bored and petty.

lil' erykah, shea butter sold separately.

[darkskinnedauntviv]

today i thought i was going to die and was so pissed that god would let me die on a campus i hate in a program i despise. I always saw myself going out in the thick of my happiness. 

my school reported an active shooter on campus and i was afraid i was going to spend my last minutes with strangers i didn’t know. strangers who were white. oh my god, imagine. the complete antithesis of my life’s work sitting in that room with me. 

thankfully it was a hoax so all of those “i love yous” sent out felt bitter as fuck when layered with “false alarm” messages. like i think about my last words to people a lot and i spent a lot of time making sure i said the right things, words that conveyed my love without freaking them out too much. 

death is such a performance. 

i tried to pray because my mom told me to but knew i was lying to myself because my spiritual pathway to god has suffered a series of blockages lately. i kept saying “god got me” in my messages but honestly so much of it was me telling myself “don’t you dare die without becoming the poet you want to be. don’t you dare die without birthing the baby you want to birth. don’t leave anyone behind. will yourself alive.” 

i feel fucked up and paranoid and almost cried on the way to the laundry room. being shot to death is absolutely my biggest fear and i spent hours thinking it would become a reality today.

i joke a lot about the world ending but none us deserve to share space with each other. some of us get off scaring people into their last words to loved ones. some of us are scared into our last words to love ones and wonder how to recover from that. its like magnets pulling apart, the world. it wants to come undone so bad but we keep trying to force it back together. 

i’m gonna go smoke a bowl and maybe cry into andrew’s chest if he lets me. 

[darkskinnedauntviv]

I really had anxiety for god knows how long and nobody tried to tell me, huh? I told Yaritza and she said “I know. I’m your friend.” Bae said “I thought we knew this?” and proceeded to list all the panic attacks I had on the bathroom floor. Lol what the fuck, where have I been?

Anyway.

Knowing this makes understanding myself so much easier. I know why I stumble over my words, and took six months to decide where I wanted to vacation, or why I’m still in grad school. My professor talks about having anxiety dreams all the time and its comforting as hell to hear him so casually connect to my struggle. 

My trip to California was perfect. Actually perfect. For the past few years I’ve been thinking about how all my friends are all over place and how nice it would be to have a set friend group. Honestly, I was just tryna have a Chicago Girlfriends. I feel so secure knowing I have that. Friends I genuinely love. Friends that push me to grow and feel renewed by. I usually spend trips away from home nosedeep in lists of things I want to do and leave regretting all the places I didn’t get to see. We planned pretty much nothing, showed up, wrecked shit and left. I loved every second of it. The last day we spontaneously decided to eat Bubba Gump shrimp, cheered on a white family rock band on the Pier with Tajin seasoned watermelon and mangoes in our hands, walked to the sand, smoked a j listening to Awaken, My Love! and took a picture with Jasmine’s polaroid. Like maybe it was the Candyland but it really felt like a scene from a cutesy Black indie film. I feel blessed as hell to have them. 

I got a new phone today and I’m tee-rash and photography but I’m gonna try to capture pretty moments more. Got all this storage so I might as well use it, right? Maybe I can find a way to actually start writing, too. There’s an app for every goal I’m trying to accomplish, I’m sure. 

Went to a gala today to celebrate my old boss and realize that I don’t even know what my dreams are anymore. 

Jupiter is in Scorpio or w/e so this is supposed to be my year and I’m just thinking about how much blockage I’m holding up that’s stopping that from being a reality. 

[darkskinnedauntviv]

last night i cried really hard and tried to talk myself down from listing all the people that only love me because of some service I provide for them. My mom was on the list. 

Sometimes I think I know what love is then I remember that there are only a few people actually willing to sit and listen to me for hours.

Sometimes I remember that there are in face people willing to sit and listen to me but I’m so suspicious of everyone that I force myself out of believing it. I tell myself that a moment of that would only be used as a tally when they need something down the line.

I don’t even know who I am outside of what I offer to people. 

[darkskinnedauntviv]

posting all my unfinished drafts.

I really do have conversations with myself like "don't be petty today, Moose. Control yourself." Daily.

[darkskinnedauntviv]

posting all my unfinished drafts.

People really be throwing hella shade and me like I don't just complain about my thesis, watch Empire, and take snapchats for a living.

[darkskinnedauntviv]

posting all my unfinished drafts.

Special shoutout to all the people in my life that give me the space to just talk when I need to. I haven't found the language to tell you how much it means to me yet, but one day I will.

[darkskinnedauntviv]

posting all my unfinished drafts.

Last time I was home, I spent 90% of my days in bed, avoided being with my family and when I did, tried to find ways to expedite my trip to my bedroom so I could lay around and avoid/sulk in the issues that were bothering me. My mom and I have been cracking jokes this weekend, mad family members have been telling me how proud they are of me for being this close to graduation, and my baby cousins are being absolute godsends and filling me with an unimaginable joy. I know I'm the type of person that needs to recharge constantly, but always feel guilty taking whatever provisions I need to take for myself to get to the point of clarity and well-balanced emotional health. I'm really, really trying to get there and I think taking weekends like this are an important step.

[darkskinnedauntviv]

posting all my unfinished drafts.

I am made of love, And it's stronger than you.

[darkskinnedauntviv]

posting all my unfinished drafts.

The other day my four year old cousin sneezed and when I didn't respond, looked me dead in the eye and said "No bless you? That's how you feel?" What the fuck.

[darkskinnedauntviv]

posting all my unfinished drafts.

I'm really happy I signed up for this gym membership. Five a.m., three times a week, maybe yoga and Zumba on the weekends. I'm pretty sure no one goes to the gym that early so I won't feel super self-conscious about teaching myself how to lift. I had to flirt shamelessly for that membership price cut but hustlin' is a way of life, no? My manager shares my birthday and laughs at all my jokes and makes me feel more comfortable in my group; thank God. My little brother's phone call made me feel like I'm actually doing a decent job as a sister. He just needs someone to listen to him. I needed that. I want to be that.

[darkskinnedauntviv]

posting all my unfinished drafts.

I just imagine the boy and I being some sort of power writing couple, like the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo of literature. With less infidelity. Okay, maybe not like them, like us.

[darkskinnedauntviv]

posting all my unfinished drafts.

Freshman year you were a creep. Even you admitted it. But everyone was a creep freshman year so I just let it rock and continued talking shit with you on Twitter. There was this one time that I never told you about, I went to see Carvens Lissant perform in the Livi Student Center and you were there sitting behind me, and for some reason, I was too afraid to turn around and say hi. I always wondered what would have happened if I just did. That summer you interned in DC and we saw Frank Ocean together. You always say that was the moment we became friends but I felt our friendship way before that. I remember going to Busboys & Poets, hanging out with that white girl from my internship and watching her face drop as you said that you wanted a baby mama on every continent and me in the corner laughing my ass off. I never liked her that much anyway. Sophomore year I started kickin it with you and 419 more, and that apartment became my escape away from Busch. I remember us making peach cobbler together for the first time. That one time you actually came to visit us on Busch and fell asleep on our couch for a good two hours. Like, a nigga was knocked. I took a picture of you and probably still have it saved somewhere but I remember thinking about how cute you looked asleep. It never hit me how close we were until I left Shani’s end of the year party and I cried my eyes out when I realized that you would be gone. Sophomore year you took your ass to France for a year. That year I drunkenly called you my soulmate and never talked about it again. That year I remember talking about how much I missed you and hearing people respond “but why? You talk to him like everyday anyway.” Wasn’t a lie. I swear to you, that distanced changed something between us because when I picked you up from Union Station, my feelings were all over the place. Senior year we spent a good month flirting like fifth graders; hiding each other’s things, bothering each other non-stop, chasing each other around the apartment. I had a little kid crush on you. A big one. Then my birthday happened and nothing was the same. Little kid crush turned into me getting to admire how cute you looked asleep every night…until you started snoring. We had so many weekends of us just laying in bed, watching movies, soaking in each other. A million nights of talking about our days turning into deep conversations. Mad protests and organizing meetings. Nights where all we did was hold each other. Nights where all we did was fuck each other. Getting drunk on College Ave and peeing in people's driveways together. Watching your room pile up with books and telling you to stop buying books when you haven't even read the ones you own yet and realizing that no matter how much you loved me, you'd always love books more. That day we built a living room fort then went to Passion Puddle and got drunk on 40s and wine and listened to To Pimp A Butterfly and made out in the middle of that white family’s picnic then went to get sushi then bought peaches at the farmer’s market then went home and I retwisted your hair. That Blackass day in Harlem. That day in Charleston with all that sunshine when we bought gelato that melted in like three seconds and watched Sara do backflips in the fountain. Having dozens of random conversations with your mom via FaceTime since we've been long distance. Everything has been so beautiful with you, even the ugly days where we have to face things that we don’t like to. Everything has been so effortless with you, a comfort I’ve never felt with anyone else. Everything has been so authentic with you, even on those days where we don’t want to talk about things that have been bothering us the most. And all my thug street cred is gone because I’m all mushy and in love and shit, but that’s okay. It’s all been worth it.

[darkskinnedauntviv]

posting all my unfinished drafts as self-care, pt. 10.

When self-care means crossing everything out of your schedule so you can make more time for work priorities.

[darkskinnedauntviv]

posting all my unfinished drafts as self-care, pt. 9.

I don't think people ever truly get over heartbreak, and that's okay. I think being single is a blessing that I wish more people would appreciate, and learn to love. I think romantic love is dope but the love shared between friends is the most beautiful love there is. I think my parents did love each other at one point. I think I definitely overuse the word love: I would like to be a person that saves it for all the special people and moments in my life but emotions get the best of me. But with that being said, I love

[darkskinnedauntviv]

posting all my unfinished drafts as self-care, pt. 8.

I feel like I've been laughing all weekend. Tears in my eyes, seconds of gasping for air laughing, the laugh where my voice gets high pitched and scratchy and I can't stand the sound of it but I love the feeling of it. Life ain't perfect but shit, at least I have things to laugh about. I'm grateful for that.

[darkskinnedauntviv]

posting all my unfinished drafts as self-care, pt. 7.

Yo I'm very grateful for my journal and my Black-ass neighborhood and the leaves in the fall.?

[darkskinnedauntviv]

posting all my unfinished drafts as self-care, pt. 6.

Today I told my group to stop calling my children devils, and they gave me blank stares. I told them that Black kids are demonized all the time and one of them responds "what does calling kids demons have to do with race?" to which the other one chimes in "yeah, I call all kids devils". Me trying to keep my cool, tells them that I'm just being straight up about my opinion about calling Black students devils. "Well calling them devils isn't the same thing as demonizing them." Um. "Would you be okay with calling white kids devils?" What the fuck. When Michael Brown was murdered, the police reports stated that Darren Wilson said that Brown charged at him and had demon eyes. George Zimmerman used an eerily similar description of Trayvon Ma Earlier in the day, one of the girls in the conversation came up to us asking how to handle students saying the n-word because she "knew the word had a history and didn't know how to approach it" and blah blah blah. Just fake deep bullshit. A few days ago she boasted that someone referred to her as the white Rosa Parks. Honestly what kind of stress.