[wildnaughtsss]

Is it you I seek? So gallant and brave, you stand upon a thankless pyre

Is it you I crave?

Malleable but unpredictable --and ancient... you've lived many lives

An imagined reservoir, a collection of tears --are you worth mine?

[wildnaughtsss]

I wish I could pull sentences you've said to me from thin air, verbatim, enough to place me back there. But every time I arrive, your face is muddy, shifting and cycling and transforming before I can exhale. Your lips are moving, the characters dance around me, then the words lay silken in my canals. Just laying there. I feel them, I ache from the sensations that I can't recall. I yearn, I pine, I perish. Then they melt away like a forbidden kiss--but you were suppose to receive this one. Why can't I ever remember?

[achillesinhighheels]

[wildnaughtsss]

I'm being impulsive. I do not need another camera when there is one guilt-tripping me every time I need fresh underwear. I threw her aside like a whiskey cigarette: a few wet, lethargic drags and then into the gutter. I have nothing against her, I just keep moving up the ladder hoping to finally reach the dream.

There have been plenty-a-dream atop that ladder. The goal post always moves, as they say (and as a black woman, sheesh don't I know it--oh noooO, the mystery of me is goooOne). I have an idea in my head, one that has been brewing since high school, since that fateful moment that my digital photography class was replaced with a traditional one. Something tells me it was a budget thing, given my place of upbringing, but we were still a magnet school and I think the priorities were skewed. Shocking. But I digress, as that change opened a new world for me.

I was already playing around digitally. I'm a 90s internet kid! I was absolutely enamored by the analog and never thought about my favorite fashion photographers shooting with film. I was a very naive, under-researched kid who would dive so deep into her interests that the flying sand would hide pertinent details. I always saw myself as a poser in every field I played in. How could someone who wanted to be a photographer not even know film could be so advanced? I didn't know how evolved it had become--outside of film for TV. Why I didn't think static photos could be produced under the same lens, I don't know.

The fashion angle disappeared and then reappeared as experiments in my closet. I was still a fan of Avedon and Meisel, etcetera etcetera, but I psyched myself out of producing work like theirs. Beautiful, intimate portraits and expressive, edgy editorials. I shot my friends as models in various landscapes, a mock shoot with Zara at one point, and even myself modeling before my Chicago move... But the fashion angle never stuck. Seeing the talent in Chicago didn't help--still doesn't. Comparison is a thief of joy and we're biblically acquainted.

My mind wants to try every style but as I'm coming to terms with now, I want fresh & simple portraitures. I like my candid work, the chaos beyond the flash, the mystery within the blur. I've got a style. I've got a *following*. I'm just not where I want to be and getting there, I feel like I'm putting on a performance, imitating my inspirations, when really the skill has been in me all along and I've been blocking it. I've been worried it wouldn't measure up so I stuck to what I knew--which is ironic because what I know is not my first language, what I wanted was. A very broken first language. Is that even possible?

Anyway, this post was suppose to be financial-based and about budgeting due to my new lifestyle. Welp, should I buy that camera? It'll be close to $900 on eBay but there are installment plans [insert red flag here].

[wildnaughtsss]

I've finally purchased a projector for my bedroom. Ever since moving in with my ex five years ago, we've never had a TV in the bedroom. He refused. I was okay with it, seeing that the common area was more intimate compared to when I had a roommate (a chosen sister but still). Also, I wanted to shed my habit of wasting away in front of the idiot box so often and delegating it to one room worked. Did it work? Not really. I still gorged on any morsel of screen time I could get. How do you limit access to a gal who was raised on it and isn't ashamed of her passion for it? I'm sure it's a shared experience. Anyway, all it did was remind me of how uncomfortable and inconvenient it is to raise yourself from the couch during the witching hour to migrate to the sleeping chambers. The boudoir. It was a proper bedroom now.

I'm living alone for the first time and it was not as if I were banned from making aesthetic decisions around the house, but I preferred to compromise. It was easy since we shared interests and had similar styles. It just made things easier (not on our relationship, apparently). It was the same when I had just friends as a roommate but they were more financially stable. A no-brainer on the last word, I didn't care, seemed right. That being said, I had a TV in my bedroom that was of great solace post-2am shift at the champagne bar. Hell, all the time! Firing up my laptop, HDMI set to extend, a high ABV can of beer from said bar, and a blunt.

I'd choose a movie from the list that never ends or a show I can watch in my sleep then type away on yesteryear's tumblr. Journaling, poetry, journaling, poetry. Usually poetry. Oh how I miss our daily affair--the only one I'd allow in so late without fuss. I can't say as much of the men I saw at the time, and yet I still saw them. My fault. But I digress!

Here's to hoping this becomes a streak. I've not read a book since May, so this should be the catalyst. Looking up hurts my neck but it has to be done.

[wildnaughtsss]

teeth of steel constantly catching the leather of me hastily drawn up to love in a secure embrace teeth, learned to be a size too big --or perhaps the enveloped husk too small no mirror to the illumination hidden further beneath maybe relief exists

[mournfulroses]

Sonya Vatomsky, from a poem titled "Spring Flowers," featured in Salt Is for Curing, publ. in 2015

[xosiren]

Sᴏʟᴀɴɢᴇ Kɴᴏᴡʟᴇs

[wildnaughtsss]

I’m quite distraught. I’ve got my wine, my green, and my snow. Yes, truly distraught.

“It's 3:00am and I am alone in this apartment

Thinking 'bout my dearly departed heart

You built me up and brought me down now

Chasing highs to keep my feet off the ground

Guess it's not really worth explaining

It's been over a while and things have changed, but

Memories still linger 'round and I'm drinking

Now but I don't wanna say too much

So I guess I'd keep it all to myself, mmm

Baby I've been hurt enough

So I guess I'd keep it all to myself, mmm…” - Baby Rose, All to Myself

[wildnaughtsss]

I've started to see men again. And I think that is why I'm finally back on here--which hasn't been since March, it seems.

While I don't journal by hand often, that's what I was doing. I'm still wary about posting to unbiased strangers, even though that was the reason I re-joined. Maybe I'm showing my age because it was literally half of my life ago that I first created a Tumblr blog.

Anyway, I live alone now. First time. Lots of feels. I'm hoping my hobbies advance past where they are now because they've been sorely neglected because of my relationship. I'm single now and living alone and feel like I have so much time for things, that I end up not doing anything at all. I'll regulate at some point but who knows when...

[wildnaughtsss]

I have a Substack. I use it to read the longform lives of others rather than share my own. It just has an air of superiority that I don't think my writing can live up to. That is not to say I believe the writers to be full of ego, but once you hit 'submit', the eyes on it are more analytical (could be in my head). It has a professional ruse to it--and maybe that's because of the optional paywall for subscribers. If I'm paying to read your work, you believe it to be worth the money and I love when people don't shy away from their worth (because lord knows I do). But it also makes me think I have to put out pieces that have been researched & edited 10x over and I won't be at that point until I'm ready to write my book. I created the account to be more intentional and outlined with my pieces, but I write as a form of release based around in-the-moment emotions, and once I throw "academia" into it, it will feel like a job or for someone other than myself. I know I am projecting and that it probably is as smooth and easy on the dashboard there just as it is here. Once I find a focus and just don't write willy-nilly about my dilly-dallying, I'll switch teams. Or just get dual citizenship.

[wildnaughtsss]

i keep digging for you. embracing a shovel rusted over four and a half years, not the best tool. but i yearn to get under you.

[miamiaaaaaaa]

Solange for Document Journal. Photos by Joshua Woods.

I am literally speechless.

[wildnaughtsss]

Cannot wait to receive my copy. Noticed it’s sold out now *whew*

[summer-s0ul]

nina simone in action

[shisasan]

March 14th, 1927 Virginia Woolf, “A Writer’s Diary” (1918 - 1941)

[wildnaughtsss]

you were my rock my stalwart stance --my chance to stand tall you were my rock my reason to brave the world --to walk ahead steadfast

[wildnaughtsss]

I'm Back

OG Tumblr gal, est. 2009. I deleted my account in 2021 but had stopped truly using it around 2018. It was like every account of the time: part diary-part pop culture reblogs-part hobby sharing-part etc. Journaling and writing poetry was my focus and being in a sphere of strangers gave me the confidence to hit the publish key. There were no biases towards me; we didn't know each other and could be as open & vulnerable as we wanted. It was an era, for sure. I miss it--but we move! This blog will run the same as my old one but sticking to the poetry & prose and leaving more specific thoughts to my physical journals.

I kind of stopped writing once I got off here. I did begin handwriting all my entries in cursive as some form of discipline but I was still not consistent. I'm hoping with these massive life transitions rushing me, I will find the pen again. I'm always asking why does it take major (usually traumatic) events to get the ball rolling and here we are. I've also said that I find it harder to write when in a happy state but I'm starting to realize may have been smoke & mirrors of my own doing. It's about to be a wild ride getting back to me. This is an escape. Thought I'd just leave myself a little reminder of why I'm here.