theshadowspeaker

made from mud, starshine and clay

[buttonpoetry]

“Do not mistake how open I am for emptiness.”

— Blythe Baird, from If My Body Could Speak 

[gold-kushkloudz]

[allophobia-archive-deactivated2]

what society needs to understand is that friendship and romance are not ranks, tiers, or levels. they are not above or below each other. romance is not a promotion. friendship is not a demotion. romance is not “more than” being friends with someone. friendship and romance are concepts that exist on equal terms, side by side. sometimes they happen to coincide. other times they never intersect at all. how relationships are classified is up to the individuals involved but like?? neither is inherently more or less valuable is the thing

[buttonpoetry]

“If you do not use your mouth, he will use it against you, as throne to call himself mighty—but what is a boy but a boy preparing to be a bigger boy?”

— Desireé Dallagiacomo, from Sink

[black-culture]

[black-culture]

[black-culture]

[buttonpoetry]

“I soak in a bathtub of my flaws until they prune into art.”

— Blythe Baird, from If My Body Could Speak

[buttonpoetry]

“I am old enough to know pretty is a dressed-up way of saying prey.”

— Stevie Edwards, "Safety Dreams"

[buttonpoetry]

“Women are taught that first love look like sisterhood, taught the way a woman hold her sister is the way she hold herself.”

— Mahogany L. Browne, “Sanctuary”

[buttonpoetry]

“I am a body/I am a scrapbook of survivor’s guilt—turn each page, watch women make ugly shrine of their/my bones.”

— Desireé Dallagiacomo, from Sink

[thecarbgoblin]

Why are we even wasting energy on Kanye when Janelle Monáe exists

[nerd4music]

Janelle Monáe | Django Jane

[daisyjazzridley]

That’s just the way you make me feel That’s just the way you make me feel So good, so good, so fucking real

[maslaner]

Janelle Monáe - I Like That (2018)

[darcylindbergh]

“Let the rumors be true.” Janelle Monáe is not, she finally admits, the immaculate android, the “alien from outer space/The cybergirl without a face” she’s claimed to be over a decade’s worth of albums, videos, concerts and even interviews – she is, instead, a flawed, messy, flesh-and-blood 32-year-old human being. 

And she has another rumor to confirm. “Being a queer black woman in America,” she says, taking a breath as she comes out, “someone who has been in relationships with both men and women – I consider myself to be a free-ass motherfucker.” She initially identified as bisexual, she clarifies, “but then later I read about pansexuality and was like, ‘Oh, these are things that I identify with too.’ I’m open to learning more about who I am.”

Janelle Monae Frees Herself, Rolling Stone April 2018 (x)

[uncutgems]

From Carrie Mae Weems’  Colored People, 1989-1990