were wide and genuine, and people used me as an example for their children to emulate. I was quick to hug, and I had so much love inside you to give, so much joy.

ii.

I sit here, ten years in what promised to be a bright future, ashamed of what I've grown up to be. I curse the time for moving so damn fast. It is June, and I will not be twenty for another four months, but I wake up every morning and curse my calendar for seeming to flip its pages so fast. In the blink of an eye, I will be twenty, and now that I'm so close to it, I wish time would just stop for a fucking second and wait for the rest of us to catch up.

There is rarely ever a day when I look into the mirror for another reason than to fix my eyebrows or put in my earrings (all in an effort to meet society's standards of beauty, which doesn't always work anyway); I can't meet my own eyes in the mirror because I do not like what I see. I wear all my flaws on my skin, and I hate myself for it.

Those licks have left their mark on me -- some physical, but most not -- and he hasn't been my daddy ever since I hit thirteen and he realized I was beginning to move away from his sphere of control and discover that boys weren't necessarily just playmates. He hasn't been my daddy since the nights when I was fourteen (or probably fifteen, I have taught myself to not remember) and he used to come in my room after my mother went to bed and showed me what I was "looking for". 

My nineteen year old world has been leached of its color, is now ten thousand shades of grey. Ten thousand blurry shades, because I've damaged my vision permanently by trying to lose myself in fictional worlds, and those days when I used to stare up at the sun and wonder if I could someday fly that high.

I have a little sister whom I love endlessly in a way I didn't know I could love -- who, incidentally, will be four tomorrow -- who I need to set some kind of positive example for, and I doubt sincerely that I'll be able to tell her about some of the things I've done so she could emulate them.

My family hasn't been the same since I was compared to Achan, a blight on the household, since I was told that I was a whore and that nothing good would come from me. It hasn't been the same.

So much has changed in ten years. I wear all my flaws on my skin, I look nothing like I wish I did (except maybe the skin tone), and I'm nine times out of ten a silent mess because I've learned the lesson that when you trust people it can come back and bite you in the ass. Learned that lesson a little too well.

I may not have had my heart broken the way my peers have, but I've been hurt by men because I refused to learn from prior experiences and let myself cry over them and punish myself because I didn't see myself as deserving of anything better.

I have hit rock bottom more times than I can count. I've been sitting at the edge of the abyss, conversing with it, weighing the pros and cons of allowing it to seduce me into its depths.

iii.

Ten years from now, it will be June, and I will be four months from turning thirty (!!!), and I will look back at my early years, filled with innocent joy and wonder, and my angsty, depression and anxiety-filled teenage years.

Maybe I'll finally have my shit together and be someone I can be proud of.

That's the thing about the future, you know. It's not set in stone. It's like a tree diagram (the math major I am appreciates this analogy), dependent on the decisions we make. It is fluid, ever-changing.

That's what I like about the future. It can change.

Maybe, ten years down the line, I'll decide that yes, I am devoutly heterosexual, I am devoutly theist, and be that way for the rest of my life. Maybe it will be that I'm not actually hetero (and I find that I'm not as cut up as I was when I first began to question), and I will still refuse to believe in anything more than the necessity of a deity, not its actual existence -- see past post re that.

The other thing I like about the future is that I'm the one who makes it. Not my family, not my friends. Me.

I've been listening to a song called Eyes to the Sky by Jon Bellion (shoutout to mandevillegirl for putting me on to his music) for months, and the chorus and hook never fail to resonate with me every time:

I'm tryna live, I'm tryna rise

Above the shit the devil tries

Which is why I keep my eyes to the sky

Insert something really dope right here

I'm s'posed to write a hook, but all I wanna say is

I just wanna be happy

I wanna be happy, yeah

I'm supposed to write a fucking hook right here

Money and bitches, blah blah, yeah yeah

I just wanna be happy

I wanna be happy, yea

In ten years, maybe I, the comprehensively curious little girl who never stops asking questions, will finally have answers for all my difficult questions.

All we wanna know is where the stars came from

But do we ever stop, ever stop to watch them shine?

...Or are we staring with, staring with ungrateful eyes?

Ungrateful Eyes, Jon Bellion

The title of the mixtape (or album, I forget which it is) is called The Separation. Feel free to give it a listen on SoundCloud.

--

Honestly, I started this post the way I always do, a little melancholy, somewhat angry. But as I continued to write, I felt that drain out of me and now I am as close to happy as I've ever been.

This, this is why I started blogging again.

i'm too lazy to write a proper title, but

i know what i want to talk about.

i'm also too lazy to capitalize the first letter of every sentence, or the first letter of any proper nouns...which may make this post harder to read. i'm sorry.

but i am tired.

tired, i say, of being objectified.

check out this thread i made on april 5 about an experience i had.

as someone who already has a negative self-image and is uncomfortable with any form of attention, objectification is a special sort of hell for me.

i long for a jamaica, a caribbean, a world, where women can walk in peace and tranquility on the road.

and i'm fucking TIRED of seeing women making threads on twitter on how they've been harassed, how they've been reduced to nothing more than their breasts, legs, derriere, and genitalia, with just a sentence.

and to all the men (and unfortunately, women) whose favorite argument is "well if you wore proper clothes on the road he wouldn't have called to you", i say: a heartfelt fuck you.

women are harassed, and raped, whether they are wearing hijabs or bikinis. so don't tell me that shit about "she was asking for it because of her attire"

NO ONE EVER ASKS TO BE OBJECTIFIED. EVER.

break free of your patriarchal thought processes that seek to debase women. we are people too. we should be free to wear whatever the fuck we want to, as long as we are comfortable.

don't fucking tell me that i, as an adult cis female (i can't say het, because i'm not sure anymore), cannot or should not, wear my favorite v-neck shirt because i will be putting certain thoughts into the minds of men., and that i should, indeed, "cover up". don't fucking tell me that WOMEN, cis or trans, should pander to the sick desires of men, just because they're the head of the household. fuck that shit.

you know what you can say? tell the men to stop objectifying us. tell them that we women are just as important to the larger scheme of things as they are. women are goddesses and ought to be treated and respected as such.

tell the men to see us as more than the sum of our parts. we are more than our breasts, our legs, our bottoms, our genitals, just as how they are more than their dicks.

i am fucking sick and tired, i say, of painstakingly choosing an outfit that reduces the likelihood of my being catcalled on the road.

sick. and. tired.

see me inna mi tight jeans, mi short skirt, mi cleavage-baring blouse, mi battyrider, mi crop top, mi carnival backline costume, mi bikini, and leave me the fuck alone.

selah.

I think it's about time that I take up this blogging habit again. The signs are there, what with my good friend impulseprose making a post for the first time since 2015, and a young man in my Twitter DMs who let me know that I should write more. I guess those may be the kick in the pants I needed to start doing something to help myself climb out of these doldrums I've been in for so long.

So. I'm back. Hopefully for an extended period of time.

I haven't written poetry in a very long time. I should begin to do that as well, not for anyone's gratification per se, but because I enjoy it. Maybe I should even publish a few (anonymously, of course). I don't know. I'll have to think about it some more.

But, since my last post, and for quite a long time before, I've been on an emotional rollercoaster, the likes of which I have never experienced in all my life. I've become even more of a recluse since I left UWI. I barely talk at all, except to my mom and younger sister. I shut people out (although that may be more subconscious than not).

What's the point of this post, you may ask.
I have no idea. The whole point of this blog is for me to ramble along in an effort to clear my mind of some of the thoughts splashing around therein, silence some of the voices.

I live in Kingston pretty much year-round now, because I'm apparently finishing a 4-year degree in 3 years and so I have to come to school during the summer. (UGH.)

It does, however, its advantages: I'm not at home, and so I don't have to go to church with my heathen self; I'm a lot more mobile than I would have been in Mandeville.

It also has its disadvantages: I'm not at home, so I barely take proper care of myself; my aunt lives near me and seems to believe that we should be joined at the hip for that reason -- although I'm doing my best to disabuse her of that notion.

One of my best days was Labor Day, which I spent with the Creed (I'm sure I've spoken about them before on here) because one of our members was going back to his home country a few days hence.

I'm not able to be around persons for more than, say, 3 hours at best (with a few exceptions) without becoming physically and emotionally drained, but I spent the better part of a whole day with those guys and enjoyed every minute of it. I didn't realize I needed time to be around persons who understood my little idiosyncrasies and worked with them until I had it. Thanks, guys.

That came on the heels of the darkest day I can remember: about two Saturdays before, the urge to seek the Great Perhaps became stronger than it has in months, and I sought out my razor and proceeded to break a promise I made to myself at the age of sixteen that I wouldn't self harm again.

(But then, a friend of mine said to me that we all self harm in some way; it's not always drug abuse or self-mutilation.)

Fifteen neat little slices on my left forearm. They still haven't healed fully. But I look at them, and I remember the Saturday night I tried to subjugate the urge by overshadowing emotional pain with physical and succeeded. I may not win the war, but when I win the battles, it gives me the strength to continue fighting.

I still fear death, in a sense, because I'm not sure what happens after I shed this mortal coil. I think that is the primary reason I haven't committed suicide yet, even though hell knows I've been wobbling more and more on that particular tightrope. Not necessarily the people who care about me, because I know, as I've known for years, that they'll go on without me. As I've had to go on without my uncle, who was a fundamental part of my life.

Am I fundamental to anyone? I highly doubt it.

Ah, there goes that negative self-image.

As I write this, I'm sitting in an almost-empty class ignoring that annoying drone of voices belonging to those happier than I.

It is almost 12:30, I'm reading The Chronicles of Narnia (for the first time. I'm almost ashamed of myself), and I'm...at a fragile sort of peace.

Chará.

King Jaye