#slampoetry

Another scroll, another sunrise bled through a blue-light bruise across my head. The algorithm wakes before I do, a curated echo, always true to some version of myself I built. A mosaic of moments, carefully spilt across a feed that never sleeps, where vulnerability only keeps if it’s pretty. If it trends. If it performs. If it fits the digital storms of likes and shares, the phantom touch of strangers caring, but not too much. I click. I tap. I nod along. Another perfect life, another perfect song playing in the background of a story where everyone else has found their glory. And here I am, behind the glass, a silent witness to the moments that pass, feeling every filter on my skin, this hollow buzz where real life should begin. Do you know this feeling? This constant hum? This curated silence, forever numb to the actual ache, the truth unsaid, the ghost in the feed, barely fed? We caption our pain, make it aesthetic. We crop out the panic, the truly pathetic mornings we spend just trying to breathe. We braid our anxieties into a wreath of witty remarks and self-deprecating memes. Lost in the glow of our digital dreams, we search for connection in a network of lies, or half-truths, reflected in pixelated eyes. Show me the cracked screen. The raw, unfiltered tear. Tell me the story of your most genuine fear. Break the firewall. Let the static spill. I want to feel the tremor. The real, tangible chill. Beyond the reach of Wi-Fi, the infinite scroll, I am begging for a body, a soul. A voice that isn't echoed, edited, or cropped. Before this ghost in the feed becomes all that's left of me.

This means I'll be competing against 11 other poets from all across Scotland in the grand slam final as part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival at the end of August. I honestly cannot wait!

Sur les ondes de la radio #JAMBO_FM à bukavu. La question était : " TM DOXYDO qu'est qui t'inspire et pourquoi tu bosses souvent (à 95%) avec les filles (slameuse) ??? Réponse : je m'inspire à cette parole " la femme est un être faible " vraiment cette parole ne m'arrange pas et je condamne sévèrement les fausses accusations de ce monde inconscient. Pourquoi 95% de tes morceaux (seulement les slameuses) ? Pour prendre en témoin ce monde inconscient et lui prouver combien elles sont capables faire autrement. Elles sont l'image du potentiel. #FemmeForce #F2 #lumiere #beauté #art #humain #slampoetry #MrHumilité #tmdoxydo_Slamaestro https://www.instagram.com/p/CrTlyF_LjWG/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

And steel ourselves for another day in hell.

It's not all men, but it's the “cover up” I received lustfully from the male teachers lips when my tank top was getting distracting throughout all the years of my schooling. But whose eyes were meeting my shoulders and chest in the second grade classroom full of boys who haven't even begun looking at girls like their meat? Was it the grown men? The same grown men that cat called me at 10 years old playing hopscotch on the sidewalk? It's not all men but it's the ones who make leggings or tight pants into personal invitations just to grab my ass. It's not all men but it's the ones calling girls women before they are given the chance to even sound out the word. It's the ones who make constant remarks about my body before ever getting the chance to meet me. It's the ones who grope me in public spaces then laugh with their friends thinking they're deserving of a trophy. It's the ones who make a woman feel she needs to shut up and look pretty. That the only place for a woman is either cooking or cleaning. It's the ones who make a woman nothing more than property. But it's not all men. Just the ones who feel the need to make a woman's body count her definition. I mean yeah a number can be extensive but it's her body she gets to choose what she does with it. It's the ones that made sex seem like not a big deal but once youve done it youre a whore. It's the ones who judge girls who wear only baggy clothing but the girls that show a little bit more and are comfortable in their skin they're doing it for attention. It's the “well what were you wearing” for me. It's men that try to make the female victim into the antagonizer just by how short they're skirts are. “What were you wearing” has lost all it's meaning when the first time I was assaulted I was wearing jeans and a Dora T-shirt with some light up sketchers, and many other women wore similar clothing. Our clothes don't lessen our experience.  It's the men who tell their daughters to be careful then teach their sons the same manner they're protecting their girls from. It's the ones who don't take “stop your hurting me for an answer”, and the men who don't believe a woman can change her mind during.  It's not all men. It's the one who held me down in eighth grade and forced himself into my being. It's the one who told me that I want to do this because I love them. It's the ones who drop pills into unsuspecting girls drinks in hopes of getting lucky. It's the ones who made us have to invent rape proof undies or forced us into learning to always look behind your shoulder when your walking home at night, and to cross the street if you see a man up ahead. It's the ones who make women feel like they have to keep their keys between your knuckles and if you don't know what that means then you're either a man or a part of the lucky 3%. But it's not all men it's just the majority of them….

An earthquake set in motion.

and empty fish hooks.

@blackmoonmacabre