Eye Contact

January 18, 2021 Until white folk understand something fundamental about their – I’m reading the introduction of “Undrowned Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals” by Alexis Pauline Gumbs – thank you Nina for the suggestion – and realizing that whiteness – the white person – the white skinned – light skinned – human – the person thing who is not dark skinned – so me – until the ‘we’ and the ‘they’ realize that the ‘our’ and the ‘their’ safety, security, 401k and Robinhood account is tied up in the endangerment of dark skinned humans…an understanding of something – what that thing is – seeking comfort in the midst of radicalized America…an escape route somewhere – unavoidable – the ‘our’ and the ‘their’ lives are protected in a way that does not travel the exact same way as it does for dark skinned person – the word thing – doesn’t even apply – doesn’t even jolt the same way – because objectification has been normalized – who is white America a slave to? capitalism? – the continuation of it? The fear of not having enough when we do? The lies told and listened to – from the capitalism ghosts? The same energy that holds grudges – beyond the confines of poverty and racism, and punctuates in a – I stop here because I feel like I am discussing something out of my league – and continue again because fuck opinions and the risk of endangering a thing called “me ego” like an ant without a hole to burry itself in when the grasshoppers come through – invisible protectors – and punctuates in a way – less obvious way – the unfounded racism that still breeds inherent within? – a longing for peace – internalized shame – the unconscious – a book the diversity executive producer gave me during my last week during my internship at CBS in 2013 – I deleted the “CBS” cos I didn’t wanna name drop but then I was like hold up – that was a valuable experience and I learned a shit ton about how much I don’t wanna work in television on the production side and also why i became a writer because holy f the crap that gets put on syndication no wonder why the world is where the world is spinning in space eating fast food and killing children – I can’t right now – more on that at some other point the book that was given to me – The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives by Shankar Vedantam. The link to the book costs barely $8 and the cost of a dead animal can be $98 – $9800 – Steak…Nike’s…an LV handbag to carry what again? how much for impliciticity and stolen land? something falls when you read this – leaves on the trees in winter – lives waiting to get whisked away – newborns born underground – a whisper into the unknown and what might be a clue to you, the reader, whoever you are, to the depths of coded language in every breath – this survival game that strangers on clubhouse refer to as “war the day I was popped onto earth” – I refer to our collective something – indifference – the homeless in the 5 Boroughs and Beyond – on the E, A, C, D, F, G, B, L – 5, 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 2, 12 – a total of 40 – and 4 – which was the number of 2020 – like being in the forth book of Harry Potter – Cedric died, Voldemort is stronger, HRH (Hermione, Ron, Harry) learn to ride the dragon – fifth book – here is a lowdown of events in case you want Order of the Phoenix downloads to draw possible parallels to 2021 – we opened this year with the capitol being set on fire – I do not read or watch the news – the summer – in reverse – encountering dementors – winter time – it is a solemn place to be – and yet the future that was given to my minds eye on my 28th birthday in Miami at Ultra Music Festival out shines any of this madness and confirms that those who are doing the internal work now, who are making amends and choosing love and forgiveness over the same narrative that has been holding them captive for the last 25-79 years will be able to catch a glimpse of this new world – I, for one, hope I do not OD on enthusiasm and hurt myself – a warning or a shadow – this is the confusion that I wrestle with – in caesura – that was a typo – I meant to type something I now forgot – but the typo to “caesura” led me to an interesting tunnel – I googled caesura and came upon “Caesura offers a sanctuary of enriched experiences with mixed-use space for progressive professionals seeking a comfortable, cultured community in Brooklyn .” – I clicked and found that they have 7 open studios and a one bedroom apartment open for 15 month – it’s only a $20 application fee and round up $3000 x 15 months (45,000) x 9 = $405,000 so technically, billionaires could rent out all the units for 8 people? maybe 9? … 80,000 homeless people – 9 = 79, 991 left to go… this is one way we can redistribute wealth. I know people have money to give. Redirect. Don’t ask me “how” – or do – and I’ll tell you that once you agree to do it – the giving – the way will be shown – roll them eyes if you need to but after that circulation you are still faced with your own choice of sides – what will you choose? “Sides” makes me think about the South – and also “sides” to a play – I miss the South – hushpuppies, buffets at Picaadilly’s, New Orleans, Mississippi, being on the road, Memphis in general, my father who was born and raised there, where I spent summers in Grandma’s pool at Audubon View the hill and slow opening electric motored gates, the anxiety of “where is the gate opener?” in the car right before we pulled up, the awkward dinners with family we barely knew, who we don’t speak to anymore because of “money reasons” – a similar sentence echoed by families all over the world, I’m sure. What will you choose? When the time comes? When the decision to speak into truth or to hide away presents itself in the form of a relationship? I ask myself this as I eat cereal at 3:02am with Micah on the cushion infront and below me, a crackling from upstairs reigns down, a reminder of the body in the bed, a white man, who I have chosen to be with, despite the calls of shadows or warnings? – a glance at my feet, the shoes, a warning – – of what might happen should I choose to stay – an instigation of truth beyond measure – that I will lose my right foot – and that he will cheat on me – a rumbling of an engine in the far distance – or a fear call into what I am afraid of – of lowering my guards down to love without fear – a teaching moment circling back to remind me that the man who I spent the last 7 years being in love with will never love me the same way because I am not a man – besides the point – tendencies – (An ambulance was running down the road, it’s 4:02am now and there is no one around, Spotify needs to make a playlist for ambulance and firetruck drivers to listen to so that they can get their fix in instead of alarming people about their whereabouts. Enya works just as well.) The conflict in my life as a reflection of the conflict within – another siren – New York City never lies – energetically, it stays prominent, unafraid, corse, loud, loving, in love, with both the chaos and itself and itself within its chaos, the trains, dilapidated compared to Singapore – a friend sometimes in my mind comes up – who is also a writer in Singapore who does not respond to my emails anymore, because I told them not to “hope” for America if they were not willing to put in the action because “hope without action is violence” – found myself editing myself – self censorship out of protection – I have a thing for burning oppressive structures down – that is all I will say – in these instances I love the ability to inter-dimentionally destroy heteronormative capitalist racist patriarchy and replace it with free kitchens and rainbow fluffy land – I cannot wait for there to be a link for that so that you have something to go off of – for now the bolded italicized reminder will remain as a – whoa – the loud neighbor didn’t rev his engine before turning his car off – which means he is capable of entering and exiting silently – well done – see already happening – inter-dimensional destruction – magic – read or watch the Potter series if it calls to you – I am learning spells. I asked a question on clubhouse tonight and Myron was one of the moderators. After giving me great advice about how to market the projects he said that it wasn’t my fault that I didn’t catch the beginning but he doesn’t allow curse words on his show – in relation to me asking about “who the fuck is cho chang?” I smiled because I knew that I was on the right path – no disrespect to myron – he’s fff incredible – but more so that the word fuck still holds power in a way that needs to be dismantled – people are – by my guesses – afraid and made uncomfortable of the word because it stirs things up – in the shower I realized that was my role – is – was – in an old way – is – in a new way – to embrace without shame or guilt or embarrassment – there is a distinction – conflict between the words shame and embarrassment – shame is how I feel when I sit topless across my partner realizing how I would actually feel if I walked around topless in the house with our other roommate – I slipped on my pants and really wanted to be able to walk around topless without it being a thing but for some reason really felt ashamed of my body and then angry that I would allow such a state to live inside of myself for as long as it has – been – as if my breasts were something to be un-proud of – as if they were not created by the universe to feed and nourish and hold with comfort – as if the very thing that this world has been founded upon – sex and power – was not inextricably tied into the humps on our chest – nipples – playboy magazine – how much is that worth? – I’ll do you the favor – $73 million – the other side – what they do to us – not all but many still – rape – kill – hide – shame – command – box in – how we let them – coughs and movement around stir the room – how I let them – conflict on the outside as a conflict within – to be sure about someone – is disrespecting ambiguity entirely and to undermine the currents of uncertainty is to call forth a surprise that will set you back on course, perhaps – or redirect you to another ocean – need to sleep now – tomorrow is another day – it is here already – glad I worked on this tonight – I might be moving over to substack – but maybe not cos they use stripe – stripe and I do not get along – not right now at least. Here’s a little slice of joy