my tombstone might say “y’all got me f*cked up”
I only nap in joy. I wake to wade into abyss waist-deep.
watch: Meet Jazzelle by Chrishawn Julius West, a short film in honor of my birthday.
Without too much hyperbole, I didn’t know people could feel so happy. I’ve been bestowed so much love recently. My senses seem to be reignited. This solar return was done with intention. I asked for help. My children showed out. My friends warmed my vibrations. My family covered me. I got time to getaway. To roll around in myself. I go to love & be loved. All my regrets of recent wasted birthdays are burned away in the fire my throuple made for me. My prince retired for my fete first, but my daughters lingered till the midnight hour. I send them home in a caravan of called cars & responsible carpools. I watch them arrive at their nests’ from my digital bird’s eye view. All my children came for my solar return. My prodigal daughter still calls me “Mother” almost exclusively.
While this calendar year has been fraught with hopelessness, the future is brimming. I have a new understanding of my practice. I am a visual artist & have relied on words despite their constant failing. I want to translate my romance across new mediums. I have apathies & insecurities. I’m electrified by the possibility of it all. The flashes of nothingness that can often cause spiral, now, stick to the walls, sliding down wet & slimy.
I’m resolving my heart to freedom for the foreseeable future. My future is plucking new chords. I’ve been exhausted by the melodies sampled from my texts. I’m considering minor retrospectives reformatted for new platforms. It’s endearing to have ideas. I still worry when I feel good. My mania is hunting season for all my favorite predators, domestic & outside. My solar return has propelled me into varied registers necessary for the coming arrangements.
I’ve been running my body like a chaos machine & I’m worried. I still fetishize a kind of productivity, not for wealth but relevance. I miss producing. I’m not romanticizing being a mule. I can’t imagine, I’ll have less for attempting to demand more. I hope to never be mischaracterized as fearless. I’ll confess that as my greatest fear, along with other types of uselessness. I’m anxious about publications. I’m worried about losing my place in the archive. I’m pivoting to other expressions, for income & range. Not to over economize, but this asset must be diversified. I am spent. My local scene has run me dry. There is so much hunger, most of us cannot manage to feed anyone outside ourselves.
I learned this week that Maslov’s Hierarchy of Needs was stolen & misappropriated from his time spent with the Siksika peoples (Blackfeet Nation). This indigenous ideology flips the pyramid of needs, making self-actualization the most urgent need to responsibly access natural resources like food, water, & shelter, through personal development & community building. The peak, the essentials for living as we understand them, can only be navigated through a personal connection to the land & communal education for its care. Like so much of our popular psychology, we have it all wrong. We’ve been conditioned to prioritize capital making as the most urgent means for survival. I want to feed more dire needs than the propensity to grind.
I feel like my birthday challenged me to access what I’ve accumulated for myself. I’m new to this caliber of joy. I’ve had so much love around me. My present tense is maintaining that vision. My resistance is an alchemy of daring narcissism & delusional morality. My loyalty is deep as it is mercurial. I’m an ecosystem that requires care I know better is in the atmosphere. Manifestation isn’t a meme here. I’m naming a vital future & pray all that feeds me must delight in the act.
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