Privacy is a prison. I’m a flexer at heart.

 

“Sometimes you gotta pop out and show n!ggas….” -Kendrick Lamar, “Not Like Us”

I’m not humble nor have I ever been. Humility was a defense mechanism I could use to cloak the fact I am indeed a bad b!tch: accomplished, ambitious, sexy. I was all these things before the world could accept my spunky, fabulous package. I reflect on my early diva days fondly: wearing platform wedges to 8th grade science, discovering Clinique mascara samples (still the best mascara I’ve ever used in life), getting first chair in band on a recurrent basis. 

Getting accepted to art school felt obvious: I was a good writer that needed refining and a space to evolve further into my destiny before adulthood could assuage my passion at worst, distract me at best. I’ve accomplished so much that I was able to still maintain a modicum of confidence during these hard years where so many inner and outer changes transpired for me and led to more questions than answers. Perhaps it’s my new car talking, but I think I’m over the hump. 

I say all that to say I grew a good relationship with confidence early on, and it’s one of the most beneficial relationships I’ve had to date. Even though it can’t supplement me doing the work to overcome some of my personal issues, it can see me through the tunnel. My only sadness is that I simply don’t announce anymore. Announcing feels performative even though I have every rhyme and reason to brag. I’ve learned to just let my work speak for itself. If my audience needs me to say I’m the best at whatever I’m doing, that’s not an audience I identify with. I love real life and real reactions to what I have to offer, and being private about how much I’m actually working can only benefit me.

Last Call

Trigger Warning: Self-Harm and Suicide

If you were to ask me why I've spent the majority of my life being so nonchalant toward men with the exception of a couple undeserving souls, I could offer you a plentiful list.

Nothing, however, and I do mean NOTHING, takes the cake over learning today that a nigga who tried to get in my pants in high school lied about his mom dying. I'm genuinely gagged---not because the attempt worked but because WHO goes to that length to get laid?

***

I wrote the above portion a couple weeks ago. The past couple of days is what really takes the cake over some garbage from high school. Here I am yet again looking at a motherf*cker I know shouldn't be in my life. It's not like I'm not willing to leave; he isn't. It complicates things because I technically can't force him to go, but I also dread the idea I've been coerced out of my own safe space. Home doesn't feel like home because it isn't. 

I haven't cut myself in years, and then boom. There I was just needing to escape being screamed at for this or for that. I can't keep up anymore. The overarching theme is always that I deserve it, that it's my fault. Talking too much or showing emotions or rejecting things that harm me means I deserve yelling and discord and violence. 

Evidently, I still haven't learned the place my father tried his best to show me with his own violence.

What's sad is that when I am willing to play the role--to be the miserable, self-loathing, thoughtless and speechless person that doesn't "deserve" violence---that's also not good enough because then I'm "overexaggerating" and things are still---you guessed it---my fault. I'm "causing my own pain" just by existing, which means they're basically telling me I only exist to endure pain. 

The expectation for me to be without reasonable boundaries is the reason I am so enraged. At every interval of my life, there are people who believe I'm supposed to let them trample over me simply because I exist, and there's something they don't like about it. I'm supposed to allow shallow relationships, unhealthy job environments, and familial drama. I'm supposed to be screamed at, accused, betrayed and never fight back. I'm supposed to die. They want me to die, and I guess it's not happening quickly enough. I genuinely believe most of the people I've ever known would be indifferent or relieved to learn of my Earthly absence.

No one loves me, and I'm not allowed to cry about it, talk about it, think about it, or even feel it. This is the only place I can come to, and it's not even a place. 

 

The Bad Bitch Diet

 

"Cut them fake hoes off, and I ain't feel nothin'." -Numb, JT

Today I'm getting by water. I'm submerging my feet. I'm going to hopefully feel the sun after all these rainy days and getting up at early af o'clock. 

I want to warm my skin and visit myself...sit in silence with my phone in the car because sometimes, perhaps very often, it really *is* that damn phone.

Perhaps my oracle cards will tell a different story today, one of triumph and self-mastery. I will be grateful for all the combinations of celestial dust, fate, irony, and fortitude it took to animate me. My locs will continue winding into themselves. I will rest my palms on the same earth that witnessed my weeping. It will offer me cushioning. 

Whether or not I feel more or less of what I'm anticipating, I will be consumed. Bad bitches are always consumed by people. They watch, whisper, poke, police. To offer all that attention without true care feels sick. I haven't learned anything new about people since I was sixteen. I've simply forgotten and remembered in cycles. What more is there to learn besides the fact that people will eat me both figuratively and literally without actually acquiring a taste for me? 

My former homeboy described me as a "turkey sandwich" (reliable, tasty without the fuss), and that, ironically, is one of the more endearing things I've been described as. I understood what he meant. I'm like home, but dwellings only have the quality of the people occupying them. My best tenant is myself, so I've refrained from letting people in for quite some time, even for a brief visit. 

What's consumed is rarely edified. People don't trust me, and that is a mutual feeling. How many weird bitches, obsessive niggas, and the disappointments left by them should I allow myself to endure? I've maxed out on fucks to extend. 

Fuck the radio silence after being all goofy in my face. Fuck the fake concern. Fuck the proximity. Fuck the weird ass projections.  Fuck the hoes that want me gone so they can play dress-up with my aura. 

Starve.