#radicalsoftness

towards softness - a love ethic  

Me being the casual, delicious snack that I am 🧁🍑✨ Foto wie immer von @lenijerkins. . . #hamburg #hamburgphotography #blackandwhitephotography #radicalsoftness (hier: Hamburg-Altona-Altstadt) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtJC3qxHnpd/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1h35kxl6b27wd

today i deleted three text threads that were way overdue. i do this back and forth thing where in one moment i'll feel my worth and be ruthless in checking people who waste my time, but i am also sentimental and empathetic, so within hours i'll remember that everybody has their own shit going on, and remind myself not to take it personally if somebody else has not reached a point in their life and growth where they are ready for an energy like mine, and i soften and reach out. i backtrack and try to send love out. i sit with my fickle-looking text threads and simmer in the knowledge that to the recipients, all of this will look like madness, like weakness. but here's where the strength is: i don't care. from each interaction i learn my limits, i am reminded that i exist outside how i am perceived, and i become firm in the knowledge that i would rather be loving than be nothing. i will reach for you and reach for you and reach for you and then i will stop. so today i stopped. i removed those names from my inbox. then i left the house without my ID, and tried to buy cigarettes, and the man literally would not sell them to me. i am 33 goddamn years old. shit is already making me look younger. #BELOVINGORBENOTHING #radicalsoftness

With her new lavender-hued photo series, photographer Camila Falquez shows men can take part in radical softness too. - @camilafalquez | credit @i_d | read more - As Moonlight so powerfully illustrated, the expectations surrounding black masculinity can feel suffocating. Brooklyn-based photographer Camila Falquez saw this for herself when she had to convince her model, LZ Granderson, that posing in pink tulle would not hurt his career. “I said, ‘Listen, trust me. You want to be seen as a man ready to change the stories told about men,’” Camila recalls. Camila first met LZ, an aspiring politician, when she was taking photos at this year’s Afropunk Festival and fell in love with his aura. “He was so gracious, honest, and giving in the way he posed.” | #afrobougee #radicalsoftness #blackmen #masculin #blackmasculinity #powerful #gender #posing #camilafalquez

My underbelly Storage for well-kept secrets Soft place to lay heads

With her new lavender-hued photo series, photographer Camila Falquez shows men can take part in radical softness too. - @camilafalquez | credit @i_d | read more - As Moonlight so powerfully illustrated, the expectations surrounding black masculinity can feel suffocating. Brooklyn-based photographer Camila Falquez saw this for herself when she had to convince her model, LZ Granderson, that posing in pink tulle would not hurt his career. “I said, ‘Listen, trust me. You want to be seen as a man ready to change the stories told about men,’” Camila recalls. Camila first met LZ, an aspiring politician, when she was taking photos at this year’s Afropunk Festival and fell in love with his aura. “He was so gracious, honest, and giving in the way he posed.” | #afrobougee #radicalsoftness #blackmen #masculin #blackmasculinity #powerful #gender #posing #camilafalquez

earlier tonight J asked me to explain my last post. confused, i asked her "what's to explain?" she said "well who was it about?" and, still confused, i said "nobody." i forgot, i guess, that we live in a world where vagueblogging and subtweeting is the norm, where even works of non-fiction or the inside of our own minds regularly fail ~the bechdel test~. i tend to work my thoughts out by putting them into words, sometimes it means i share more than is considered "cool", but please believe i'm only ever doing it out of a need to scratch an itch of self-searching, and if i have something to say to somebody, they probably won't hear about it first via an instagram caption. so i told J my post was not about anybody, but what i should have said was - "it was about me." #radicalsoftness

my next one saves my selfies to his camera roll. he isn't scared and he doesn't make me nervous. my next one wears my name around his neck and understands teamwork. i'm talking about that princess nokia X hood profet type thing. my next one is ready. he lets me breathe and i give him space and neither of us are worried about it. he wants to work together so that it don't feel like work. he knows that every day is a choice and he keeps choosing us. my next one knows what's real. my next one is my last one. jsyk. #affirmations #telltheuniverse #manifestation #radicalsoftness