On death, again. (Sloppily, more sincerely.... barely a post.)

Death certainly tends to take the best and brightest of us. Either that, or in death, we are immortalised as Angels and suddenly the whole world sings to our glory. 

Regardless, I know that the people who have died will all be greatly missed and remembered with nothing but sadness. 

My mother and her mother like to say that death comes in threes, as all bad things do. 

Tonight, the fourth has died in two months and I'm not so convinced anymore. I haven't been able to hang up the black in weeks. The grief is a set of curtains that I cannot take down. The heavy black hangs over the windows and keeps the light out. 

At 19, first year med student... The best of you was truly ahead, and you were destined for greater things than the grave. I'm so sorry. 

If bad things come in threes and death came in fours, maybe the angel of death really is an angel after all. 

The tomb is a sacred place of no suffering and no grief and this thought comforts me that where they are, they feel no pain. We are left to mourn but they are free. Like a cage left open, they have departed this prison to soar to heights men can only dream of. May angels await them at heaven's gates. 

May they rest in peace. 

To my two uncles, my grandaunt and my cousin—you truly are the best of us and will be greatly missed. 

If I had a daughter, the first thing I would tell her is that sometimes Mr. Wrongs look really, really right and

They will have half smiles and know all the prettiest words to weasel their way into your heart, but beware...

Do not count on the boy who kisses you on the backseat of his white car and sets you on fire with his fingertips... In two months, you will call him in an emergency, scared at 2 am and he will hit ignore after the second ring. 

Do not go to that party that your friends all beg you to go to with them, when you all know that you don't want to go. They don't care about what you want—they just want the ride home. Learn to say no to the parties you don't want to go, and worse the boys whose bodies you don't want pressed against you at these parties. 

Stop thinking that boys who were shit will have changed. Not in a week, two weeks, a month, a year or two years. That boy who wanted nothing but sex from you in 2012 will probably want nothing but sex from you in 2014 too. 

Delete his number. And then let it stay deleted. Really. This one is important. 

Do not be bitter and angry when your parents send you to a school closer to home. Sometimes they really just aren't ready, even when you are. I am still working on this one. I hope my daughter will be a better forgiver than I am. 

It is okay to do what isn't cool, if it feels right. Listen to your gut, not your friends. Real friends will understand. The other ones won't hang around anyways. 

Let go of what isn't meant for you... without explanation, without hesitation, without fear. What is meant for you will find its way to you. 

It's okay to accept help. Your pride will hold you back. You can be great. You don't have to be great alone. 

Say "I love you" when you mean it. (The same goes for "I am sorry", "I don't love you" and "I don't want to do this") 

Learn the meaning of consent. Then learn when not to give it. Be safe, be sure, be serious. Sex isn't going anywhere. 

It'll all be okay in the end. 

A letter from eighteen year old me, to eight year old me

Dearest me,

I know that right now everything is wonderful and funny and you're still seeing things in the reds, yellows, blues.... but this will not last, believe me. 

You still count down the months, weeks, days, hours and minutes until your next birthday because, really, what joy is there like to be a year older.... but I promise you that you will look back and you will miss those seconds, those moments spent wanting to be something more, without ever acknowledging all that you are. You will turn nine and forget what it feels like to be eight. Then, one day, you'll be dreading the next birthday because life just isn't birthday cake and blown out candle wishes anymore. 

Do not forget what it is like to be eight. Do not forget what it is like to be small enough to be carried on your father's back, to sit in the couch under your grandfather's arm. Do not forget what it is like not to care about the size of your thighs, to not know outrage at injustice, to not know that there are pains worse than a skinned knee from a fell bicycle. 

Before you know what it is like to lose a best friend, to be fooled by the wrong guy, to realise how unhappy your parents are. Before you sit, scared and shaking, on the phone with a girl who has taken a handful of pills and wants to end her life. Before your friends throw up lunch like it is a new fashion, and they are all on trend. Before you fail a class, really fail a class—beating yourself up, feeling unworthy, a failure. Before the world became shades of grey. 

Now, you are eight and none of these terrible things have happened to you. You smile at the girl in the mirror when you brush your teeth, for you have yet to be taught the worst hate of them all; to hate who you are. You have yet to even realise you had hair to fix or a smile to straighten. You, in pink two-piece sparkly swimsuit, unaware of the fact that thighs that touch are wrong, for whatever reason. Before the nitpicking and the people pleasing, the changing and the shame, the grooming and the loathing. Before it mattered what they found attractive, what they didn't. You still know that you are perfect. 

You have not been touched, greedily and unapologetically. You, with your baby skin and naive mind, giggling at the scientific names for genetalia. You do not hate him, or him... or him. You do not even know them. You, that virgin soil, are unblemished and unashamed. 

I am sorry. I am sorry that you will turn eighteen and bitter and angry. I am sorry that will know loneliness better than yourself. I am sorry that you have lost family, friends, love. I am sorry that you have depended on things; the painkillers (Advil for the physical pains, Panadeine for the rest) and the cough syrup (for the sleep, mostly, but sometimes for the cough) and the vodka (for the demons); instead of people, who let you down when you relied on them, trusted them. I am sorry that you have hated yourself. I am sorry that you have had darker days than any of those you thought you had needed that blue nightlight.  

....and I am not sorry. I am not sorry that you have learnt to let go, at least to some degree, of those who hurt you. I am not sorry that you are critical, smart, careful and clinical. I am not sorry that you are strong. I am not sorry that you have learned that hate too is passion, and passion is the fire that keeps you alive. I am not sorry that you have changed, have grown up. 

This is who we were, who we are, who we will be.... and I am learning that it is okay to be okay, but know that sometimes you will not be okay. This too is okay. We are okay. 

-

Some more early morning writing. It is a beautiful 6:27 as I begin and 7:33 as I end. I am scared, mostly. There's a whole world outside of my blue bedroom and I have to face it next week. Some days I feel like I'm going to throw up. Other days I feel next to nothing at all. I'm running out of time. I'm not ready. 

How to survive loving an introvert, by an introvert (A duology on introverts by an introvert, part 2)

Finally writing that second part to the introvert series, which I had intended to be long finished by now. Whoops. Here goes though. (Also, Happy 52nd Independence Day, Jamaica! This land I love!)


Before I even start, here's the disclaimer: you cannot take this as gospel. Do not quote the mandevillegirl's book of Luke chapter 4, verses 1-8 as the way, the life and the truth. I'm writing about introvert generalisations based on personal experience, preference, research and opinion. This is not the findings of a scientific study. Done. Talk. Uzimmi. Here are the steps to surviving your love affair (or friendship, I apologise - but the love I had intended this to be about was romantic love) with an introvert:

1) First, carefully assess your loved one for signs of introversion. Does your loved one require hours alone during the day? Do they frequently disappear on you, or "fall off the grid" every now and then? Not reply to your frantic Whatsapp messages or answer when you called them 8 times? When you do spend time with your loved one, do they often have lots of feelings or ideas to talk about? Do you notice that they abhor or detest small talks or catching up with people they bump into in public? Do they often curl into your side when introduced to new people or faced with a crowd of strangers? Would they rather pick seats in a movie theatre as far away from other people as possible? If you answered yes to any of these, suspect that your loved one is an introvert. If you answered yes to, like, all of these... not only is your loved one most likely an introvert, they are also most likely me. (Haha, I wish I was kidding.)

2) Don't approach dealing with your introvert by attempting to "fix" them. I assure you, your introvert is not broken. Or depressed. Or aloof. Or an asshole. (Unless they're actually an asshole, which would kinda suck.) Stop attempting to "draw them out". Stop suggesting that they be more "social". Chances are, they're social enough already - in exactly the most tolerable doses for their particular breed of introversion. Your attempts to "fix" your introvert will probably only frustrate them. Plus, eventually, you might be enough of a jerk to convince your introvert that they are actually as broken as you seem to think they are... and then your introvert will spiral into frustration with themselves at what is just how they are. 

3) Introverts, however, are not delicate. Do not treat your introvert like they are always about to shatter into a million pieces. I assure you that while nobody enjoys being yelled at, yelling at your introvert when they are being incredibly ridiculous will not break them. Your introvert is not an infant. They're just a person, who you should respect and treat as you would treat any other person.

4) Give your introvert space. Please, please, please respect that sometimes your introvert needs some time and space to retreat into his or herself. Perhaps your introvert likes to take quiet bubble baths, or read books for hours at a time, or listen to a certain kind of music. All of this is simply their preferred way of spending time with themselves, which is most important for an introvert. Do not take it personally if your introvert seems inclined to spend a lot of time away from you. It really is just the way they deal. If they seem particularly grouchy, or snippy, or angry... it's probably not you. (Unless you done messed up, in which case you ALREADY KNOW IT'S YOU.) Just give your introvert time to charge up again. 

5) Understand that your introvert is probably better at arguing than you are, in the long run. (Assuming that you are an extrovert,) You probably feel like you're particularly gifted with the snappy comebacks, and you quite possibly are... but your introvert will almost always be the better arguer. That is because a characteristic of an introvert is the fact that they like to think before they speak. An introvert is more likely to carefully weigh his or her responses before responding, even in more casual conversation. This is why introverts often come across as wise, or even sagely (haha) to extroverts seeking advice - quite simply because they tend to think before they open their mouths. So, understand then, that your snappy comebacks carry little weight... and if you keep pushing, your introvert may just school your ass and hand it to you on a platter with a spoon. ("Eat. my. ass," is my favourite way to put the cherry on top of my argument, because I guess I just like a little sass.)

6) Responding to your introvert's silence with concern is unnecessary, and after a while, annoying. Occasionally you catch your introvert zoning out and staring off into space with whatever "cute" little face or another they make when they're not listening (don't pretend not to know what I'm talking about; the slightly parted lips, or the tongue poking out, or the furrowed brows, or the squinty eyes... whatever) and then you give the dreaded "Hey, are you okay?" The first time you do this, we shake our heads a little and smile at you. "Oh, haha, I'm fine..." maybe. And the second, third, fourth, fifth... times? A small smile, a mumbled "I'm fine". After you've asked us for the millionth time if we're "okay" or "fine", we are trying to refrain from rolling our eyes in our heads. Unless you notice that your introvert is crying, has stopped breathing, is possibly bleeding from an orifice or another, or something equally gruesome and worrying, we're fine. We look fine, right? Whatever "fine" means. 

7) Be okay with the first move. Chances are, you had to make the first move with your introvert anyways. It is highly unlikely your introvert spotted you in a crowd, knew they had to have you, jumped up and came over to introduce his or herself to you. (Just typing that made me go "blech!") Even if your introvert saw you first, they probably sat on their hands and stared at you with all their might, willing you to notice them back. Initiating is not particularly an introvert way of life. Phone calls, conversations, relationships; chances are your introvert wasn't the first one. It doesn't mean they didn't want to be. Personally, I'll see guys I'm interested in... and literally just sneak glances at them until it becomes unhealthy and a little creepy, and then I'll spend about ten minutes thinking of some less mortifying way of getting their attention. Usually I'll be thinking so long that I'll look up and the poor object of my obsession has gone about his business without even noticing me. Sucks. 

8) You'd like to take your introvert to dinner at a fancy restaurant and a movie? Your introvert is thinking 'eek!' Maybe a nice night in? Some dinner, something to drink, a movie (and then some amazing introvert sex *hint hint* jk) instead? Going out to dinner would require mentally prepping to go out, possibly bumping into someone they know, wondering about all the possible social interaction that could take place. Your introvert could handle it, but you could also stay in and have some of that amazing introvert se-... I mean, just kidding. (*cough*) Your introvert's idea of a "date" is probably binge-watching an entire season of some quirky comedy on Netflix and eating some kind of food off a napkin, like pizza and fried rice. (Or is that just me?)

9) Understand and appreciate your introvert. If you wanted someone to put on your arm and parade around at a party, you will be pretty disappointed to discover that you have picked the wrong person. Know that they are best at one-on-one conversations, they make good listeners... and appreciate these things about your introvert. I promise you introverts are worth the time and effort it takes to love us. 

-

This really does feel like a longer post than it needed to be, but it's minutes to six in the morning and this is my favourite time of the day because the Sun is rising and there's light barely peeking through my curtains and the world is still and it's almost like believing in magic. I'm incredibly proud of myself for setting a blog goal to complete a two-part series that has to do with "blog honesty" (big up my amazing fellow blogger friend who has turned this concept into a 'thing' because it has literally changed the way I write, and I view and value what I write about myself... you know yourself, and I appreciate you a whole lot) and then actually completing the task. Now I'm going to go to sleep. 

How to understand an introvert, by an introvert (A duology on introverts by an introvert, part 1)

Firstly, what the heck is an introvert? I've been doing quite a bit of reading about this one, so as not to lead you (but mostly myself) wrong.

An introvert is not a person who hates people. That, my friends, is a misanthropist, not an introvert. 

An introvert is not even a person who is shy, for one can be 'shy' but not necessarily 'introverted'. Shyness itself is understood as an element of social anxiety; where shy people exhibit apprehension or nervousness associated with interacting with other people, especially for the first time. While often the two exist simultaneously, they are not synonymous. 

An introvert is quite simply a person who is energised by spending time alone, and exhausted easily by the company of others. The word itself means 'to turn inwards', and that should tell you a whole lot about the personality characteristics of an introvert.

So, of course, our introvert is a little more complicated that we initially thought. The typical assumption by people trying to identify an introvert, is that it's the quietest person in the room... and though they may be right, the most introverted (on a scale of relativity) person in the room could very well be the loudest social butterfly. That, my friends, is how introverts throw you a curve-ball. 

"Spotting the introvert can be harder than finding Waldo. A lot of introverts can pass as extroverts." -Sophia Dembling, in a Huffington Post article. ...and she's very right. As an extrovert-masquerading introvert, it's easy to forget you're actually an introvert. Especially if you're a comfortable people-pleaser, because then you become preoccupied within a social setting with making people laugh, ensuring they're okay, being good company and so on and so forth. 

Then the quietest part of yourself, the part that actually has needs, reminds you in a voice that steadily grows louder that you are tired. People have that effect on an introvert. The exhaustion. 

This also has nothing to do with loving or hating people, for even the company of those you love the very most can be draining. 

It's just that our introverted souls get weary, and sometimes we need to cancel a few plans, leave a weekend free and tuck ourselves into ourselves and hold our thumbs over the reset button. It's the only way we know how to survive this life.

There are other things about introverts too... Like sometimes, small talk makes me want to scream. The "Hey, how are you?" conversations drive me into a frenzy if I have to have them too often. Those trivial straws of conversation that people clutch at feel like they're literally going to drive me crazy. The "What's up?", to which people really only expect "Nothing much, how about you?" narrow my eyes into slits. I just don't like small talk... (Myth-busting time: "Introverts hate conversation." Most introverts love conversation... like, really, love conversation. Which is why we have that problem with small talk. It's impersonal, insignificant, and just generally a sign of poor conversation. Ask us about the universe. I dare you.)

And, sometimes, we feel like the sore thumb on a happy hand. Especially in huge crowds and at parties. It's easy to feel like you don't belong, as you watch what appears to be a large crowd of people simultaneously recharging their cells together, casually inquiring how life has been, what's up, and so on and so forth. Worse, at a party filled with people we don't know - because, really, it's not about the new people, but we'd rather spend time with people we already know. Which is inconvenient if your extrovert friends are busy building a totally new circle.

It's okay, we get it... you're totally tired of hearing what we think about the meaning of life, evolution, where we go when we die, what love means, why humans can't access their entire brain capacity, the size of the blue whale's heart, why poetry is lonely, why marriage is a failing institution, etc. etc. etc. We know we're kinda, sorta a lot sometimes. I spend a lot of time with myself, so I really know that my head can take me some places that overwhelm even me... so I totally understand if I come off as a cup of tea that's been steeping too long.

Image "borrowed" from the Huffington Post article that I was reading, among others, to help with this post. Thanks HuffPost. You's the realest. Article here.

"Yes, I'd love to hang out with you," I will tell you at the beginning of the summer... and then by the end of June you have still yet to hear from me. It's okay. I do not hate you. I have not died. I am not going through a midlife or quarterlife crisis (I think? I have yet to be sure of this one). I'm just resting, at home, alone. Probably binge watching some series (Supernatural, if you were curious) and reading a couple of books (the Divergent trilogy, Eleanor and Park, James Dashner's Maze Runner trilogy, Sophie's World (again) and so on). Then, finally, when you make plans and insist I change out of my underwear and into something decent and comb my hair, you watch me steadily become drained. We have a wonderful time, but by the 5th hour of non-stop socialisation, I have started chewing on my lip. By the 7th hour, I have started to fold in on myself and occasionally zone out. God forbid we approach the 11th hour, I will be tearing out my own hair. I now need to escape, retreat into my shell and recover. "I had a great time today." I did, I mean it. 

My favourite classes are large lecture style where the teacher can't notice me/call on me to answer even a question that I know the answer to, my favourite people are extroverts because they balance me out, sometimes I don't answer my phone when it rings because I needed a minute to prepare myself for the conversation and I rarely engage in text conversations that start with 'hey, what's up?', silence isn't a bad thing, I like driving alone at night (except when it's particularly creepy) and I very often use the excuse that my "people cup is empty" when I'd like to go home. Those are a few more things.

I could go on for hours about how I feel about certain social situations, but I do think there's going to be a point where it stops being because I'm an introvert, and just that I have a little social anxiety. So for now, this blog post is complete. Hopefully, there will be one to follow on how to love an introvert. If that doesn't appear, then know I tried and I couldn't. Edit: I finished the two part series! Yay! Part two on loving an introvert here.)

People are innately and reliably selfish... and

Thinking otherwise is absolutely foolish. But, alas, I am a fool. 

I've discovered lately, that after bottling up emotions like bottling up water during this drought, nothing good is to follow. The more I bottle, the greater the probability of explosion. And explode I tend to do. 

My explosions, I'm learning too, are not always the same kind. There are the explosions that detonate—high pressure explosions that cause rapid decomposition, like sticks of dynamite stuck into the angel veins of my heart that explode between beats; and there are the low pressure explosions, with more pillars of black smoke than anything else—the ones that creep through my lungs and spill out my mouth at four in the morning, the ones I feel coming but cannot stop. 

This, I'm afraid, is a high pressure explosion. An external explosion. I have let far too many clumsy people wander into my space, my peace, armed with sticks of explosives and with hands covered in traces of gunpowder. They have stuffed their TNT into the spaces where I have cleared room for them and they have stumbled away, left me to sift through the rubble. 

People, I've come to realise over and over and over again, are incredibly selfish creatures. Perhaps the only truly reliable thing about people is that, eventually, all of them disappoint you. Not always intentionally, but certainly always always. At the end of the day, people tuck themselves into themselves. They will always prove to do what is ultimately best for themselves. 

Now... my generalisation is offensive, I'm aware. But here is my act of selfishness, for I too am human: I do not care. I do not care whose feelings I hurt tonight. My feelings have been trampled, disregarded, just plain blown up. And tonight I look around and I see the fingerprints of selfish, selfish humans. Humans who I have allowed to selfishly destroy me. 

I don't consider myself a particularly 'good' person; I am not particularly moral, or just, or decent. I am not particularly kind, or brave, or generous. Interestingly though, more times than I care to consider today, this week, this month and this year, people whose opinions on myself I trust have called me selfless. 

This whole selfless thing is something I would typically deny vehemently (and will continue to do so, upon completion of this blog post), but for just a second I'm going to think about this. The word itself is the primary issue I have with being called selfless; how can I (or anyone) possibly have little or no regard for myself? In a dog-eat-dog world where groups of people mass murder other groups of people, even their women and children? That's ridiculous. I have high regard for myself. But then I think; what regard do you really have for yourself if you continue to allow people to take advantage of you? To abuse you? To disregard your feelings? To stuff you full with explosives and then leave you to clean up the mess they have made of you?

I realise that selfless is not a compliment. There is a reason why, in Veronica Roth's Divergent universe, the Abnegation (those who forget self to claim the virtue of 'selflessness') are considered foolish, stupid, laughable and called Stiffs. Reading the books I find myself questioning the Abnegation myself—selflessly catering to the four other factions, who ultimately serve their own agendas. These foolish Stiffs... But then, there are other people—people I know well, trust—who have looked at me and thought 'selfless'. One of these people has gone as far as to tell me how badly she has wanted to choke me, how ridiculous she finds me... And this startles me. Oh, Lord, tell me I am not the Abnegation. 

But I am. I am the foolish. For I have put the happiness of others above the happiness of myself. Even if the happiness of others has cost me my own happiness. I continue to do so, and I don't know why. That, it would appear, is pretty darn 'selfless'. 

Perhaps there is strength in being selfless, like Veronica Roth's fictional masterpiece might suggest—but here, in the real world that I live in, I am weak. I am drained. Sapped of energy. Empty like the NWC reserves. 

Like the watering can; I have made rounds of this beautiful, flourishing garden and watered its beautiful blooms. And like flowers do, they have continued to bloom—photosynthesising to make food, for themselves, sustaining their own lives with the vital ingredient which I have given them. These blooms give me nothing. Eventually the can is emptied. 

And then what? 

Maybe selflessness is self-destruction. This makes more sense than strength... For yes, I have been stuffed full of explosives, but who has lit the match? Instead of opening my windows and doors, a metaphoric release of the poison spilling from infected wound, which may then be cauterised shut to heal; I have cauterised my wounds from the inside, poison pulsing behind skin, until I breathe the destruction. 

I am tired of breaking. I am tired of hurting. I am tired of blowing up. 

People, I have a learned, are innately and reliably selfish. 

-

Written under a heavy dose of cough syrup, and a heavier dose of my own misery—a far more potent drug, I've discovered. The mere act of writing this post has drained me, sapped the reserve strength. I did not find anything left to proofread and check for errors. Corrections to follow, I hope. I selfishly make no promises. 

I am entirely stitched out of mistakes and good intentions,

The things I meant to say (but didn't because I didn't want to hurt your feelings) and the things I wish I could take back and the things I wish I had said but the moment passed. How if I had done it again, I would have told you how you broke me with your tongue like a whip and your words like fire. How I would have told you that this lukewarm love is not okay, never was okay and will never be okay. How I would have told that regardless of how you feel, I am enough. How I would not have replied to your apologies with "It's okay" when we both knew that when you put her above me, again and again and again and again, it was not okay. 

These things are called regrets. These things make a man bitter and angry, and I don't want to be bitter and angry... but these things also make a man shy. Once (or several times) bitten, twice (or several more times) shy. 

Now my heart is not on my sleeve, or on my cheek, or in your hand. Now my heart is behind my ribcage, my words a battalion behind my lips, ready and waiting to tear a man down at my command. 

They say that hell hath no fire like that of a woman scorned, then perhaps the devil may think of me as his competition. I have gotten so used to the fire in my veins, I have fooled myself into thinking it is blood. And I taste blood. I taste the blood of every bitten lip and of every stifled cry and of every word I swallowed that ripped its way through my cheek to land on your ear. I am scorned. 

Understand then, that when men come knocking at the door of my ribs, mocking smiles pinned hastily to their masks, I have turned them all away. I have rolled up my welcome mats, and turned out the lights in the front window, locked my doors and am inside sleeping. Resting. Waiting for the day when the man I haven't met, comes to my door, weary and apologetic—sorry for showing up so late, but his tire was flat and he's walked miles to get here because a lady waits and he has kept her waiting long. 

When he comes, may I have scrubbed the blood from under my nails and washed my hands clean until the water runs clear and sandpapered the notches from my heart and I am ready to be loved. 

...but until then, may I live in such a way—with walls up, treasure guarded and eyes and hands cold—so as to scare off the jackals and the vultures, to turn away the scavengers, to invest solely in the garden of potential growing in my chest and between my legs. May I live in such a way that regrets are few, but nuggets of wisdom many that I may be the woman, the queen, the king, the empress that both He, and I... and he, when he comes (eventually, hopefully), can love. 

If I was a blue whale, my heart would be the size of a small car and weigh over 1500 pounds...

And I would probably still love you, with every square inch and every individual kilogram of that giant heart.

That's why they fascinate me. Not because of the size of the creature called balaenoptera musculus itself... but rather the size of its amazing heart. With an aorta large enough for an adult human to crawl through, pumping approx. 15,000 pints of blood—compared to the 8 or so pints in a human being (bare with me here, my knowledge is as extensive as the majority of the syllabus of CSEC Human and Social Biology, on a good day). 

A blue whale's heart beats about six or seven times a minute, while our human hearts beat about seventy times when resting—our healthy slowest, I believe. So for every sixty seconds, balaenoptera musculus's heart beats seven times. A beat every eight and a half seconds. 

Then I wonder things like: if blue whales feel things extraordinarily. I know certain emotions probably only affect humans a certain way, but I know animals have emotions not much unlike our own. They seem to display attachments, attractions, desires, weaknesses and even distinct personality traits amongst themselves... One of the most interesting things I've noticed about animals is the sense of belonging, and the need to feel such a sense of belonging. Aaaand if you've never heard, I have a fascination with loneliness. I've written about loneliness before, but I wonder... Do blue whales feel an extraordinary amount of loneliness? With a heart that big, I sure would. 

Then I think that maybe the blue whale probably feels a bigger heartful of love too; of feelings like contentment, satisfaction, appreciation, admiration and belonging even. Maybe it is a great burden but a greater blessing. 

Oh, to have a big heart. 

I wish I had more of a direction for this post, but it's been difficult to write anything at all... much less something with direction. 

I'd recommend Joshua Bennett's spoken word poem Balaenoptera by the way. It's on YouTube on the "Striver's Row" page, I will attempt to add a link on a non-mobile device later. It's not exactly related to this poem aside from the fact that the blue whale is the central metaphor. (Edit: LINK ADDED!) 

Death is a thief and grief is like tearing a chunk out of your heart and

I don't think either of them show any bias.

The heart, I've been told, is the size of a fist. This is apparently a fact. I know very little about anatomy, and I care to know even less. But if my heart is the size of my fist, how can the chunks missing from my heart be so big? 

How can a fist-sized heart miss so many people at once? Loss after loss, chunk after chunk - it pounds on. Steady, mostly. 

Grief doesn't get easier, I was told once. It doesn't get easier, you just get stronger. 

It took me four months after my grandfather died (cancer, fluid in the lungs, the works) to stop waiting on his car to pull into the yard. He hadn't even been strong enough to drive it for months, before. The car hadn't been driven in almost a year. But I couldn't shake the denial, I couldn't accept his death for four whole months. People looked at me like a lit fuse, waiting for the explosion. When it came, it came hard. I was angry at myself, at him, at everybody, at God. I wanted answers that nobody could give. I wanted time. I wanted peace. I couldn't get any of that. I couldn't fill the grandfather-sized hole in my heart. I couldn't patch up the cracks. It still hurts. 

When my cousin's mother died, I cried twice. Once the first night I saw my cousin, and the afternoon of the funeral. Someone said to me in passing at the funeral that you get to a certain age and everyone around you seems to be dying. 

What age is that? At what age does it become ordinary to lose the people you love? ...she has a point though. It's just that, isn't it? The longer you're alive, the more people you watch die. And there's only one way to escape this labrinth of suffering. Death. 

So it's die or watch people die.

So you live, for now, and you deal with the grief in whatever way works for you. You accept and come to terms with the anger, the sadness, the emptiness, the denial, the pain. You know it's possible to live with pain and with grief. So you fall down, you sob, you grieve, you mourn. And then you get up, brush the fuck off and go back to your life. Wear the black, then hang up the black. Stages. Go through the motions. Catharsis, somehow, finally. Then peace, if you ever get there. (I've never gotten there... not quite.) 

Death is a thief. Death comes in the night, takes the light from your love and takes something you can never replace, of value you cannot quantify. 

Grief isn't rational, either. You can never fathom just how it will come, who it will come for. It just comes and you just cope. 

Today, I am coping with the loss of a mother. The mother of a close friend. May her soul rest in peace and may her children find comfort in her memory. And may we all heal. 

I will never seek to be someone's other half and

This is why.

I have paid my dues to half boys and half men who have no idea of what they want, but think that toying with me will compensate for something they've never had but have been told they need. 

Whatever it is, I do not have it. I am not it. I do not know where it is. 

If you are looking for your masculinity, I am a woman. I cannot give you the secret to being a man—and I will not let you abuse me, mistreat me and wield your power over me until you are satisfied. I will not let you dominate me, disrespect and disgrace me until you think you have fulfilled your requirements for masculinity. 

If you are looking for a full time companion, then I am not it. I am on my own path, coming to terms with my own loneliness. I am trodding Jah road on my own, forging my path by myself. I cannot be your walking stick when your legs grow weary. 

If you want a lover, that is not me. I am already in love with myself; busy satisfying all the whims of this spontaneous love affair. On the good days, I spoil me. On the bad days when I struggle to love me, I take comfort in never being abandoned by me. I am busy with loving myself, I cannot love you more than me. 

I cannot keep compensating for what you lack, half boys and half men. I cannot keep filling gaps and plugging holes and soothing a yearning for things you've often never even had or known. I cannot keep giving while I am empty. 

I am on this path by myself to seek some kind of fulfillment, to fill the emptiness and the yearning. I chase growth, change, development. What I need is somebody whole who, when I am whole, will be my partner. 

"Relationship goals"

(It has been hurting me lately that there's no reasonably decent way to fit my "...and" in my blog titles, but leggooo.) Not actually about anybody at all, just a free verse that rode my head too hard. 

-

#hastagrelationshipgoals-

But I want a relationship we can't tweet about... A little secrecy and some privacy, little hints that I'm yours and you're mine but they'd never know what we get up to

with your lips laughing against my neck, my sides, my tummy and my thighs

in the backseat, on the front steps, before we say goodnight. 

"I'd never ride for a [n*gga] who had bitches in the backseat"-

It's like we're flying down miles and miles of asphalt with barely any brakes and absolutely no hesitation 

your seatbelt is off, your left hand around my right one, your thumb rubbing circles into my skin 

burning tires and windows down. 

"Degrees and dreams, instead of J's and Mary jane"-

That easy way you tell me to do what makes me happy, even if you know I have to go somewhere far away 

How you kiss me like I'll disappear in the seconds that we have left 

How I'd sometimes rather not have any ambition if it meant I had to go anywhere at all- 

Light one up and maybe I'll get high with you, high enough to forget that we won't be in the same place in twelve weeks and four days and fifty something seconds and this doesn't even make sense but when you hold me I think maybe everything will be okay if we never move. 

Sex- 

But sometimes not sex. 

Occasionally just touching, drinking, drowning. Trembling trembling. Leaves before they fall, shudders along a spine, damp breath rattling between teeth (yours, mine).  

Sometimes you just touch me, your hands silent as they ghost on the sides of my body as you trace your path from ribs to waist to hips to thighs to hips to waist to ribs and I count backwards from ten and try not to implode into tiny constellations

And sometimes I touch you, my heart in my throat and my fingers buried in velvet and silk pooling between my legs. 

-

This is it, for now. But a work in progress perhaps. 

On Epic Sidekicks, Falling for your Best Friend and

Are you foolish enough to believe that this is some kind of fairytale? This is real life. This is not a fairytale. You don't get the guy. 

You get your heart broken.

Your best friend of the opposite sex will be your sidekick. They will be the lifeboat you turn to when your female friends are going on and on and on and you need a time out. They will keep your secret football team a secret. They will listen to you cry and cuss and wail about the boys who hurt you, the boys who you liked who weren't worth your time. They will warn you when boys have bad intentions. They will eat icecream with you at 4 pm on a school day when you want to binge (and then let you eat their icecream when your own cup is not enough and they will not judge you, only pretend to object as they tilt the cup so your spoon has better leverage). They will know without words that you are not okay. They will put puzzles together with you.  They will have faith in you. 

And you will love them for these things. 

...then you will love them for who they are. You will love them because of the way they react when you rub cupcake icing on their face. You will love them for the times they forgot to pretend to be tougher than you, and accidentally showed a little too much weakness. You will love them when they feel worthless because you have seen their value in the millions. You will love them because they're mostly irrational and a little loud and kinda hilarious, but they're sorta just perfect like that. You will love them because they've kept everything you've ever given them—even an assortment of leaves and flowers and odds and ends. You will love them because they are the Sun to your moon, even though you like to pretend you could possibly be the Sun (but c'mon let's be real—they sorta light up your whole life with just a smile, you faker).

Then you will fuck up, and you will lose them and you will realise just how much you love them. 

So, do not keep sidekicks of the opposite sex. Do not keep best friends who are boys who make you spin dizzy circles. Do not get addicted to another human. Do not be ignorant to how fast you are falling, or that you are falling any at all. And most certainly do not spend hours binge-watching romantic comedies where best friends end up together and reading Thought Catalogs about best friend romances when you realise you might possibly have something more than a crush on your (former) best guy friend and super sidekick. That is pathetic. 

Almost as pathetic as a blog post and fifty million drafts. 

Prompt: "What happens when logic fails?"

What happens when there is no tidy way to explain your emotions? No formula to simplify your feelings? 

When reason fails to reason with your faulty reasons, do you reason with God? Do you make demands of God, or gods, swearing why me why me why fucking me at the skies like a drunken fool- standing in the rain with no umbrella and shouting at heaven in the hopes that she will close her fists and stop pouring down pain? Do you scream at the man in the sky for the answers to a deluge of questions in a language you don't even speak?

                              Et maintenant, Dieu? 

When logic fails and you must face emotion, does your passion cripple you with the weight of a grand piano on the brittle bones of baby birds? Does your passion sing in tenors and sopranos across the cavities in your chest, echo rising to fill the space between the notes? Is it loud and angry and overcompensating? 

Or is your passion silent? Does it stream down your face and make home in your eyes and draw a blanket to its chin? Will this silent passion sit on your heart and bend your veins like strings of some cello rested between knees, pulling silent notes from a broken instrument? Do you bite back the scream that bubbles up your chest and threatens to swallow you if you don't swallow it? Has it been silent so long that it forgets words?

            When men cry out, do their tears speak a language that this God understands?

Perhaps when logic fails, faith sings a quiet song of we will try again tomorrow. 

An Open Letter to Exes

Not to be caught feelings over. Don't take it personally, if you ever see this.
-


The first break is not the break up; the first break is the broken window on the second floor that we crack when we shut the window too hard on a cold night.

The second break is still not the break up; the second break is the light bulb that goes out suddenly and leaves us in the dark. Two hopeless, frustrated people who grasp things clumsily and stub our toes on the corners of furniture and trip over the piles we've swept under the rug. 

The third break is the break up. The whole house is silent, except for the steady dripping of a tap that drives us both crazy. 

I move back into my parents' home, admitting we are not ready to live on our own. 

But now you unroll the welcome mat again, you trim the hedges that have climbed high over the fences, you dust the windowsills and replace the broken windowpane, you've changed all the lights. 

You try to convince me that a house once stripped bare of the pictures on the walls, the footsteps in the halls and the dinner on the table can be a home again. You try to whitewash out the stains and vacuum the carpet but this whole house smells like smoke. 

Like a dream lit on fire by two careless children, more in love with the way the fire burned that November than with much anything else. Those two children with burns on their arms, with new scars now. 

Two children who aren't quite children. Who don't fit in their childhood beds and have outgrown the swing on the porch. 

Who have songs that they can't listen to, other people who they have hosted, other houses they have visited. 

Who have outgrown this space—who awkwardly bump into furniture they once skirted easily around in the dark. 

Maybe it's time we finally stop trying to fix this place and put it up for sale. 

I've never smoked a cigarette, or did a line of cocaine, or tipped ecstasy to the back of my throat or rolled a single spliff and

Maybe that means I've never been addicted. 

(That is a lie.) 

Because I used to pop you like pills. You'd live on the tip of my tongue. I'd drink you like a thirsty man with a glass of salt water. 

I'd fill myself with you til you'd buzz through my veins and filter out my nostrils and seep through my pores. 

I couldn't get enough. 

I had to give you up. (Because they were right about how you'd fool me twice and the shame would be all mine.) 

...but like the man who gave up smoking and gets trapped in an elevator with a man and his cigarette, all I really needed was a reminder 

      of how you fit between my lips and on the tip of my tongue. 

(Third time might just be the charm.)

                     she says before relapse. 

Because finally I am admitting that I am broken and

Mostly bitter and angry and full of resentment. A prose poem of three or four different prose poems—I haven't decided yet. To him, and you... always different hims and yous. Unproofread, plenty errors. 

- 1 -

I love love.  

That same love I embraced like a friend and scorned me and shamed me and made a poet and a writer out of my mother's little lawyer. 

That love that turned me into a cynical realist, disgraced and ashamed by the half of me that craved the love that never loved me and mourned the hopeless romantic I was reborn from. 

That love that made me want to take the hand of the version of me before love's scorn and tell her that she was beautiful... So that she would not be surprised when she heard it from him, or him or any of the hims that would use it like a bandaid to cover the festering flesh wound they would open with their teeth. 

That love that made me a dirty secret. That made me let him fill me with bubbles and other things, but never meet my eyes—but did those other girls know he called me babe and told me how empty he felt when the people around him died? 

That love that made my memory sharp like the tongues of those boys who were quick to kiss but slow to care. Made it easy to remember warm hands and sweet words and forget what I deserved. 

That love that never loved me back. 

- 2 -

I thought I loved you. And you. And maybe even you, sometimes. 

I thought I loved you when you called me at two in the morning, said you were dying to hear my voice and asked me to read to you my favourite book. I later learnt you were playing Fifa the whole time. 

I thought I loved you when you gently picked up the poem I dramatically threw down a flight of stairs in sheer frustration with myself and how I had scarred the paper with my own madness. You read it once, twice, three times. I counted backwards in my head with my eyes closed as you kept reading. I thought I was falling in love with you. 

I thought I loved you, some nights when sleep was far and the air was thick and the heat was high and red was the colour of everything. When your voice, thick like honey and sweet like sugar, lulling me like some low, slow sankey, filtered through the phone. 

I thought I loved you when you told me that my jaw ticks when I am angry, and I cover my mouth when I smile, and I never cry where anyone can see. 

I thought I loved you when you said you loved me and I figured I should have said it too. 

I think I still love you. 

I think I always will love you. 

So to the boys who I thought I loved, who maybe I actually did, who I thought loved me, who came before, who hurt my friends, who I thought were different, who taught me twice... This is what you made me. 

- 3 - 

And finally to me, and the others like me.

To my friends who are with guys they are afraid might hurt them. To the girls who are sleeping with guys who don't love them. To girls who have cried themselves to sleep. To girls who are trying to make someone stay. To girls who love love when love doesn't love them back. 

Love yourself first. 

O9: Talk about little things on your body that you like the most.

On a good day, the thing I like the most about my body is my lips. There is something about the way they're just full enough to balance out my too round face, and how when I smile at my reflection she looks less like a stranger.

I like some of the people these lips have touched, but I also like that these lips stayed closed when they were kissed by the people I didn't like. 

I like these lips for the sensitivity they continue to show, even when the rest of me is cold and calloused. 

I sometimes like these legs, when they are strong and so am I. I like that though these legs have no mouth of their very own, they tell many stories. 

The time I fell off a bike with no training wheels. The burn scar from the hot rubber when I tried to fix a bracelet that I thought would fix a friendship. The healed knee I skinned picking oranges with my grandmother. The tan that tells you that I am a full time student—darkest on the shins, lightest under my socks. 

These legs that have carried me like sails carry boats across bodies of water. These legs that will go til they collapse and get back up and go again. These legs whose ache gives me purpose. These legs that will take me across the world. 

I occasionally am fond of this hair, though I once thought it was less than worthy because of its texture. It was what I was taught to fear—"too thick, too curly, too hard to comb"—and told to fix. To fix, as if it was broken. 

This hair, though, it forgives. It is strong and holds to its texture even when I am unkind. It forgives and reminds me of who I am, even the parts I thought I could change. It is gentle when I try to be patient, but it is resilient when I try to be vicious. It reminds me that it is here to stay. I remind myself that God makes no mistakes and He spent plenty time on me. 

The little things I love, part of a whole I appreciate and move towards adoring in its entirety—curves, edges, bumps, lumps and all.