#★

[ximenasbrokencd]

going back to school tomorrow

[ximenasbrokencd]

that scene in leviticus where naim is begging to stay with any of the people in the store is how it feels talking to people and trying to make friends

[ximenasbrokencd]

i forgot how insufferable people at school are

[ximenasbrokencd]

wait 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 guys 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 i'm not over it 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[zexalscreencaps]

[fumupy8]

[sagittariusiscariot]

i use astrology and tarot alongside my ethnic/cultural spiritual practices rather than christianity because no matter how much i love southern black christian imagery and iconography, christianity was pushed onto us via colonization and slavery. i cannot separate the violence that christianity has helped white people inflict upon african americans. my mom used to hang a picture of darkskinned jesus with silver coily hair in our old apartment, but he is not the jesus the american white man praises. their jesus is pale, his hair crinkled but not curly, his body malnourished and tortured and white. i will always remember what the one on our wall looked like: skin the color of loam and hair like wool. draped in clothes of rubin reds and midnight blues, he knelt in a field of grass below the sparkling moon, hands clasped as he prayed out to his father, the lord.

as black people and descendants of enslaved africans, we kept our african identity with us through ancestral veneration and other practices that can never be stripped away by white supremacy. in my family, dreams are extremely important, and i realize they are so important to black people because the white man cannot access your dreams. that’s why ancestors and spirits will use the dream realm to communicate with you—there is no white oppressor standing around to overhear. although my tattoos exist primarily for beauty’s sake, they all carry deep meanings and are sometimes used in my spiritual practices as protection from malicious energies and hexes. i particularly use my sagittarius & mother mary tattoos as talismans of sorts and sometimes anoint them with oil.

i used to hate the stereotype that all people with dreadlocks are spiritual, but to an extent, it’s sort of true. dreads originate from rastafarians and that is an afrocentric religion. my mom, a deeply religious and spiritual woman, is the one that gave me and my brother locks, and she has them herself. she always reminds me of the story of samson in the bible and his long hair that stored his divine power. my grandmother begged my mother to stop cutting her hair short before her death, and although my mom still trims her hair, she keeps it long. my hair is finally growing back after i kept my locks extremely short for two and half years or so. during that time, i experienced some of the worst traumas of my life. as my hair continues to grow longer, i feel more grounded again.

all of humanity originated in africa. my origins specifically are directly tied to the continent forever and always. when i go outside, you know that my ancestors were born thousands of miles across the atlantic. when i see myself in the mirror, i see the features adapted for the climate the very first women in my family lived and died in. i keep a kola nut from my deceased great-grandmother on my dresser. i think of my dad’s mother when i smoke cigarettes, and i write for my mother’s mother, a woman that died not knowing how to read or write anything other than her name despite my efforts as a young girl to teach her. i will never deny my blackness or be ashamed of it. it is not weak to be enslaved; to endure the level of oppression they faced breaks the psyche in unimaginable ways. there’s a big reason so many of us have schizophrenia and other serious mental health issues, and it’s not solely because the psychiatric field is racist and over-diagnoses us. the deep wounds of slavery lay embedded in our genes, in our brains, in our hearts, in our blood, in our souls. not a second goes by where i am unaware of the horrors that happened that allow me to live as i do now in the same place as my foremothers.

i can never forget and i will never forget. to forget my ancestry, my history, is a disservice to the suffering that i will never fully understand or grasp. i exist in history and time with a recorded name; she will always only be known as Slave, born in year (17??) and died in year (????).

i will think of you being named Afra. to me, you are known. you are not just a slave. you are Afra.