LIVE YOUR LIFE LIKE IT'S GOLDEN

I have spent most of my days either looking up at the sky or down on myself. We met on a late Friday evening and after all these years have passed I still look at you in complete awe. I always knew I would find a love like this but never did I believe I would be so blessed…

I have grown in so many ways and I thank God for bringing you into my life. You have and continue to act as my confidante, teacher, healer, lover and best friend. I reflect on you and there is a warmth that settles.

I grew weary of praising our love to shield myself in case you left… In case I was too much. In case my love was too much. I misunderstood what it was to love and be loved. You hold me down in moments when I am breaking and lift me up as I spiral down our stairs and onto the street.

I am sorry for the many months and years that I have spent with the cracks as my focal point. I do not know what I have done to deserve a love so huge that I stand back and now let it engulf me.

You are the other part of me. Without ownership or without restriction. We share a light that shines. There are times - when you need someone. You are by my side. There is a light that shines special for you and me.

This isn’t one of those horribly romantic posts. This one is one that probably won’t be seen for the one that inspired it, not for some time anyway. We past the checking each other’s social ish.. lol well; most of the time.

My heart feels heavy and I feel like the things that offer me so much strength are now making less sense to me.. I look at my mother’s life and the dynamic that rests between her and my father and it breaks my spirit. 

She is so accustomed to behaviour that makes me want to scream the house down. I try and be the good Indian daughter, but now my silence seeps out of me in ways I cannot control.

So I sit on a swivel leather chair in the living room, with my aunt and parents and think of you.. I feel calm and I even begin to feel a small smirk turning into a smile hanging from my lips.

I didn’t handle the situation as you would have done; I couldn’t sit and bite my tongue. Not meeing fire with fire, but dousing hatred with water the way you said I should. I didn’t do it, I lashed out and stood my ground and the antlers were coming for me. Reminding me of being young, afraid, without voice.

Things are different now; I feel a slight pang of fear but it subsides. A victory for my spirit and a coat hanger for this ego.

Ego Death has been on repeat in my car, Praise the Lord for an aux output and youtube videos on how to install your own “sounds”. Moving on, writing this I feel lighter. Knowing in a few days I will be back in the sanctuary we made together. 

Me: "*says literally anything about Black womanhood to another Black woman on Twitter*"

White man: "Well, rationally speaking, with no lived experience, knowledge or emotional investment, while denying your humanity or intelligence, I would just like to say, BLAH."

Black man: "Well, the real issue is you aren't worshipping Black men enough. Unity. Blah. Me. Blah."

White woman: "ALLLLLL WOMEN. ALL. ME NOT YOU. ME ME ME."

We used to sit around the park till after dark

With incense swirling uncontrollably

Now we meet over text messages with emojis

Silently refraining from saying:

Our maps shifted but we misplaced coordinates

The only way we knew how

Dot to dot to dot

But my bindi missed the mark - that last time I shouted in the park

Especially as it's dusk and the spray can is nearly empty

WonderWoman painted in little suns on the shaky balcony

Oh and those old trees in a rose garden that probably still looks the same

Your names are etched onto old clothes and sit in a frame

About Victim

It is not that, so I plot a new landscape

Where sunsets in Southall and Kent

Are closed chapters and I look toward the new horizon

South of the River