bbbbbzzzzzchhhh…Transmission. Transmutation. Transcendance…..bbbbtzzzzz

August 27-28, 2026 Deep Partial Lunar Eclipse Visualization via NASA

The moon is my Light Leader.

I was born screaming under a full Flower Moon, and I have not let her leave my sight since.

When I was small,

and my inner world began to darken,

I’d stare hard through car windows, trying to see her face.

I wondered, “When clouds roll in, does the moon disappear?”

When I was a teenager,

and my inner world began to rumble,

I’d run away to the local park and talk to her often. All alone, in the darkening woods in suburbia with the only being who wouldn’t judge my tears.

When I was a younger woman,

and my inner world began to crumble,

I’d wish to sing myself straight up into the heavens,

desiring the vacuum-tight solitude found on her surface.

Hey there, you, shattered in a thousand pieces
Weeping in the darkest nights
Hey there, you, tryin' to stand up on your own two feet, and
Stumbling through the sky

[Pre-Chorus]
(Hey, you, ah)
When the lights go out, and you're on your own (Hey, there, hold on)
How you gonna make it through 'til the morning sun? (Morning)

[Chorus]
Sing to the moon and the stars will shine
Over you, lead you to the other side
Sing to the moon and the stars will shine
Over you, heaven's gonna turn the tide

I’d wonder if trading my earth-bound body for a chance to dance on the moon was wild. I’d wonder if moon dust would stick between my bare toes. I’d wiggle my feet in delight at the thought. I’d wonder what it’d be like on the other side of the light mirror. To look down at Earth’s shine instead. Was her surface warm like the soil here? Would I ever be the kind of person who could breathe freely, way up there on my own?

I was filled with a longing to rest my face on hers.

Some days, I still wonder if the Moon’s not where I’m meant to be instead. I feel the allure and the pull of it the same way I feel my heartbeat.

I spent last week’s Partial Lunar Eclipse (in Pisces!) breathing deep and rooting deeper. I danced above the chaos of being human at Such a Time as This. What else is there for an Earth-bound wave like me to do but rise and fall in this eternal dance? What else is there to do but allow my grief and sweat to mingle? What else is there to do but to steel my nerves when thunder and lightning call and wave from the distance? What else is there to do but turn my face up in acceptance and let the rain water me too?

The Moon doesn’t disappear when the clouds roll in.

I feel her pull across my flesh and in my gut. I trust that the thunderclouds that accompany my tears have no power to separate us. Her changing face is not a weakness, simply what is natural. Her journey through the darkness is not permenant.

Though things may obscure my sight, my eyes will never stray from her again.

And like the huntress I was born to be, she’ll guide me, ever more.

Moonlight guide me,

I got these hunters on the run.

Meeny, miney

I’m notching up another one.

Lowkey, highkey

Straight to the heart, your time is done.

Bulls-eye timing,

Straight down the middle just for fun.

An author’s note

I’m in hero school….finally. Just finished my first semester with an A+.

In school on MY terms. We outside.1

If you’ve never watched the now COMPLETE (OH MY GOD) Boku no Hero Academia, spoilers ahead. I first fell for this show as a reentry into watching anime after a very rough time in undergrad. The fact that it ended just as I’m back in school and a whole ten years older than when I first met it has me sentimental. So, though I took the last few years off from the more “mainstream” shounen titles, I sat down to watch the entire series again. For the first time and only time I’ll ever see it “end.”

Here’s how it’s going.

(REDACTED), WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?” HALL OF FAME

Something mad I said to my friends recently.

“Fuck my bullies, man. I was having fun in school until they made it weird! I cannot stress this enough. I’ll eat a jean jacket with no hot sauce before I let people ruin my vibes in grad school.”

-(REDACTED), making an oath

ANCESTRAL RIGHTS

Words of wisdom from those who came before.

“Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom.” — Scientist, Educator, Environmentalist George Washington Carver

Word to an academic ancestor and hero whose name and memory called me into purpose and set me on my path. I love my city, I love my ancestral home, and I will be a good ancestor.2 3

THE MAIN COURSE + SCREEN TINGS

Why I’m here. What I’m mulling over. + Something I watched that moved me.

On the day I got into my grad program, I stared at two images I’d had saved on my moodboard for years. The first is up above in the author’s note.

It’s one of my favorite scenes of all time. The main character, Midoriya Izuku, has devoted himself to a single task — cleaning up a very dirty beach. For months, he trains his body not only to better himself as he prepares to receive immense power from his hero, but also to serve the community and the beach itself. His deadline is the day of his high school entrance ceremony, and he finishes just in time.

The image above is his cry of victory.

Outside of the ancestral veneration of practicing ritual on my chosen shore, I admit that this scene heavily influenced my approach to my prayers about where to go now that I’ve metamorphosed into a new creature altogether. I went to the same shore two summers in a row; I cleaned it, thanked it, offered sweet treats and a libation, and asked for clarity, direction, and purpose in return.45 I spent days studying the sand and greeting the creatures beneath the rocky shorelines. I fulfilled a lifelong dream and went fishing with my father. When we caught a stingray, I apologized and released it. I listened to the stories of mangroves and shorelines so abundant that he would skip school to catch crabs.

I mourned the dry, flat stretches of compacted, bleached sand in a bay that used to be home to countless creatures. I mourned the dead stingray that washed ashore. I ate fruit directly from my grandmother’s gardens, gifted by the trees that grew up alongside my parents. I chased her chickens and remembered being small enough when I’d last been Home that they seemed huge. I moo’d at passing cows and waved at the goats that wandered from yard to yard. I swam for five hours every day, and I saw a rainbow that emboldened me. I met family members for the first time and sat on their porches as passing rainstorms flash-flooded their streets.

I felt something knocking on my heart. I remembered the child who wanted to be one with the planet with all her heart. I remembered how much I wanted to spend my life studying.

The day I read my acceptance letter, I screamed in a mix of joy and anguish, lay down on the floor in my apartment, and wept. It had torn me up to even get strong enough to bet on myself, let alone apply. After a long time spent lost, I spent all of 2025 becoming the person who could get into a grad program like this one. I’d earned certifications, traveled into nature in solitude and with my friends, I’d studied, I’d gone to plant school (x2), and I’d dedicated hours and hours of my life to my community garden. I’d taken on a new sport and strength training as well.6 I started taking myself seriously as a photographer. I did all this as part of a self-designed training program and as a prerequisite to returning to college. So anguish and grief for the things that were painful along the way, but ultimately proved worth it, sat with my joy. Blood, sweat, and countless tears.

The tears streaming down my face tasted the same as the clear blue-green waters of my favorite bay.

The second image from Boku No Hero Academia, one that is nestled among the photos of the fish I played with last year, a picture of my grandfather, and my scribbles about wanting to be free, is this one:

This is All Might — Izuku’s childhood hero, mentor, father-figure — being the first to welcome him into his dream school. After a lifetime of being made fun of for being powerless (called “quirkless” in-universe), not only does he earn a power, but Izuku is started on the path to his destiny. And his hero is there to guide him every step of the way.

SO YOU SEE WHY I CRY?????

I’M GONNA BE A HERO!! LIKE MY HEROES!! I’M STUDYING!! MY FAVORITE THING!! AND I GET TO BE MY WEIRDEST, MOST EARNEST, MOST ARTISTIC, MOST PASSIONATE SELF IN SERVICE TO THE PLANET, MY HEART, AND MY ART.

And this time, if anyone makes me feel weird about it, I will raise hell.

If you bullied someone in school, you should have to do anti-bullying community service as an adult.

Bullying is absolutely ridiculous. Kids used to bully me for liking school, and it would leave me bewildered. I knew it then, but as an adult, you really gotta think about how nonsensical it is to be like “Ooooh, you’re a nerd! How stupid is it that you like learning about the world and find it interesting??? Teacher’s peeeet!” We got to sit around with our friends all day and find stuff out. I really was having a ball! What was there not to enjoy?!!?

The food could’ve been better, but I was really having fun!

It is a time-honored tradition ACROSS CULTURES to hang with your homies, learn from each other, and teach each other stuff. Why wouldn’t at least some of us find that refreshing? To be dehumanized, physically attacked, and emotionally tormented for doing what humans have been doing for centuries is wild. And now, because you think I’m a target, y’all are doing stuff like dumping my clothes in the toilet? I laugh about it now because that’s the kind of stuff only children would do forreal. It would be endearing if we didn’t teach young people to be cruel to each other because of perceived differences so early.

These are the moments I laugh to keep from crying — part of the way I’ve been thinking about my neurodivergence includes the theory that other kids could probably sense it in me (“she’s weird”) and decided to be relentless in their torment of me.

Given the experiences I’ve heard other AuDHD adults had in school, I feel like I’m onto something.

But DEAD THAT!

No one will EVAAAAA make me hate school again. I remember when I first wrote about my desire to find intellectually stimulating places and spaces to engage in study with people.7 Sure, a large part of that was driven by frustration at the (perceived or actual) limitations of my current industry and a desire to evolve. But a huge part of it was knowing that I had reached the limit of what I could do alone. I finally needed to give academia and group learning another chance because there is strength and additional wisdom to be found in numbers and in institutions with access to spaces and places I do not have.

You know how many academic journals I’ve read in the last two months? I feel greedy as hell in libraries and archives with .edu email. It’s giving

BOKU NO HERO ACADEMIA FRRRR.

Here are the themes within the work that give me courage:

Crybabies are heroes, too.

You can cry and still be brave. You can cry and be action-oriented. You can cry while raising your voice. What matters is you raise it. I cry easily when I’m frustrated, angry, or grieving for myself and others. And I almost always am. It’s not unusual for a few tears to slip out when I’m speaking about how much I love our world and want us to be well.

Izuku is one of my favorite shounen protagonists of all time. We’ve seen decades of “happy-go-lucky with hidden tenderness or sometimes crying within the context of sorrowful/angering backstories” protagonists (Goku, Naruto, Luffy, Asta, etc…), “cool/tough-guy with hidden tenderness” protagonists (Ichigo, Shinra, Edward etc…), or “happy and kind but relatively calm and empathetic in the face of danger” ( Tanjiro, my beloved). Izuku was my lil WIMPY CRYBABY FROM THE VERY START. That boy never stopped crying….until he did. And then it was because he was handing out cans of whoop ass. And then sometimes he would CRY WHILE BEATING ASS. Me coded.

It takes multigenerational baton passes to save the world and invest in a future we will not see in our lifetimes.

The metaphors of this show are pretty on the nose. One For All is a superpower that was originally forced upon a seemingly “weak” or “ungifted” young man with the power to pass on quirks. OFA is then passed from one generation to the next as its wielders die young. Each time it’s passed on, it changes with the innate talents of everyone who receives it. At the heart of BNHA are two more “ungifted” young men, only a single generation apart: All Might and Izuku, who make choices that ultimately defeat the immortal evil (All For One) determined to raise the next generation of villains to perpetuate the cycle of harm.

This particular mid-season climax is the moment when All Might uses the last of his power, ending an unprecedented era of peace. It’s THEE moment when All Might’s human vulnerability is exposed to the entire world, including evil-doers who are emboldened for the rest of the series. Although he manages to win the fight, and this next moment is read by the public as “You’re next” towards the villains, Izuku is left in his grief because he’s the only one who knows that what All-Might is actually saying is “my time has ended, and your work has begun.” The war has yet to be won, and All Might can no longer push forward.

Watching many of our anti-racist, anti-fascist, and/or pro-climate justice heroes give the very last of themselves and eventually become ancestors has fundamentally changed me in the last decade. Especially as fascism drags the entire world into chaos.

While people cheer, the only other person who clocks that something is up is this little blonde terror, wrestling with his own grief and envy of Izuku.

A person can change their communities simply by being themselves.

Sometimes, two people make each other sooooo brave that it has a ripple effect across the spaces they share. Think: the protagonist whose skill changes the team + the deuteragonist who becomes their buddy-rival or the second half of their combination play. The fighter whose strength raises the bar for the people around them. Perhaps the protagonist who is trying to reach their own potential + the rival who sees someone surpass their natural genius and is challenged by it. Or the outcast who grows into their purpose and inspires others + another outcast who finds understanding and strength in their friendship. In this case, the very first person Izuku rescues is Bakugo Katsuki, his childhood “friend” turned abusive bully. And because Izuku never once gave up on Katsuki, he actually comes around. Though he stays pretty explosive. I especially love how many times other characters compliment Izuku over time, but this moment in S3, where their teacher points out that it’s these boys’ rivalry and imperfect growth that are helping the ENTIRE class grow? UGH. MY HEART.

You can grow. You can learn. You can change…

Sometimes, a hero’s journey presents a fork in the road where one path leads to villainry. Sometimes, you need to get your ass beat by the people you victimized. Sometimes, you need to allow yourself to be saved. Sometimes the tough-guy act has to come down. When it comes to Most Improved? Hall of Fame. Bakugo is one of the best-written deuteragonists in anime history. To go from bully with an ego to hero with an ego? Perfect. I never faulted him for knowing he was hot shit, but how he treated people was ABHORRENT. Main character syndrome personified. I do chuckle a bit about him having a fire-based power set to go with this personality flaw. Given anime’s tendency to be on the nose, what other power sets could you give a hothead with a desire to be number one? For all his faults, Katsuki is a child who looks up to All Might just as much as Izuku does. In this arc, he’s unmoored by Izuku’s sudden strength, connection to All Might, and the guilt of feeling like All Might’s retirement is his fault.

When he confronts Izuku, they beat each other up until All Might (FOR THE FIRST TIME) apologizes to Katsuki for failing to remember that he is also a child, regardless of his strength. Kid had been kidnapped by villains, and all of a sudden, his former punching bag is punching back. Of course he was shook! I won’t spoil the rest of his arc, but know I HATED him and was still SOBBING by this scene.

When I meditate on forgiveness and restorative justice, Katsuki often crosses my mind. I’m not clearly there yet with deeply harmful and abusive people, but God is still working on me…….I guess……8

Finally….

No hero works alone.

Don’t go alone. It’s okay to share the load with the people who love you. Saving the world isn’t a one-person job. By Season 6 — Evil is up 100000. Several heroes we’ve come to know over the series die in a massive clash with the villains. People have lost limbs and their quirks. Many heroes have quit, and Japanese society is on the verge of collapse. The villain, who is manipulating another vulnerable young man into bringing about global destruction, is on the verge of realizing his dream. Feeling the pressure to defeat All For One but not able to reveal One For All to his classmates, Izuku leaves school. Cue title change:

Boku no Hero Academia.

Kore wa Boku no Hero Academia de wa arimasen!

He’s not in school? Show’s over!

Just kidding. His friends would NEVER leave their boy to emo cry in the rain all alone. He stops eating, he stops sleeping, and not even All Might can get through to him anymore. So what do his homies do? They reach out their hands. Izuku has saved countless people, and it’s his turn to be saved. For protection. And THESE KIDS GET IT. They’ve been through it all, and now that they know that their beloved Deku has been holding something so painful all alone, they show up. In a semi-comforting parallel to how Izuku never let up on Katsuki, they come ready to drag him back to school by force if necessary. (Naruto and Sasuke coded, okay sorry)

They learned of Izuku’s burden and took him by the hand without hesitation.

THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP!!

Eventually, they win. Class 1-A becomes the emotional center of all of global hero society as everyone comes together to save the whole world. One For All fulfills its purpose, and the grand evil is defeated. We watch these children confront things like inherited trauma and familial abuse, societal collapse, and desire for revenge. And despite it all, they grow up.

And they do so in a world made beautiful and safe with their own hands.

Ten years of my life flew by, and so did ten years of this story. The person I was in 2016 would be so, so proud of who I am now. She was so lost and alone, but just like Izuku, she found so many beautiful friends and allies that empowered her to be her best. And because she believed she could be a hero, here I am.

My hero academia has already tested me greatly — I got injured doing fieldwork, and I made mistakes. Frustrated at my limitations and MAD dehydrated, I snuck off to cry in the middle of the beach or the shady forests between class sessions. My classmates found me and offered me comfort. And two shots of tequila. I’ve come out of my first semester with a newfound strength I know will carry me forward in days to come.

Can’t wait to see who I’ll be by graduation and who will stand by my side as we inherit a world that needs saving.

NERD (AFFECTIONATE)

Whatever nerdy shit I’m into lately.

This whole entry is pretty nerdy, so I want to dedicate this portion to the people who have done some super nerdy shit with me over the last few years. They didn’t know they were in my training arc, but we did it.

1. To everyone I’ve seen a concert, musical, or show with! Special mention to a love of my life who whisked me away for a night at the opera (love u, S!!). I was thrilled because it helped me brush up on my Italian and music history, and I also had a great conversation with his very lovely friends about art history, NYC real estate, and more.

2. To everyone I’ve studied with at the library or run the halls of any of the museums with — you have my heart.

3. To the loves of my life I met the ocean and Sequoia trees with last summer. One clutched my hand and helped me climb onto a rocky shoreline as I stepped into the Pacific Ocean for the first time. We prayed amongst giants. I lay in the grass, played with caterpillars and monarchs, and became familiar with the way the West Coast smells.9

4. To all my classmates from each garden and parks department program I’ve completed in the last two years. I’m so grateful and so happy to know so many incredible New Yorkers. I am deeply appreciative of the time spent learning with you.

5. To my boxing trainers who let me sing along to Simple and Clean as it played on the gym playlist while you taught me 1-2-3-duck-6/1-2-1-2-duck (“When you walk away, you don’t hear me say…”) combos to help me associate music with this new movement after finding out I’m a musician.

6. To my friends and loves of my life who keep me politically honest and sharp. I’ve learned so much from you. Thank you for giving me spaces to believe in.

P.S, I LOVE YOU

Just a final thought.

I dunno who needs to hear this, but everyone is a scientist. Everyone can be a hero. That means you.

Just go for it.

bbbbbzzzzzchhhh…Transmission. Transmutation. Transcendance…..bbbbtzzzzz

Old habits die hard.

I learned to start Sundays off with gratitude. Church girl out the church but not the holy outta me, if you get me.

I’m lifting weights, literally warming up in a sunbeam, and I’m thinking about our sun. I’m thinking about how grateful I am that something in our corner of eternity has the strength to pull us upward and forward. How lovely that the sun’s pull has arranged us all in a way that makes life on our planet possible. I chuckle when I realize this is why We worship The Sun as a concept.

My arms ache and burn, but I push. I want to have that kind of strength.

My first year of dedicated strength training meant that I was strong enough to climb steep stone steps leading to the top of a temple dedicated to Kinich Ahau, the Sun-Faced Lord.1

Afterward, my legs burned, so I lay in the plush grass in the middle of a Mayan city. I let my heartbeat slow as I tried to imagine the sound of their footsteps across time.

In the days since, I’ve been tired.

I’ve slowed to a crawl.

Again.

I used to run until my legs gave out, and then I’d push, fall, and catch myself with my hands. And I’d crawl until my knees bled. I’d drag myself across finish lines and bleed until I couldn’t feel much of anything at all.

I swore I’d never do it again but,

Some old habits die down and lie in wait.

I could blaspheme; I could choose to flagellate. I could call myself a backslider for the habit of burnout I haven’t quite managed to kick.

But nah, gratitude.

Because I know what to do next.

I’ve slowed to a crawl, but it does not require a blood price.

Instead, I linger in the…

…early mornings.

…waves to the barista I’d like to be friends with.

…taking of a portrait in an impromptu photoshoot with his mother-in-law.

…hug from one of my neighborhood aunties as I promise to trim her tree and find her tulip bulbs next season. A giggle as I send her the gorgeous photos of her early spring roses and a video of a bumblebee kissing the secondary summer blooms of the same bush.

…laughter in my home as my “new” landlord, whom I’ve known since he was a kid, compliments what I’ve turned the space into after all these years. I invite him back to simply hang out and raid my bookshelves. He’s almost the age I was when this place first became my nest.

…warm feeling of holding my friend’s hands as we walk through our city.

…love I feel when they put food on my plate, and I put food on theirs.

… the exhalation of pain and relief as the masseuse alchemizes the score kept in the tissues of my body.

…waiter from January remembering my face when I popped back into my favorite burger joint for the first time since we met.2

…way his face lit up when I remembered his name.

…screams and applause from strangers finding joy when I sing.

…the sweat I shed and the transformation of the land I had been called to steward.

…satisfaction when strength ripples through my body, and I pull apart the overgrowth to open up new pathways of light for what needs to flourish down below.

…giggles of my girlies as we have girls’ night and kikikikikikikikikikiki over our crafts.

…faces of my darlings when we’re having family dinner nights and slow sundays and other holy communions that remind us that we are one body with many hearts.

…pride as my purpose meets me where I am every single day. Just like I knew it would. 3

I’ve slowed to a crawl. And I thank the sun for lingering across my skin.

An author’s note

Here is DISS-ABLEIST. Dedicated with love to everyone who has told me to try harder, do better, pray, and self-improve my way out of chronic illness and neurodiversity. Dedicated with hate to anyone who has ever been pushy, shady, weird, fetishizing, or dismissive about disabled people and the things we do to care for ourselves.

May this middle finger find you. <3

A sister to Every Heavenly Body on Mute, Exhale. Nap. Repeat, and Mask Off. 123

I’m finna get this shit off my chest and lay it to rest.

ANCESTRAL RIGHTS

Words of wisdom from those who came before.

“I am sick and tired of being sick and tired, and we want a change.” – Fannie Lou Hamer

Ancestor Fannie Lou Hamer was disabled. A childhood illness (polio) left her forever changed, and in 1963, she experienced a beating so severe in prison that it left her further disabled.

She really got active. I’m so grateful to be learning more about her these days and just think she’s so badass. Shoutout to disabled Black women, man. I get chills thinking about the complexities of the lives led by our disabled ancestors like Miss Hamer and Harriet Tubman. We’re pushing what they left us forward.

(REDACTED), WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?” HALL OF FAME

Something mad I said to my friends recently.

“I used to climb on tables in the club, but now I be in the crib singing the indoors song from SpongeBob and doing self-assigned homework……for fun. For fun, mind you!!!! The other day, I was shopping for whiteboards on wheels for three hours to start writing the equations I’m learning by hand again….OH MY GOD! WAIT, I HAVE TO WRITE THIS DOWN FOR MY DOCTOR. PEOPLE HAVE BEEN DIAGNOSED FOR LESS.”

- (REDACTED), making their other neurodiverse friends hoot ‘n holler

BOO! TOMATO, TOMATO!

Hateration in the dancery as a healing practice.

1. Ableism. If you don’t know, now you know.

2. People who use the r word. Yuck. How does it feel to suck that bad? Cannot relate.

3. Companies that make it hard for disabled people to secure accommodations.

4. The American Healthcare system.

5. Ramps made by the MTA. Guys. Seriously. Do better.

THE SACRED TEXTS

Something I read that shaped me.

Autism is Not a Disease: The Politics of Neurodiversity

I love a juicy little book/quick read. At a whopping 122 pages, this pocket-sized book has renewed my perspective on disability justice, and I’ve learned so much. I really resonated with this particular theme present in the work:

“Jodie Hare, diagnosed with autism at twenty-three, argues it is time to redefine the politics of who we are. She calls for the recognition of diversity as part of natural variation, rather than a departure from sameness.” — Lauren Elkin, author of ART MONSTERS

THE MAIN COURSE

Why I’m here. What I’m mulling over.

Life is busy, and there’s always some task to be done. How tiresome.

I am a firm believer that, regardless of whether or not you’re disabled, we should all get to offload at least one chore to a professional service and pay them well.

One of the very first things I ever did for myself as an adult was to find a very lovely, family-owned laundromat to pick up, wash and fold, and drop off my laundry. Upon my return to my hometown, I realized laundromat life was not for me. Too noisy, too hot, too crowded. (Sensory sensitivities) It also takes too much time, and I don’t want to walk back and forth.

Plus, my experiences in university laundry rooms left me gagging.

Literally. I would find long blonde or brunette strands in my clothes or smell the hint of someone else’s personal detergent of choice and RETCH. I’d peel my clothes off in disgust. I remember calling my mother in tears about it. Other people’s……..sheddings and bodies lingering in my clothes…..blercgh.

(Sensory sensitivities)

My family laundry folks are meticulous about the cleanliness of their machines and use standard, unscented soaps, and for that, I am grateful.

I looked for a laundromat for weeks.

(liking to plan things carefully before doing them)

It was my first time ever doing something like that, and I’ll never forget how relieved I felt to be able to slide that single task off my plate. The first time I got to put all my folded clothes into their (color-coded) place in my closet, I sobbed for twenty minutes. I was so tired alllllll the time, drowning in chronic illness, professional burnout from a chain of exploitative gigs, and even if it cost me a bit of coin I didn’t quite have, a constant rotation of clean clothes was my “splurge.” One afternoon in 2021, I was having my usual happy exchange with the man I have saved in my phone as "Laundry Uncle” and handing him my bags of clothes. When I was relapsing or having a flare-up and too physically weak to hold things or climb my stairs, he would carry those heavy bags up and down each time.

(avoidance, fear or restriction of certain foods)

Now, he climbs the stairs when I’m too sore from weight training or gardening. I’m only alive to have made this shift because this was the very first thing I did to release the pressure valve of an entire lifetime of unmet needs as a neurodivergent child. He doesn’t know what it means to me, but one day, I’ll be brave enough to tell him.

So needless to say, even back in 2021 - I DON’T PLAY BOUT HIM OR ‘BOUT MY LAUNDRY AS A DISABILITY ACCOMMODATION.

Why am I telling you this?

I was recently lifting my bags down the steps to him one afternoon and was pretty proud of how far I’ve come in my recovery. And I also remembered a time two Black women failed a version of me who had yet to understand that I was disabled.

A housemate who could not stand me — but who I suspect was dedicated to pretending we got along because we were Black women and she was projecting that ‘you’re like my little sister’ thing on me — sat in the house I paid most of the bills for and “jokingly” called me bougie for getting my laundry done. Another Black woman (a person I cared for) joked with her, and when I was visibly hurt and confused, I got a “just kiddingggg.” I tried to explain why it meant so much to me, and they talked over me and laughed harder. I fumbled over my racing thoughts.

“Wait, no. I’m not bougie. I—”

(finding it hard to say how you feel)

[How dare they?? PANIC. THIS HURTS FOR SOME REASON! SMACK HER! SMACK HER! GIRL AT LEAST CUSS HER OUT!! FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUCCCCCK]

(emotional hypersensitivity)(aggression)(sensory overload)

Imagine.

Brokie #1 calling another Not-as-but-Still-Brokie #2 whose house she’s living in (who is paying the bills by the skin of her teeth so Brokie #1 can be a brokie in brokie peace) bougie, while the other person laughs at me (her friend?). When I said that made me uncomfortable, they implied I was being defensive. Afterward, I literally adjusted the days of my laundry pickups just so I’d never have to hear them comment again.

(challenges in social communication and interaction)

I never forgot. Eventually, when that became a single bullet point on a long list of ways that living situation had me fucked up, I ended up removing myself from the dynamic entirely. But it took me years to figure out why that shit actually…

[BOOOO. You should’ve knocked her in her shit so hard the only Grand Rising would’ve been the knot on her big ass fo’head.]

….hurt my feelings.

That was the very first time in my life I made a choice like that for myself, and I couldn’t even have it in peace. It had taken me YEARS to accept even the possibility that I am disabled, and that was the FIRST thing I “asked for help” with. I was in the throes of years-long burnout brought on by professional abuse (my friend knew that), recovering from a massive physical illness (they both knew that), and the ONE THING I did for myself, you made it weird. And when I tried to explain that what you were doing wasn’t funny so you’d stop? You laughed in my face. I was SICK and in a body at war with my mind, so excuuuuuuse my ✨bougie✨ ass for paying a family in Queens for the services they literally sell.

People can be so casually ableist, and I’m at my limit.

It’s taken time, space, and distance to realize how many people’s casual ableism puts me in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn without me being consciously aware of it. I’d spent more than a decade of my life clenched up, punished for being myself, not even CONSIDERING I was neurodivergent for real — not just traumatized — and unconsciously self-soothing. All to prevent meltdowns.

I was tired. I still am.

I spent my entire life having my boundaries steamrolled over in dozens of personal relationships because the high-masking version of me thought that was the only acceptable way to exist within community. I went to places that caused me pain and distress. I sat through the jokes in the movies or on TV. I’ve seen your mischaracterizations and stereotypes of autism and ADHD online and in the media. I’ve raised myself and two other AuDHD children when our (also undiagnosed imho) parents lacked the resources and emotional maturity necessary to understand us.

(Eldest daughters who’ve made their capes into a picnic blanket, feed your spirit today.)

I’ve had my requests for help, and my vulnerability flipped back on me as a character flaw. I’ve had accommodations and systems I’ve tried to create for myself destroyed by people’s lack of care and planning. I’ve seen the way you treat other neurodivergent Black women. I’ve been the one to absorb other (male, white, thin, queer etc…) neurodivergent people’s harm. I don’t find it “hard” to be neurodivergent as much as I find it hard to find places and spaces and communities that would at least recognize the ways in which they make it hard to be a neurodivergent person. If I grew up in a home where I was punished (inadvertently or not) for being neurodivergent and rewarded for masking, where could I finally relax? If, as an adult, I couldn’t even be in my own grown-ass, Black ass home where I pay bills without someone (inadvertently or not) being ableist to me………

WHERE IS SAFE?

The world will be triggering tf outta gang and then being like “But whyyyyy are you upsetttt??? Beee normalllll. Come outside, we ain’t gonna jump yooooou.”

When I’m unwell, I be feelin like God’s shakiest chihuahua in Her tiniest purse, the tiny purse, AND God Herself tryna raise the aforementioned shaky chihuahua. The world is already mad loud and smelly, and on top of that, people be putting me in Situations where I have to WORK to stay in my body. All while enduring somatic comorbidities.

(generalized joint hypermobility) (light and sound hypersensitivity)(aversion to touch)

SO YOU DAMN RIGHT I AM UNCOMFORTABLE IN SOCIAL SITUATIONS. Y’ALL BE MAKIN’ THEM UNCOMFORTABLE! OUTSIDE BE UNCOMFORTABLE AS HELL!! IT CONFUSES ME, AND THAT MAKES ME UNCOMFORTABLE!! I’M SUPPOSED TO PRETEND IT’S NOT UNCOMFORTABLE?? AND PEOPLE CAN BE SO MEAN!! I CAN’T TAKE PRETENDING LIKE I DON’T NOTICE IT ANYMORE!!

People hide knives in their words and actions, and then go HA! YOU PEOPLE CAN’T READ SOCIAL CUES.

I’d argue that I actually see TOO many layers in the things people do and say. That’s why I get all squirmy when I can clock there’s a second or third meaning I’m not privy to. Because if you say something but I hear something else in the context and tone of what you said, I’m immediately like, “……………..now hollon.” I’ve seen the sidelong glances people exchange when I and others speak. I’ve noticed when you stop listening. I’ve noticed the number of times “it’s just a joke!” has become a camouflage for abusive interpersonal relationships in “communities” and “safe spaces.” I’ve counted the number of times I’ve tried to make sense of it all, tried to help my traumatized body unclench in relationships, and have been met with a lack of understanding. If your response to me trying to give you a glimpse into why something is not landing kindly in my body, emotions, or mind is to tell me I’m “too sensitive”, “overthinking”, “defensive”, or “emotional?”

Thank you soooooo much. Please see the reception desk on your way out to sign the guest book. Exit is to your left. Please take a goodie bag as you leave.

And nah. I don’t believe people when they do that “just kiddingggg” shit no more. Not everything is a joke, and I genuinely think culture would benefit from a reminder that what you are okay joking about, other people are not. Mi tiyad.4

That old housemate wasn’t actually kidding — she knew it was kinda embarrassing (for her) that she even had something to say about my laundry and wanted to throw a shady little stone and hide her hand. We’d already had pretty significant clashes by then. She’d BEEN aggravated at me, felt comfortable ‘joking’ with my friend (damn), and doubled down even after I expressed that I disliked it.

(IF I WAS STILL DOIN BROKE SHIT WIT YA BROKE ASS THEN YOUR BROKE ASS WOULDN’T WANT BEEF.)

I was too tired to react to ableism in real time before, but now?

Even at my most triggered, I’m a Big Dog, bitch; can’t Lil Sis me. My healing, shadow work, community building style, and anti-ableism means I might still rage-cry when I do it, but now I’ll hit you with a ten-slide PowerPoint presentation of where you had me fucked up at. WITH peer-reviewed sources. I will color-code it. You not finna catch me off guard being ableist around me or to me and think I’m stupid or less logical because I got emotional during the “argument.” I’ll send you discussion notes afterward, too!

Gone are the days when a woman who was living off my check by knowingly avoiding paying her half of the bills, and someone who would laugh with her (knowing what she was doing to me!) would make me slink into my bedroom to cry in frustration at being misunderstood.

Can’t be “teehee I’m a mermaid” autistic all the time.

My shit also comes with a (REDACTED).

Ableist?

Consider this a diss track in the making.

Onward.

MUSE BEHAVIOR

A song I’ve had on repeat lately

God forbid a neurodivergent, traumatized Black girl not be cute enough for you people. God forbid she not be small enough. God forbid she go through things in public. God forbid she opens up about it.

God save her if she’s not entertaining enough while doing it.

“Bad bitches have bad days too.”

Megan Thee Stallion……………

If I said that how (nasty) people speak to and about Meg is not just misogynoir, colorism, etc… but also ableism, would y’all be mad? Just kidding, don’t care — it is.

I started writing this entry before that Easter Island-looking mfer cheated on her, but the conversations about her since have only proved my point.

Walk with me.

Alongside my other fave Demi Lovato, Megan is a staple of my Healing on the Mic playlist. Her (DEEPLY UNDERRATED IMHO) album Traumazine is MY FAVORITEEEE. I consider it a perfect pregame for Megan and Megan II. What I deeply enjoy about Megan is not only is she a gifted writer, but she really puts it all on wax. Starting with Traumazine onward, you can tell she was really invested not only in challenging herself as an artist but also in being honest about what she’s going through. She lost her parents and her grandmother. She lost friends, and was violently attacked by a man she trusted. She admitted to being sensitive and anxious and suicidal. She told us her pain plainly. And we made a circus of all of it.

ALL WHILE ALSO DISCOUNTING HER RAW TALENT.

WHEW, GIRL. To be victimized in public over and over again, have your pain misunderstood constantly? To know that your current systems of coping aren’t the way, and admitting to this vulnerability with this level of skill and storytelling as an artist?

AND HAVE PEOPLE STILL PLAY?!? Y’all won’t let her be ill or traumatized or vulnerable or heal or be great in peace. Ableist.

“I guess my skin not light enough, my dialect not white enough, or maybe I’m just not shaped the way to make these ****** give a fuck.” - Not Nice

A lot of the music from 2021 onward came with her righteous anger and grief, and I LIVEEEEEEE. I remember posting Not Nice on my Instagram story as one of my earliest realizations that no amount of masking to appear nice or good would stop the world from being violent to me or keep people from playing with my life or misunderstanding me. Like, is it a diss track or is a Black woman just tired of you playing with her? She owed many, many people a cuss-out and the songs that have come out since?

PERFECTION.

Anyway, stream my girl and stop playing in Black women's face. Ah. 👅

THE CAMERA GOES ‘POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP’

A cool picture I took or a photo that moved me.

I got to spend my birthday with one of my favorite people doing one of my favorite activities: MEETING A NEW BODY OF WATER + PLAYING IN AN AQUARIUM.

So grateful to have greeted Mishigami <3

Enjoy a couple of photos from that trip. These are such a huge addition to my ever-growing portfolio, and I’m falling in love with photographing wildlife more every single day. I’m so happy I chose to go all in on this. <3

P.S, I LOVE YOU

Just a final thought.

If we (as in our entire species) were all built the same re: our brains, abilities, and cognition, we would not be who we are. I think it’s freaking awesome how many ways there are to be human.

I’m personally manifesting the end of ten-part carousels on how to be aware of autism or accept disabled people on Instagram. Literally just….listen when we speak, duh. And if you’re not gonna support the neurodiverse and otherwise disabled people around you, at least stop being annoying about it! We don’t have time!

It was a hundred degrees a month ago, and it killed a lot of people; disabled people including our elders die in wildfires and floods; the genocide in Gaza is a mass disabling event; they left us to die during COVID, another mass disabling event — we don’t have time to explain to people over and over that if they aren’t locked in on disability justice in conversation with everything else, we’re not gonna get anywhere fast.

As always, blowing a kiss to other neurodiveregent/neurodiverse people reading this. Disabled baddies — keep making that art, keep resting, keep resisting. You’re perfect.

An author’s note

If you’ve been reading along, I’m tapping into themes of death and revival once more. Warnings for implications of suicidal ideation + recovery. If this resonates — solidarity, beauty. You got this. Stay ten toes down.

THE RADIO STATIC

bbbbbzzzzzchhhh…Transmission. Transmutation. Transcendance…..bbbbtzzzzz

How many more lives am I allowed to live if I feel like I’m running out of time?

How many more desperate cries am I meant to cry?

How many more doctors talking over my head am I meant to endure for the sake of being alive?

Is this life as it’s meant to be experienced?

Can’t I just start over? Erase me and begin from the top in my next life?

No.

You can’t.

Because you’re more immortal than you thought, coward.

You’ve got last wills and testaments hidden beneath rocks… lying unused by the sheer power of your mother’s prayers. How many times have you memorized the sound of your inner voice calling to the void? How many times have you bitten down until you bleed when you wanted to plead, “Remember me like this, not like what I’ll become” in the comfortable silences shared with the loves of your life? How many times have you known you were leaving? You recognized the disappearance for what it was, and this time, you did not fight it. You thanked what it gave you and prepared for someone else to take it from here.

You looked around rooms and places you once begged to be in and realized you’d never fit all of you into the shallow sense of self required to sustain your mortal flesh.

You thought the solution was to perish.

You were prepared to haunt the places you once loved for an eternity. Die young, leave a pretty corpse. You were prepared to live a life of slow, public rot.

Then, there’s the right donut at the right time.

Or the right smile on the right child.

Your name yelled with affection.

A stranger willing to give you directions.

The cheers of victory from city streets that have a heartbeat.

The giggle of a man who just received flowers.

The smell of a tree that towers over you.

The way the morning mist tastes in the middle of a forest.

The way your friends looked as you sweat on the dance floor in the name of true love.

It’s the screeching of Evanescence at karaoke with the loves of your life.

It’s the feeling of once being a lonely teenager, singing to cope, and realizing that these songs take on new meaning when you’re happy.

It’s the way the world looks from atop a temple and from the plush carpet of healthy grass.

It’s the breath at the end of a laugh that reminds you, “Ah, this is what it means to be alive.”

The call of the grave may come, but here you are,

Screaming back.

Your destiny lies elsewhere, Yomigaeri. Maneater. Flaming sword. Beautiful monster.

How many more lives am I blessed to live if I know I’ve got all the time in the world?

As many as it takes.

An author’s note

This has been a long time in the making. I’ve been meeting my ancestral home with new eyes, meeting my garden, getting certifications, and forming a new dream born from this Substack space…..1

Baby’s first expedition as a scientist. <3

Enjoy.

(REDACTED), WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?” HALL OF FAME

Something mad I said to my friends recently.

And did.

TOUCHING GRASS

A nature hobby that keeps me grounded.

Look at this COOL NEW PLANT I MET!!!

Meet the Flame of the Woods aka Ixora coccinea aka Jungle geranium. It’s native to India but is all over the place where we’re studying.

ANCESTRAL RIGHTS

Words of wisdom from those who came before.

“How are we to expect people to appreciate their natural resources, their own animals, if they do not know these animals?”

- Sharon Matola, founder of the Belize Zoo

MUSE BEHAVIOR

A song I’ve had on repeat lately

“I work all night, I do my thing
Just killin’ time, need a friend
Is this my life? Beginning or end?
Can I start again? Can we start again?

There’s a new moon on the rise
Turn the tide, turn the tide
I’ve been walking a thin line
Between the Earth and the sky

Why do my realities take over all my dreams?
Why does all the purest love get filtered through machines?
Gimme something good that’s even better than it seems
Why does all the purest love get filtered through machines?”

I’ve mentioned this song before, but we’re running it back with the video this time.

THE MAIN COURSE + NERD (AFFECTIONATE)

Why I’m here. What I’m mulling over. + Whatever nerdy shit I’m into lately.

I am writing this from a stuffy room in the forests of Central America.

A wild sentence, if I do say so myself.

We are very outside this summer.

I’ve had a lifelong dream of traveling the world that has been elusive…it’s sometimes all I can do to return to my ancestral home, much less explore places I’ve never been before.

But.

By some crazy, divine blessing, here I am. In my dream grad school program, studying abroad for the first time in thirteen years. Studying Biology the way I’ve always wanted to.

Blood, Sweat, Tears.

I’ve been howling into the night and into the ether until my dreams came to me.

In April 2024, I wrote a note to myself, folded it, and left instructions to open it in 2026.

I’d cried myself sick the afternoon I wrote it, deeply disappointed to have had to cancel another trip to work. It was the afternoon of the eclipse, and I had been hoping to at least make it to another state to observe it and capture photos. Instead, I was watching a livestream, hunched over my desk, and applying to more jobs. I’d booked my trip to view the eclipse when life was better. Now that life was worse, I’d canceled it to get the money back.

Instead of being in a new place, taking photos the way I wanted, I was on a deadline.

Chained to my desk.

Again.

When the first tear fell, I dragged my body across my apartment and sat in front of my altar. BIG, HUGE tears rolling down my face. A few of my dear ones knew what I was grieving and why I felt lost; it’s their perspectives and kindness that had been carrying me up until this point. But the deep disappointment of this particular afternoon seemed to perfectly encapsulate my despair and rage at my circumstances. I remember crying so deeply and repeating, “I just want to go outside. Why can’t I go outside?? I miss it! I want to look at the eclipse too! Why can’t I go play outside!!”

It was one of the first moments I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that if I didn’t find my way back to nature, I would die.

Maybe not physically, but part of me would wither away forever.

The little girl who woke up at 6 am to watch the nature shows before the cartoons and waited patiently for her ZooBooks to arrive every week needed a reason to live. The teenager who would shut herself up in her room to watch hours of Shark Week and Mythbusters or go study for fun because that’s where she found meaning and peace needed somewhere to process her rage. The young woman in the throes of chronic illness, post-traumatic stress, and an existential crisis needed somewhere to lay it all down.

I really, really missed the planet, and I really, really hated the things that were keeping me from it.

After undergrad shattered my heart and body, I never thought I’d get to study the “hard” sciences again. Choosing Biology as my first major was already a way for me to run from my desire to be a performer, so where could I run to next? I pivoted to honing my transferable skills and studied Psychology with a specialization in children and adolescents to save my own life. I told myself I was content to live a life where I loved nature through a screen, between the noise and heat and pain of what must be done to survive every day.

But here I was, miserable because I’d finally run so far away from the things I loved that no amount of…

Slay Yas Queen Girlboss Brand Viral Tweet Tumblr girlie-isms Representation Matters Like and Subscribe Attend the Panel Black Twittah Networking Event

…cultural white noise spoon-fed to me through screens could quell my desperate need to just….go to where there was peace and quiet, so I could talk to the planet and hear it talk back.

EVERYTHING WAS OVERSTIMULATING AS HELL, AND IT WAS PISSING ME OFF SO BAD, I NEEDED TO RUN AWAY AND TALK TO MOTHER GAIA OR ELSE.

Like fymmm I went with my fourth choice for a life path, and it STILL turned out to be ass? I let time and circumstance push me into misery. I had a telescope and a camera gathering dust. I had dreams deferred in every corner of my bedroom and my heart.

NOPE.

So I took out a pen and paper and cried myself through a manifestation that I’d have reasons to travel and study and that my dreams would tell me where to go. Then I chose 2026 as the year I’d need to read this note, and I stuffed it into my altar box. I found it on New Year’s Day 2026, in the limbo between applying to grad school and waiting to see if I’d be accepted. I’d completely forgotten what I had written, but took it as a sign that I’d been accepted into my program.

And well…..Here I am.

Outside.

Onward.

TOUCHING GRASS + THE CAMERA GOES ‘POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP’

A nature hobby that keeps me grounded + A cool picture I took or a photo that moved me.

Speaking of snorkelinggggggg….enjoy these photos of the smallest place I’ve ever been on planet Earth so far. Our snorkeling site is only 3 acres across. It’s so damn peaceful. I’m fighting for my life not to ask them to leave me here for a month by myself so I can get my head on straight.

HOW GORGEOUS. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get my hands on an underwater camera this semester, so you all can’t see what I saw with my eyeballs, but know that this space is so beautiful, I wept.

I WEPT.

P.S, I LOVE YOU

Just a final thought.

I hope you find the Thing that makes you feel how I feel in this moment. I’ve crafted the kind of life where I’ll never have to choose between the Arts and the Sciences. I’ll never be a princess in a tower again.

[PHASE TWO: LIBERATION]

[STATUS: INITIATING….]

An author’s note

Trigger warnings for mentions of childhood sexual abuse, pedophilia, rape, physical abuse, and assault. A sister post to MANEATER, a year later.

ANCESTRAL RIGHTS + THE SACRED TEXTS

Words of wisdom from those who came before. + Something I read that shaped me.

“The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.”

“Master, what gnaws at them so hideously
Their lamentation stuns the very air?”
“They have no hope of death,” he answered me,
“and in their blind and unattaining state
Their miserable lives have sunk so low
That they must envy every other fate.”

Canto III of Dante Alighieri's Inferno, as translated by John Ciardi

BOO! TOMATO, TOMATO!

Hateration in the dancery as a healing practice.

You know who you are. Ugggggglass.

THE MAIN COURSE

Why I’m here. What I’m mulling over.

You ever almost accidentally join a cult?

What’s the girlie pop equivalent of “If you see da police, Warn-A-Brother” so that people understand that part of protecting each other from predators is actually pulling someone aside and saying explicitly “This person is dangerous and you should reconsider being around them,” instead of like…gossiping or having conversations for years about it instead?

I think so often about how long we knew Robert Kelly was a piece of shit. Whole entire adults knew he was a predator, but still let us grow up singing “Trapped in the Closet ” as kids. He was calling himself the Pied Piper for chrissake. Cookout music is not that hard to come by; y’all just lazy.

I used to wonder “HOW do abusers get away for SOOOOOO LONG??”

And then.

So a few years ago, I was almost taken in by an abusive narcissist, and no one around me clocked him for what he was until what he was was absolutely undeniable. By then, I was already happily planting the seeds of the life I wanted, so when the whole thing finally cracked open, I continued on my way. I’d come to his narcissistic feeding ground after being invited by a friend, and once I gathered enough data and was able to match it up with the signals my body was giving me long before I had a name for it, I hit the bricks. Something was wrong, and I just wasn’t trying to stick around to find out what. I found out much later that he’d been furious enough that it didn’t work on me to use my name to try to manipulate others. Unfortunately for him, 1) I’d seen his type before, 2) I wasn’t scared of him, 3) I was aware I was smarter than he was, 4) I wasn’t attracted to him, 5) I can be fond of you just fine but that goes out the door the moment I find out you’re a dickhead, 6) I’m really good at pretending I don’t understand when someone is trying to manipulate me long enough to find proof that they’re a dickhead.

I will not spend time here discussing the people he victimized. That’s not my story, and I only wish them well. I hope they all got their lick back.

(Fuck him!)

What I want to use this space to do is to point out, with specificity, that I (a person who had experienced abuse before) was absolutely shocked at how quickly I was led into a lion’s den, considering how “good” we all got at “spotting” abusive behavior and “calling out abusers.”

I’m not one to fall for cults…

(I don’t like or trust most people enough for that tbh and love being in my house.)

…but this one almost got me because it was peer-reviewed by a person I deeply trusted. My body knew before I did how unsafe I felt, but I ignored the check engine lights in order to see the best in people and believe in "community” (barf). Eventually, there were several incidents that showed me that not only were boundaries around gender, money, and time incredibly porous, but things I told to one person were shared back to me via another person, but with my intentions twisted. BIG ASS RED FLAG. You spread my business because there’s some psychosexual shit I didn’t know you all were tangled in behind the scenes?

I’m out. I’ve heard this song before.

Thinking of what I dodged, I give my ancestors extra gifts for answering my prayers of protection and helping me feel what remained unseen and unconfirmed for an entire year after I’d left. In addition to his victim’s (understandable) silence, the abuser in question benefited from their enabling (less understandable), their active recruitment of new people who were often other women (least understandable), the earnest naivety of several others (including my own), and frankly…….

Deep unseriousness and lack of discernment of the other men who interacted with the space regularly. Including men I would’ve expected more interpersonal precision and active, vocal allyship from.

Which brings me to the namesake of this piece.

Kung Fu Kenny tried in his own way to display his discernment….I guess? The irony of the spectacle with that Maple Leaf Lightskin Terror is that it made joking about hating and calling people out “enough” of an “action” against abusers for a lot of people who likely would not know how to aid a victim and deplatform an abuser for good, even if they recognize them. And Kung Fu Kenny has been noticeably mum on his own mentor’s past AND allegations against the other rapper whose involvement with the NFL likely gave him a leg up toward the Super Bowl in the first place.

(“We’ve moved past kneeling….” but are the actionable items and change in the room with us?)

When That Lady’s husband was named alongside Seanathan Combs in a lawsuit, and now allegedly mentioned in The Files the internet loves to meme about so much, and Kendrick didn’t have a diss track prepared, I went “oh….”

Celebrity got our asses with spectacle AGAIN.

Why is everything a spectacle in our current culture? Will I ever “get over” how annoyed and uncomfortable I am? Is it my responsibility as a survivor to “get over it?” Is it not warping anyone else’s mind just a tad that punchlines about pedophilia had people laughing so much? For so long? I grew up a little Black girl victimized in an era when people LOVED making pee jokes about Robert Kelly every time his songs blasted over the speakers on a neighbor’s stoop. Now, I’m a grown woman flinching and cringing whenever she opens the comments on IG lest she find ANOTHER No Diddy joke in the wild.

Maybe I’d feel different if justice were possible in my personal life. Maybe I’d feel better if we lived in the kind of world where systemic (Free Palestine, gun control NOW, free lunches for all) and personal harm to children was taken more seriously. Maybe I’d be satisfied if I could gaze into the future (That’s so Raven~) and see that this is the start of a long overdue abuser reckoning in Hip Hop and pop culture.

But nope.

When my (former) lifelong fave Usher announced a joint tour with Chris “Restraining Order” Brown, I remembered his photos with ~Uncle Russ~, who is abroad because he got some ‘splainin to do. I remembered that Usher was in the eye of the storm with DIDDY, AS A CHILD, and I look at Justin Bieber’s crash out and recent choices like 👀👀👀👀👀.

Something something smoke…fire….

Because for those of us who survived? Those of us violence has not doomed to an early grave? We can sometimes look at someone else and notice the haunted feeling. And sometimes, you can tell who’s tired of masking the agony of living through what they’ve been through.

The Not Like Us era was #METOO with a danceable backbeat and far less consequence. I think of that moment of culture and sigh when I realize that some men literally could not and would not clock an abusive man if he waved the red flags in their faces because patriarchy and opportunity make them colorblind. And even if they aren’t colorblind, I find I’ve interacted with enough men, women, and nonbinary baddies who’d seemingly rather let you skip into the lion’s den and get hurt so they can say I told you so. Or it’s all theory and philosophy, and when action time comes, it’s crickets. Or worse, it’s talks of how gullible or naive the victimized were because we love a “I always knew he/she/they was weird” after the fact.

So passive.

I find it hideously boring.

After my most recent too little too late “I’m sorry I didn’t know that was happening to you”, all I can think about is how often we leave people who have already been victims to be victimized again, and I tell ya….that just doesn’t sit right with me. There are more ~funny~ memes about the culture of pedophilia and rapists and violent narcissists than there are pedophiles and rapists and violent narcissists being (REDACTED).

Remember, I’m not a survivor who forgives.1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_beheading_Holofernes

So I’ve decided, the passive get tossed in the bin right alongside the rest. I won’t be standing next to you during The Revolution.

Going the way of Dante, baby.

The inaction is the sin.

I was soooo excited — I thought “FINALLY. We’re calling weird motherfuckers weird to their face!! Someone is gonna get his ass outta here!” and then I remember this is the same world that still listens to fifty song Chris Brown “albums.” This is the same world where Trump is president again. This is the same world where motherfuckers are grooming and selling kids, and I’m supposed to answer emails on time.

We love spectacle, we looooove explosive exposè, we looooooooove posturing, and we love moving on.

A halftime show and two years later, and here’s the evil lightskin in question on a “redemption” arc by channeling another man who, outside of his music, is most famous for his (alleged! do not sue me!!) abuse of no fewer than six children. And I get it. MJ is truly harder to let go of because, unlike many of these bozos, the music stands the test of time. It’s still beautiful. We could consider his story to be one of a victimized child becoming a wounded adult who in turn (allegedly! do not sue me!!) victimized children. Such is the case for a lot of (allegeddddddd) abusers.

Flagged & Reported

The King of Pop and the Boys Around Him

Michael—the Michael Jackson biopic starring his nephew Jaafar Jackson and directed by Antoine Fuqua—is a box office smash. Since opening on April 24, it has made nearly $600 million globally. The film, which covers the time from Jackson’s debut in the Jackson 5 in the 1960s to his first solo tour at the end of the 1980s, allows the viewer to bask in the…

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4 months ago · 819 likes · 5 comments · Tracie Morrissey

But what of us who want justice? Who want an end to this cycle of harm in our lifetime? Who want to be able to listen to music without having to do mental gymnastics or dodge barbed wire fences to do it?

Because he’s gone, the truth about The King of Peter Pan Syndrome may never come out, and justice is elusive. But Jay (allegedly) is still alive. Dre (the beats headphones remind me he beats women) is still alive. Drake (allegedly) is still alive. Throw a rock in Hollywood, and you hit an abuser who is still alive and beloved. “Hey, Brad,” and applause at the Oscars after we found out he beat Angelina and their children is wild work. Same space that kicked Will for slapping another grown man and opp who had been creepy about his wife for DECADES, btw.

I don’t really have a grand point for this entry, beyond naming how bored I am of being a survivor of violence where people can’t, won’t, or don’t care for that part of me. It’s a little lonely and a lot tiring to be triggered constantly just so people can pretend that pedophiles and rapists and narcissistic abusers are outliers instead of so deeply normalized that we make celebrities and presidents of them.

Boring!!!

BOOOOOOOO!!!

The frank matter of fact is that abusers are exactly like us. That’s why they’re tricky to spot and slippery to catch. But my goodness — if you’re not going to do a bit of your part to be explicit in your disdain or callout of them when they’re right there in your face, right there in your neighborhood, right there in your group chat, right there in your family, right there in your band, right there in your thank you speeches….I think the very least you could do is not posture about pedophilia in 4/4 time.

Especially if people you allegedly care for cannot see the wolf in sheep’s clothing you allegedly spotted so long ago.

I have more complex feelings about Kendrick and Not Like Us as a musical work, but for now, I’ll reiterate — inaction and allowing people to be victimized where you can see them makes you a clown.

At least in the world I occupy.

Pray the sword I’m sharpening don’t find you.

Forward.

MUSE BEHAVIOR

A song I’ve had on repeat lately

“They say ‘Eat the rich and the menu is the Epstein list.’” - Birds in the Sky by Jupiter the Muse

Period, Jupiter.

I’ve been listening to more indie musicians because celebrities continue to be so deeply unserious, and this one holds a very special place in my heart. Not only is kid talented, but he’s consistently on the right side of history. Truly the future of the genre tbh.

Listen to his latest project The Silversmith’s Tongue.

Speaking of artists, I finally started a script for a revenge story I’ve been noodling on for the last few years. As such, the rest of this entry is a secret for my paid co-conspirators.

See you later~

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An author’s note

Return to the start.

How time flies when you’ve spent time chasing the sun.

This year was a slow-moving marathon.

There were times I felt I couldn’t breathe. The weight of the dark, the drag of the water, all pressing down on my heart and my sanity.

I cried a lot.

I laughed a lot.

I learned even more.

I bled, I pulled, I stretched, and I gasped and grasped in the direction of my breakthrough.

And I finally broke.

And from the brokenness came the way through.

Up out the mud, I started a new dream.

I grieved the life I wanted and rested in the life I have now.

“Guess I’ll check back in with who I am at 32.”

Oh my darling, you we I am a titan.

I’ve become the scientist of my dreams. I pre-gamed falling in love with a person I’ll never meet. I met DOZENS of family members I didn’t know I had. I’ve rested in the princess of it all. I gave seeds and flowers to my neighbors. I held hands with a man I broke it off with after a single date. I spent countless nights telling stories with my friends and fell back in love with community after a series of heartbreaks. I left lipstick stains on wine glasses

A lotus that may have lain dormant for a long while, but oh, how I’ve bloomed. I’m so proud to have been the versions of me who kept my heart beating and my dreams between the crosshairs.

To wake up in peace on the milestone birthday I manifested — successful, loved, doted on, and cared for by the people who make this world worthwhile? To bloom alongside other lotus flowers, rising to the occasion every single time? A blessing. I get to meet a new shore, in a new place, and to do this thing called life with the loves of my life…..

Idk.

It’s only been a day, and 32 owes me nothing.

Sike.

It owes me eeeeeeeeverything.

And I intend to collect.

I got it out the mud, and now it’s time to enjoy the sun on my face.

And before I go, an overdue apology.

Sorry for the starving. (I am fed, evermore.)

Sorry for the burnout. (I defend my time with knives.)

Sorry for the hurting but love how it turned out.

To 31, to 32.

A song I’ve had on repeat lately

THE RADIO STATIC

bbbbbzzzzzchhhh…Transmission. Transmutation. Transcendance…..bbbbtzzzzz

I am no longer content to live a life of shoulda-woulda-coulda-been-a-contender hypotheticals.

What I got in me
What I been holdin' down inside of me
Oh, if I ever let it out there wouldn't be signs big enough
There wouldn't be lights bright enough

.

.

.

Hello, everybody! My name is Rose! What's yours?

WHAT’S UP TUMBLR / TWITTER? MY NAME’S (WITHHELD),

I was desperate enough to finally make something of my impossible circumstances and alchemize all the things that hurt, that I became obnoxious online for coin. I invented the role I felt They never gave me. All the self is a stage when you feel like a bird in a cage, so I performed being a person. All while waiting for my lucky break.

Pick me, Lady Luck! Hard work pays in dividends, doesn’t it? I’m here waiting for my turn! I’m healing, I’m working on myself, and being good! See me waiting my turn?

.

.

Momma's talkin' loud
Momma's doin' fine
Momma's gettin' hot
Momma's goin' strong
Momma's movin' on
Momma's all alone
Momma doesn't care
Momma's lettin' loose
Momma's got the stuff
Momma's got—
Momma's—
Momma's—
Momma's got the stuff
Momma's gotta move
Momma's gotta go—
Momma—
Momma's gotta let go

Let go?

Yeah, I’ve gotta “let go.”

Shit.

One of the craziest things I’ve learned about letting go is that you have to accept that you’ll never get to rewrite your past. You’ll have to accept that you’ll never have the conversations that would make performing hurt less. The apologies you’re owed. The apologies you wish you could give. You’ll never get to take back the vulnerability and the hours spent working, scraping, and clapping for anyone and everyone else. You’ll never get to shield the little girl you were from the cruelty. You’ll never get to tell the young lady you were, “Please don’t give up singing. I know they hurt you, but please.” You won’t get the time back.

You’ll get none of that.

And you still have to let go.

And that will make you freak out.

For years, you’ll spend night after sleepless night after sleepless night wondering…

Why did I do it?
What did it get me?
Scrapbooks full of me in the background.

I really loved writing. I really loved singing. I really loved learning. I really loved telling jokes. I really loved performing. I really loved them. And when I did them, I was so wholly myself that I shone. I was a star. A leading lady.

Then, violent things kept happening one after the other, the more I was seen and the more I used my voice. But I pushed through, and I tried to be beloved in order to be protected. I got endless ‘thank you for being willing to bleed work for my betterment and the betterment of the spaces around you.’ Abuse stole my voice and my passions, so I gave up on my dreams and chose the path of alleged least resistance — a path full of the things I thought would finally keep me safe.

They didn’t.

Surprise, surprise. Respectability doesn’t work.

Word to Lorde, Your Silence Will Not Protect You.

But I was silent except when I was begging to be loved. I loved like my life depended on it because it did. I did what you said, I sang when you wanted me to, I showed up when you needed me. Five choirs, straight As, church on the weekends, work work work. Perfect daughter, perfect student, perfect productive prodigy. I worked myself sick again, so please? Love me? I love you, I love you.

Give 'em love and what does it get ya?
What does it get ya?

.

.

All your life and what does it get you?
Thanks a lot, and out with the garbage
They take bows and you're battin' zero

.

You’ll abandon yourself over and over, and someday, it’ll be a whole twenty years later. All you’ll be holding for your trouble is a bouquet of dying roses you bought yourself. They’ll once again attempt to steal your peace from you as they ask you to put your dreams on the back burner…

.

I had a dream.
I dreamed it for you, June (WITHHELD).
It wasn't for me, Herbie (WITHHELD).
And if it wasn't for me
then where would you be,
(WITHHELD)?

.

I know...it’s maddening. Open your mouth. If they want a show, give them one.

Sing.

Even if your throat bleeds,

Open your mouth. You’ve got to finally let those thorns out.

Sing.

.

Well, someone tell me, when is it my turn?

What does it mean when the healing means I’m tired of waiting for my turn? My turn for consistency. My turn for romance. My turn for a life I can finally rest in? My turn for more than a pat on the back and thanks for my sacrifices? My turn to stand under the lights again?

I remember the thunder of applause. I remember when I was powerful, and I’m so

HUNGRY.

Don't I get a dream for MYSELF?

.

.

My voice is my own, finally.

No theatre or choral programs to overwork me, break my heart, and slide me into an eating disorder. No church members who don’t remember my name but demand that I perform for their amusement the glory of God. No helicopter parent to yell at me in public for wanting to back out of a competition. No false idol social media persona to curate in order to feel seen. No more believing in false promises of connection and community as long as I commit the sin of continued self-betrayal.

Just pure power. I finally, finally, finally remember how it feels to be my own leading lady.

Gimme the fucking mic.

.

.
Starting now it's gonna be my turn.
Gangway, world, get off of my runway!

Starting now, I bat a thousand!

(OR ELSE)

This time, boys, I'm taking the bows and….

everything's coming up Rose (REDACTED)!
Everything's coming up roses!
Everything's coming up roses
this time for me!

For me! For me! For me! For me! For me! For me!

Yeah!

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An author’s note

A particular moment from Pacific Rim and Nick Fury’s “until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on” gives me courage. My father has expressed similar sentiment about the “Today is our Independence Day!” moment from Independence Day.

Been thinking of how we use fictional metaphors of planet-wide existential threat (via aliens or kaiju) to speak to the importance of humanity coming together in a fight for survival… and sometimes the perversion of our obsession with “The End” infects us and tricks us into accelerating our own demise.

I’m still considering myself largely on break from Substack, but as we witness what is happening now, I couldn’t let this moment pass without makin some art.

Welcome to Apocalypse Wow.1

THE MAIN COURSE

Why I’m here. What I’m mulling over.

I’m not a doomer. But we are witnessing the end of a world.

A world whose belly was bloated with the flesh and bones of the innocent, where cannibals and pedophiles and warmongers pointed fingers at the rest of us to decide who would live or die.

(word to my sibling spirits and I)

A world so disconnected from the heartbeat of the planet that bore it that it descended into savagery, just not the kind white supremacists would have us believe would come if we all dared to dream of living in equitable societies.

[WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE THREATENED NUCLEAR WAR IN MY NAME, AND THAT MEANS MY GROCERIES ARE MORE EXPENSIVE?]

What a time to come of age…

I was a child in New York City when 9/11 happened, but I felt the crack in our facade.

(What is war? Why do I still sweat with fear every year?)

What a time to come of age…

Trayvon and I are agemates. I cry every year on his birthday and wonder what it would be like if he had grown up with us. So many names chanted, so little justice…

What a time to come of age…

Twenties lost in a haze of marching and begging so Black people and those poor kids stop dying in school. I was younger than the Sandy Hook kids would be by now when the headlines broke. A sophomore in college, just like they’d be today. Sometimes, I can still taste the bile and pizza I spewed into the already puke-green carpet of my dorm room after crying myself sick.

What a time to come of age…

Working at a nonprofit to make a difference while witnessing workplace abuse and having no name for it. Swallowing the knives anyway, doing my part to help other (traumatized) young people save the world.2

What a time to come of age…

Peddling you shiny distractions so we can “cope.” Shaking the change jar when life got too sticky. Melting my brain and yours one double tap at a time.3

What a time to come of age…

Watching America finally stop pretending, stuck inside during a pandemic they abandoned us to while pledging to finally care about Black people…vote Blue no matter who refuses to call a genocide and genocide…

What a time to come of age…

I am finally an adult. The coming of age is over. They kidnap my neighbors and get away with killing even white people in the street now. No longer a child, but I am made undone by the harm to children and the societies that raised them in Gaza and Sudan and Iran and Ukraine and the Congo and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and

(FUCK!!)

sigh

What a time to have hope anyway.

I’m not a doomer. But we are living through a mass extinction event. Just not the kind our hopelessness or fear might be trying to convince us is happening. We are breathing through the extinction of modern empire as we’ve come to understand it and as man-made devils have come to enact it.

They are determined to take as many of us down with them as they can, and with every day we choose to love ourselves and each other enough to hope, to pray, to chant, to scream, to fight, to claw….we save lives.

Today, even if the only person you save from the jaws of empire is yourself, you have already won.

We have already won.

You said it’s the apocalypse? Wow.

Anyway.

Onward.

SCREEN TINGS

Something I watched that moved me.

Pacific Rim (2013)

“Today…today. At the edge of our hope. At the end of our time. We have chosen not only to believe in ourselves but in each other. Today, there’s not a man nor woman in here that will stand alone.

Not today.

Today, we face the monsters that are at our door and bring the fight to them!

TODAY, WE ARE CANCELING THE APOCALYPSE!”

For a long stretch of my life, this was my favorite movie of all time. It beat out my other favorites, The Avengers and How to Train Your Dragon. Outside of being a bisexual former Tumblrina’s dream (there are some hotties in this movie, and the power mechanics had the ships SAILING on the fanfic sites), IT MOVED MY HEART. If you’re even a bit familiar with Godzilla and the daikaiju genre as a commentary on nuclear war…4

(May those affected by the scars left behind from the crimes against Nagasaki and Hiroshima find peace, always. May the innocent stolen by empire find peace, always.)

…you can see that Guillermo Del Toro’s Pacific Rim is in direct conversation with Godzilla in a way that, if you peel back its layers, turns our imaginations back to the repercussions of World War II.

(He’s always cooking about wartime, religion, and monsters.5 He’s my dark fantasy GOAT tbh)

Its characters are people from VERY SPECIFIC powers all over the world (think about Japan, the US, Australia, the UK, China, Russia in WWII) coming together to innovate against kaiju coming through a tear in reality deep beneath the Pacific Ocean, where our first and only use of nuclear weaponry as a species happened.6

It’s a story of a group of people (FROM THOSE GLOBAL SUPER POWERS) who step up to a dangerous threat by bearing their deepest wounds and traumas to each other in order to reach what we could call literal and psychological synchronicity7 and pilot the greatest weapons humanity has ever engineered as the left and right sides of the robot’s control center. They remain wounded but are action-oriented — despite what hurts them, they risk their lives to defend humanity, and their desperate hope and significant sacrifices ensure a better future.

It has some INCREDIBLE fight sequences, but people will argue it’s not the BEST giant robot media (more later), and it’s not perfect — I think the single female main character (a Japanese woman) is written one dimensionally compared to the complexity of the (mostly white) men around her, but UGH. I DO STILL LOVE IT ANYWAY.

Once GDT left, not even sci-fi king John Boyega could save the poorly paced sequel Uprising, though.

Though I am moved by the idea of all of us coming together in the face of existential threat, it cannot be overstated that this film, the Avengers films, classics like Independence Day, and the next show I’m going to mention still arguably function as propaganda for the United States (or Japanese) military, global militarization, and the concept of species-wide survival being won through war and conquest. One could say that, despite the feel-good messaging, it is simply a remix of what individual nations or identity groups tell themselves to justify warfare IRL, but I believe the INSTINCT to tell such stories is important.

Fire Force (2019 - 2026)

I never outright recommend this show because imo, it has a misogyny problem — an underage character is regularly made a perverted punchline where her clothes come off, and because of the nature of the conflict being fought, she and a few female characters that are part of a religious order are subjected to experimentation, psychological and physical abuse…and sometimes in the midst of this violence, their clothes also burn away because they’re being hit with fire. Whether these choices function in the work as commentary or metaphor for something within the world, or as metacommentary on things considered “typical” for anime (death to underage “fanservice” — you’re just a pervert), or are just glimmers of the author’s own inclinations, I have not explored.

I just know that is the one thing about this show that is ESPECIALLY uncomfortable, and I always warn people off the bat.

The rest of the world and the story being told? Incredible. It’s also a triumph of animation. So I powered through.

No spoilers, but including its use of religious metaphor (the in-world religion provides the cultural cloak for the baddies), Fire Force is one of my Top 10 anti-apocalypse, anti-nuclear war, anti-child abuse, climate-justice-oriented pieces of media. I’ll be revisiting, so stay tuned.

Honorable-mention anti-war and/or apocalypse stories: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, The Last of Us (HBO), God Eater, literally anything Studio Ghibli has ever made, and a movie that TRULY traumatized me, Left Behind.

Speaking of religion…..

NERD (AFFECTIONATE)

Whatever nerdy shit I’m into lately.

Been thinking closely about survival instincts in organisms, and reading the Book of Revelation from start to finish to understand the religious psychosis some of these Weirdos are CLEARLY huffing in order to justify crimes against humanity and groceries being $500 while our neighbors live on the street.

I grew up in church, and after a period of resentment, I am falling back in love with it (more on that later), so I can’t help but treat those weirdos like outliers + a potential case study. I gave myself this (sort of convoluted?) thought exercise:

If I think of fascism as a parasitic organism with many heads and many limbs (war, racism, climate injustice, poverty, the perversion of religion, etc…) that is capable of such things as survival instinct but has a relatively short lifespan because it is a mutant that goes against true natural order (connectedness, communal societies, etc…) AND it is driven by the need to reproduce to ensure it endures by infecting as many hosts as possible…

AND thinking about why religious fascists are so obsessed with death, the end of the world, worlds/planes beyond this one, and the necessity of suffering in the flesh here to “earn” paradise?

Walk with me.

What would it look like if heaven were here on Earth? If everyone were fed, happy, and if the consequences of centuries of war could be eased? Does this world becoming equitable threaten their sense of self and identity and belief in suffering being a necessary part of the human condition? Does this lead them to question the necessity of the perfect “other” plane of existence, i.e., heaven? Does this starve the fascist parasite that has infected the religious body? Is it the survival instinct of the religious who function as host bodies to the fascist organism that drives their unholy double downs into bigotry, while cognitive dissonance aids them in believing themselves to be on the side of “what’s right?”

All to make it easier for the parasite to reproduce and infect others?

Like specifically, the people and entities who use religion and religious, ethno-religious, or cultural identity as a mask or container for spreading fascism, and a framework for mass hypnosis towards the acceptance of “justified” violence (cough)….

They KNOW their time is up, so they’re lashing out hardcore. Almost like…….phase three in a boss battle in a video game. Or when an animal in a (perceived or actual) fight to the death can recognize it’s losing? They HAVE to keep the body alive to spread the infection, but because it’s dying, it’s panicking?

All that led me into a rabbit hole about the American Christian obsession with the Book of Revelation, religious wars across history, what counts as a “holy war”, and also the thought that I should look into any researchers who are pulling together qualitative studies on American Christianity within the context of what we’re witnessing. I’m just wondering aloud if it would be worth capturing testimonials from self-declared “religious” Americans going all in on fascism and prodding at these sentiments to see what rot falls out, so we can literally develop anti-fascist programming to yoink the parasitic beliefs out of them/ potentially deprogram people as we do for other cults?

ANYWAY I WAS JUST SITTING IN MY HOUSE THINKIN YKWIM?~

BOO! TOMATO, TOMATO!

Hateration in the dancery as a healing practice.

I hope when (REDACTED) (REDACTED) we party so hard we set world records for how turned up we get at the news. I need them not to even televise his state (REDACTED) because we’re partying so hard outside that they’re terrified that he gets recorded as the most hated, least celebrated (REDACTED) in all of human history.

I want us to get ANCIENT with it — I want pyres and effigies burning, I want our indigenous neighbors leading us in dance, and I want to hit the chickenhead and milly rock to the mourning songs They will try to convince us we should be singing in his “honor.”

I want there to be so much global ass shaking we set the Richter scale off.

I want the Devil himself to refuse to meet that man (and all of these evil mfers) at The Gates because he’s too embarrassed to be seen with losers.

And if we ever invent a way to bring people back, I want us to hit him with an Uno reverse just to (REDACTED) (REDACTED (REDACTED) again.

Fuck (and I cannot stress this enough) (REDACTED) (REDACTED) and the horsemen of the white supremacist apocalypse horses he rode in on.

IYKYK.

THE SACRED TEXTS

Something I read that shaped me.

I’m eventually going to re-read Heart of Darkness, but not right now because I AM DIVING FACE FIRST INTO HOPECORE!

FIND WHIMSY! CLING TO THE FEEL GOOD UNTIL YOUR HANDS ARE BLOODY!! READ THINGS THAT GIVE YOU HOPE.

I am currently WEEPING through these books written by icons in S.T.E.A.M.

Imagination: A Manifesto by Ruha Benjamin

IMAGINE A WORLD MADE FREE UNTIL WE ARE ALL FREE. IMAGINE INNOVATING TOWARDS OUR COLLECTIVE GOOD.

What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (Her Substack btw)

GONNA BE THE ARTIST-SCIENTIST I WANT TO BE BECAUSE WE CAN DO THIS. THERE ARE SO MANY REASONS WE CAN DO THIS. UNTIL WE ARE ALL FREE.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

OUR PLANET IS OUR PARENT, OUR SIBLING, OUR FRIEND, AND ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL ARE IN CONVERSATION WITH EACH OTHER. THE MARRIAGE OF SCIENCE AND INDIGENOUS WISDOM IS KEY. THE STORIES AND INNOVATIONS OF OUR ANCESTORS HOLD THE ANSWERS.

WE ARE REALLY GONNA SURVIVE THIS!! PROMISE!!!

A _______ THAT GREW FROM CONCRETE + THE CAMERA GOES ‘POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP’

Notes on the plants I grew in the concrete jungle, wet dream tomato + A cool picture I took or a photo that moved me.

NOT TO BRAG BUT MY FIRST FLOWERS AFTER A YEAR OF PURPOSEFUL TENDING TO MY COMMUNITY GARDEN ARE HERE, AND NOW THAT I’M A ✨GRAD STUDENT✨ I AM OFFICIALLY THE SCHOLAR IN RESIDENCE.

I also have my new camera baby and have been working on finding my newest visual voice, so please enjoy my first pictures.

Here’s who has visited in late winter (March) and so far this spring.

Also, I be chillin with my neighbors across age, race, ethnic identity, class, etc…just fine in my community garden. We be drinking tea and eating homemade cookies and touching grass and giving hate the middle finger.

Fascism got no place where we root deep. 🕯️🧿

MUSE BEHAVIOR

A song I’ve had on repeat lately

A staple of my karaoke rotation and a favorite on one of my FAVORITE playlists:

Get In Loser, We’re Taking Back Our Power

P.S, I LOVE YOU

Just a final thought.

Not my first time coping with war by looking to art and the heavens.8

We are going to get through this. Hold someone’s hand and breathe today.

I’m not quite 32 yet, but I think it’s time for a check-in. I cannot believe I’m saying this….

(Yes, I can. I’m a baddie, and I worked my ass off for this.)

First day of school……..as a Biology grad student. I’ll be studying conservation and island ecology with a focus on wetlands and the sea.

Taking the “citizen” out of “citizen scientist” in my bios because I’m officially a science student again.

I’m going to be the griot I’ve always wanted to be, and I’m doing it with the support of people who really believed in me. I started this space almost two years ago, praying that the stories bursting out of me would give me clarity and direction as one dream ended and another began.

I documented the lessons learned, the things that inspired me, and the music that kept me going. I secretly shared samples of the works I hoped would lead me forward. I wrote of the shadow self that pulled me back into my body, the grief of realizing I was changing for good, what it is like for life and my voice to come to a stuttering halt in the throes of a coming-of-age as chaotic as it was worthwhile…

I had the instinct that I needed to spend more time daydreaming to connect with myself.

This was the biggest, boldest, most public declaration that I was coming for what I’m owed: my wildest dreams in service to our greater good. This was me peering into my future and writing it into being.

I put each of these messages in a bottle, hoping that the me who reads them over and over again would remember why she carved this space and why she makes the art. I wanted them to keep focused because I knew somehow…this would bring us our creative destiny.

I asked you all to be my witnesses, and some of you even sent me a few dollars every month just because you were willing to bet on me.

And here are my dreams….ready to meet me.

“It seems like blessings keep falling in my lap.”

Because I made them so. And I did it with your help.

This experiment tracking my Saturn Return worked perfectly.

I’ll be leaving for a little while now. There’s a lot to prepare — I have some other things, places, and people to say goodbye to, some other art to make, and a great big world waiting for my classmates and me after all.

Thank you for reading Deidreaming — I’ll see you right back here. Soon.

This is just the end of the prologue.

The story starts now.

In the meantime, follow from the beginning.

SATURN RETURN - DISC ONE:

Facing the ghosts of 2018-2022…

1. Delusional Gyal - the power of imagining yourself into the future.

2. A Bad B*tch By Any Other Name - the power of reclaiming a name.

3. Gone Off A Little White Pill - the power of remembering your body’s connection to the environment.

4. 30 Under 30 - the power of admitting you failed to reach a dream and that it isn’t the end of the world.

5. To All the Boys I’ve Dubbed Before - the power of admitting your flight reflex is trying to tell you something, and that your actions have consequences for others.

6. On My Momma - the power of seeing the girl your mom still is.

7. Good Kid, G.L.A.A.D City - the power of being bolstered by the love of community.

8. Whimsical Af - the power of play.

9. Old B*tches Winning - the power of thanking your past and speaking your future into reality. A peek into the scrying mirror.

SATURN RETURN - DISC TWO:

…that would eventually bring the world down around my ears in 2023 and 2024…

10. I Know You Seen This Sh*t - the power of refusing to turn your eyes away.

11. In my H.O.E. Phase - the power of acknowledging the longing to be expressive.

12. Once a Boy - the power of seeing the boy your dad still is.

13. Alone, Not Lonely - the power of going it alone.

14. Summer Body - the power of challenging a norm and getting real about climate.

15. America, You Scarin’ the Hoes - the power of naming your opps.

16. Scholarship Kid - the power of naming your hunger to learn. The first tremor.

17. Wadadli Woman - the power of returning home. The second tremor.

18. Mask Off - the power of finally figuring yourself out. The third tremor.

19. Work in (Forever?) Progress - the power of admitting you’re too tired to keep going.

20. Born to Baby Girl… - the power of admitting you crave softness.

21. Finds You Well… - the power of admitting you need to disconnect.

22. Personal Brand™️ - the power of naming your disdain aloud. The first crack.

23. Fool Me Beyoncé, Fool Me Twice - the power of questioning fandom and hero worship. The second crack.

24. Afrodite - the power of naming pain and the grief of illness aloud. The third crack.

25. Stars Above, Stars Below - the power of looking for meaning. The fourth crack.

26. Exhale, Nap, Repeat - the power of rest.

27. Turnover - the power of finally letting it go.

28. TTRPGs Can Fix me - the power of transformative community stories.

29. Fat Friend - the power of realizing commercialized body positivity and silence from thin people isn’t enough in a world where we are unwell and underfed. The final crack.

30. On Main - the power of disappearing. The shattering and emergence of a new approach.

SATURN RETURN - DISC THREE:

…only to return me to myself in 2025 and 2026 to bolster my heart for the rest of my life.

31. I Can Make Her Worse - the power of returning to chaos. A summoning.

32. American Nightmare - the power of naming your opps. Again.

33. We Not LinkedIn - the power of refusing to play pretend.

34. Lover, I’m Ready Now - the power of being ready for your happiness.

35. Theydies and Gentlethems - the power of ever evolving identity.

36. Fighting Words - the power of finally having somewhere to put it all.

37. Baddie Behavior - the power of naming your inspirations.

38. **** Nye, The Science Bi - the power of naming your passions.

39. Extremophile - the power of looking to nature for strength.

40. Earthling - the power of loving our planet aloud. A new dream is named.

41. Good Ancestor - the power of pondering life after death differently. A ritual.

42. Every Heavenly Body on Mute - the power of silence in order to hear.

43. MANEATER - the power of survivor’s grief turned into strength. A ritual - interrupted no more.

44. Feelin’ Like Doc Marten Luther King - the power of naming dissatisfaction with distraction aloud.

45. STARVING ARTIST - the power of the voice. A tearing open of the portal. A summoning.

46. Madwoman and Muse - the power of bending but not breaking. The final summoning.

47. Bootstrap - the power of tough self-love. The shadow finally answers back.

48. To ****, With Love - the power of saying goodbye.

49. Better Fed… - the power of recovery and satisfying the hunger.

50. Do or Die - the power of rooting deeply. A reclamation.

51. The Nightmare - the power of giving the shadow a name and a purpose.

52. I Can Make Her Better - the power of healing.

53. Broke As A Joke - the power of refusing to laugh through the pain.

54. FLIRT - the power of attraction.

55. I Love Me - the power of putting you first.

[PHASE ONE: HIBERNATION]

[STATUS: CLEARED]

UN APERITIVO

An author’s note

(Neurodivergent) Black women and girls being socialized for selflessness and “everyone else first” gets us killed, abused, or keeps us trapped in cycles of people-pleasing, where a lot of people who love us are perfectly satisfied to eat what is grown from the fertilizer of our bones.

Fuck that.

Count me out.

Put on ya mask before assisting others, type shi

ANCESTRAL RIGHTS

Words of wisdom from those who came before.

“You’ve got to learn to leave the table when love’s no longer being served.”

MUSE BEHAVIOR

A song I’ve had on repeat lately

There was someone here inside
Someone I thought had died
So long ago

Oh, I’m screaming out
And my dreams will be heard
They will not be pushed aside or worse
Into your own
All ‘cause you won’t listen

Listen, I am alone at a crossroads
I’m not at home in my own home
And I’ve tried and tried
To say what’s on my mind
You should have known, oh
Now I’m done believing you
You don’t know what I’m feeling
I’m more than what
You’ve made of me
I followed the voice, you gave to me
But now I’ve gotta find my own

THE MAIN COURSE

Why I’m here. What I’m mulling over.

Live look what loving me first brought me to.

I no longer flinch, or wring my hands with nervousness, or overexplain why I can’t or won’t do something I know won’t be good for me in the long run.

I leave when I want to. I don’t stay where my body and mind are under strain.

I love me, finally, and I’ll do what I can to keep me safe and happy.

I love my community garden.

I love my family.

I love my friends.

I love our planet.

I love my work.

I love my city.

I love Us.

I love the future I know is possible.

But I love me first.

I always considered myself secondary to everything and everyone else I loved, if I even considered myself at all. I thought that was the proper way to love.

I thought love meant giving everything you are away in hopes that it would be returned to you. So I gave my body, my time, my energy, my ideas, my passions, my words, my voice, and my vision away over and over again.

And when there was nothing left to give, I blamed myself for not being enough. I made myself “easy to love” and destroyed my sense of self and purpose in the process.

But I love myself now and understand that the strength to love all these things freely, without limits, and the ways they deserve comes with treating myself that way first. Not after I’m sure everyone else understands I love them, not after I make empassioned speeches about community care and the like…

First.

I’m not a daughter first. I’m not a sister first. I’m not a worker first.

I am me first.

And I am first in line to receive the love that I am capable of giving and to enjoy the benefits of my hard work and caring heart. Everything and everyone else can literally wait their turn.

Finally, “self-love” is more than a mantra people chant at me to rid themselves of the responsibility of holding my romantic complexities or a way to trick me into buying bullshit skincare tools.

“I love me” is a driving philosophy and a proven method of betterment.

I love me even when you try to guilt me out of it.

I love me even when you tell me my body is “wrong.”

I love me even when you don’t understand me.

I love me even when you lie on and to me.

I love me even when people push me away.

I love me even if I don’t achieve.

I love me even when the world attempts punish me for it.

I love me even if no one ever reads my work.

I love me even when I’m lost.

I love me even when I’m wrong because I love me enough to grow.

I love me even when the world doesn’t find me useful.

I love me even when you dislike me.

I love me even when I can’t give.

I love me, and not a single other person on this planet is ever going to trick me into abandoning myself for their benefit or comfort ever again.

Forreal this time.

Upward.

TOUCHING GRASS + THE CAMERA GOES ‘POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP’

A nature hobby that keeps me grounded + A cool picture I took or a photo that moved me.

THIS SNOW, MAN.

THIS FREAKIN’ SNOW, DUDE.

Look at this craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazy shit.

This is the deepest snow I’ve walked in since I was a kid. This poor garden ain’t gonna show me its face until the end of March. At least the floral bulbs I planted for spring will be really happy to get all this tasty, tasty snow.

NERD (AFFECTIONATE) + THE CAMERA GOES ‘POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP’

Whatever nerdy shit I’m into lately. + A cool picture I took or a photo that moved me.

Ran around the museum just to feel like part of something bigger this week.

They had horse skeletons on display to celebrate the new year!!

Horses scare me something crazy, but this is so cool to see. The bigger and stronger the animal, the more my brain just goes ‘Old Gods, Exercise Caution.’ Especially because they got BIGGER as they evolved, like where are y’all GOING TO BE GETTING SO BIG??

Anyway, it’s the year of the fire horse so GO, GO, GO TIME!

BOO! TOMATO, TOMATO!

Hateration in the dancery as a healing practice.

The very concept of “misery loves company.”

I’m not really looking to bond over how terrible or miserable it is to be alive, nor am I joking about it anymore1. I will not spread misery where it doesn’t need to be. Lowkey, highkey, there are people who do not want others experiencing joy where they cannot reach or partake, and I believe it is your duty to double down on what makes you happy just to prove to them again that your love for yourself and the prioritization of your wellness is a non-negotiable.

Find miserable company somewhere else.

P.S, I LOVE YOU ME (AND YOU, TOO)

Just a final thought.

Anyone who calls you selfish for saying no or opting out of what is dangerous for you in favor of opting in to what strengthens your mind, body, or spirit — block them out.

I hope you love yourself enough to.

An author’s note

Welcome to the twentieth Deidream after last year’s #34: Lover, I’m Ready Now entry, and happy Valentine’s Day. I “fell in love” for the first time at twenty, so that’s a fun coincidence (?)

‘Tis the season of loooooveeeee~ so duh, each entry this month is locked in on that theme. Last year, I welcomed love seriously, spoke fondly of the performances that shaped my idea of “love,” and of the first time the emotion moved me to tears as a child. Last week, I published Rush Order as a fun stream-of-consciousness exercise when I started pondering what it means to fall in love in Times Like These. In 2025, I also published Emotional Cocaine after I realized I’d read more than one hundred love stories in the last five years.

I’ve done a lot of pining. Time for another side.

Consider this the older sister to one of my earliest entries from 2024, #11: In My H.O.E Phase.

“(REDACTED), WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?” HALL OF FAME

Something mad I said to my friends recently.

“I’m not a fuckboy (gendie neutral)……BUT……”

-(REDACTED), about to say some certified Fuckboy shit

MUSE BEHAVIOR

A song I’ve had on repeat lately

Checklist, take it off, what you got? (What you got?)
Pricey so you better have a lot (have a lot, yeah)
A time piece and it don't tik tok (yeah)
If you can't afford my time, then just watch (just watch)

Untouchable (ah), pretty too (ah)
Available (ah), but not for you (yeah)
Too sexy way too fly
You get none of my (gasp)

Been in rotation since it dropped and a staple of Aphrodite’s Daughter, but a recent addition to another playlist of mine I love called I’m a Slut, Get Me Lit. The title is a reference to the Pop Smoke lyric “I’m a thot, get me lit.”

(RIP, I can’t believe we lost a budding hometown hero like that. )

If I had to describe the energy, it’s a mix of songs that make you wanna make out with someone fine whose name you don’t know, songs you’d give your on-and-off again lover a lap dance to, songs you’d give a dub to at a sweaty basement party, and songs that you’d play if you couldn’t be bothered to settle down and were filling your roster with baddies.

Here are some other favorite tracks.

THE MAIN COURSE

Why I’m here. What I’m mulling over.

Am I a flirty tease, or am I just happy being hot and unavailable?

Yes.

In the midst of my past musings on my attraction to men and increasingly complicated relationship with said attraction and their attraction to me12, I realized it wasn’t all bad.

I also realized I have a habit of acting helpless for fun.

I enjoy people’s reactions to my switch-up, and I weaponize the hell out of it when I flirt, if I’m being honest.

Not because I’m scared to be smart or competent aloud, but because you can learn a lot from the way people react to your ignorance or weakness, perceived or actual. I consider this a personality litmus test for how they may react to my actual brilliance once we get deeper into conversation and connection.

Men (positive) especially.

I’ve clocked many a hidden face and exposed many an agenda by paying close attention to how a man handles the switch from ‘semi-pouty, hair flip, giggles’ me to ‘I am grown, you cannot tell me what to do, handle with care’ me within the same interaction.

I’ve also reveled in the sway I achieve when I know an earnest man is trying to impress me or figure me out.

It’s cuuuuuute how hard they try.

It’s the fake-frustrated “oof, I don’t think I know how to open this beer” that had three of them reaching to help me at a house party a few years back. It’s the way their brows shot up when I chugged one faster than my opponent in a drinking game and opened my next beer with perfect ease. The guy who smiled and offered to open my third one for me anyway got my number that night.

Nothing ever came of it, but it was fun.

It’s the breathy and curious “Ooooh, woooow~. I’ve never heard of that place.” that makes the guy on the other end of the line with a great voice for customer service forget he’s supposed to be helping me with my home internet and launch into an explanation of how the place on question is the best place to snowboard but he left because his heart took him to baseball instead. It’s my unashamed “Ooooh, a man of culture and adventure, I see. How sporty.” It’s the bashful “You’ve made my day” and the way he thanked me for being his favorite call of the morning.

Nothing will ever come of it, but it was fun.

It’s the fake-confused furrowed brow and chewed lip before I lose the chess game we’re playing, and the satisfied way the stranger across from me sits back before saying, “We’ll have a chessboard at our wedding because this is how we met,” and the mischevous tilt of my head before I reply “Oh? Will we?” and breeze out of the coffee shop, never to be seen by him again.

Nothing ever comes of it, but it’s fun.

It’s the “Oh, oops. My laces!” that had a friend of a former friend on his knees in the middle of a dirty New York City sidewalk to tie my shoes while looking straight up at me. “Text me when you’re in my city.” Same friend of a former friend I had an all-night adventure with in NOLA, ending with us sweaty and leaving a jazz club to go straight to a strip club. I out-tipped him, dollar bills passing between us girls like a secret. I made sustained eye contact with him during one of my reward lap dances, just because. We never hung out again — after all, I haven’t been back to NOLA.

Nothing ever comes of it, but it was fun.

It’s the “Mmmm I’ve never been to a dive bar. Are they scary? You’ll watch out for me, right?” that had the man I just met at a comedy show grabbing my hand and leading me to the grungiest dive he could think of as an impromptu first date. It’s us screaming karaoke with other freaks and weirdos. It’s me, grabbing the mic and destroying the place so thoroughly that I stood on stage and had people chanting my name. It’s the salacious wink and finger guns I give to my date, who mimed falling over and later implied he might just believe in love at first sight.

Didn’t work out with him.

Nothing ever comes of it, but it was fun.

It’s the “I do also like girls” and shy touch to the small of my back in the middle of a crowded warehouse in Hell’s Kitchen from a man I had tried to wingwoman into the arms of my best friend. I’d been working SO hard to get this newbie to give my friend his number, too. It was his first weekend in the city, and he had no idea where the gayest parties were. Aware of our power as a duo in the way only childhood friends could be, we’d tag-teamed him by promising him a night that felt like a movie. During a particularly close dance where he was trapped between the two of us, I remember whispering in his ear, “[NAME] is super sweet. He might look intimidating, but he doesn’t bite. I do, though.” To which this adorable little thing, whom I thought was gay, revealed he’d had his eye on me instead while his hands roamed places I thought were foreign to him. His face was at neck level, so I let him give me a hickey and leaned down to give him one too.

(“We match, now. Something to remember me by.”)

We followed each other on Instagram for a while before I forgot his name.

Nothing ever comes of it, but it was fun.

(Know you like the way

I’m lookin’ in this dress.

I can be ya princess, boy

A damsel give ‘em stress.)

It’s the lingering hug I gave to a man I once knew as a teenage boy. It’s the grunt as he releases me to give me a once-over since we hadn’t seen each other in at least five years. It’s the smile he gives me when he says, in front of my old sweetheart, “Damn, girl. I knew I shoulda got at you in high school.” and the way he gasped when I said, “Be nice to me tonight and it’s not too late if we’re ever in town again at the same time.” knowing full well we’d likely never be because he was returning to the military.

Nothing ever comes of it, but it was fun.

It’s the “It’s my first time with this liquor. Do you think you can show me how to take it?” that slips out when someone offers to buy me a drink.

It’s the “I’m more shy than I appear, don’t make me blush,” when a man asks to paint me and leaves me with his info and a kiss to the hand. I currently use his card as a bookmark.

It’s the accidental eye contact made with a stranger when I sang the words,

(“Aphrodite told me a secret,

she said you can keep it.”)

at an open mic.

It’s the way he swallowed with visible nerves when he complimented my voice afterward, and I “shyly” asked, “You really like it? Thanks.” before going home perfectly alone.

Part of the rub fueling my longing for love, beyond my desire to finally find my Person, is that I don’t actually feel like looking.

I’d rather….attract.

And honestly, I love being deeply unserious about my attraction. I’m a flirt. I love changing the entire trajectory of someone’s night and disappearing like I was a dream the whole time. Especially since….

deep breath

I’m not actually that into the people I flirt so heavily with….which is why I flirt with them so well.

(((((DID I LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO BECOME A FUCK BOY INSTEAD OF DYING A HERO???))))

Simply put, I’m a “likes to play with her food” kinda gal, I guess?

And I’d stop… if it wasn’t

So.

Much.

Fun.

I know my soulmate will probably see right through my charade, though.

Because if my pull, if my lure, my siren song is undeniable even in my most unserious of encounters, flings, and temporary loves,

Imagine the pull when I fall in Love forreal.

Onward.

TOUCHING GRASS + THE CAMERA GOES ‘POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP’

A nature hobby that keeps me grounded + A cool picture I took or a photo that moved me.

Here are a couple of lovely things I got myself as a gift this month~

Had some growing pains with my garden that made me cry A LOT, but fuck it, we ballllllll. Got to work anyway, and am celebrating my 1st anniversary. A year ago this week, still navigating the FREEZING COLD, volunteering in this garden made me fall in love with my community all over again and started me on a breakneck path to dedicating myself to land stewardship.

I am not so much touching grass right now as I’m touching snow, and I dug out our garden a few weekends ago. It was my first time really shoveling snow, and I was INCENSED because I was alone and tired.

I really thought about giving up on it…

(Through my studies, I have learned that gardening is not easy, and this was a season of growing pains. Still, the promise of bloom in the spring and summer keeps me going.)

…until my neighbors thanked me so sweetly. That’s what it’s all about, babyyyyyy. I also had my first shift working at the botanical garden as a volunteer gardener, and it was sooooo fun.

Love in every seed planted, care in every relationship built, and stewardship even when it gets hard. The great news is that I’m buildin’ this tough urban farmer’s body one shoveled sidewalk at a time. I once told someone that, beyond needing to release my aggression, I started boxing (and am returning to dance more seriously) because I realized I wasn’t strong enough to garden, and they laughed, but I was serious.

(DIGRESSION: Why do people think I’m kidding when I be deadass…do you know how strong you have to be to garden? A couple hours doing that work and I promise you, you’ll be laid out a whole day after.)

Having the strength not only to shovel snow but also to break through pounds of ice was only possible because I’ve been training to do more eco-stewardship that involves manual labor.

Stronger and stronger still.

NERD (AFFECTIONATE)

Whatever nerdy shit I’m into lately.

Classes have been going well, and I’m in the full swing of my winter/spring semester.

I’ve been thinking about rereading the Odyssey this summer because I happened to be thinking about Penelope3 last week. In the story, she fends off more than 100 suitors because she wanted to be faithful to her hubby who was a real Nobody (HARR HARR HARR).

Something something, metaphor for fidelity written by a man….that’s cute and all but I’m gagged mostly by the fact she pretended to be weaving a burial shroud for twenty years and told them she’d pick another husband when she was done. Whole time, she was undoing it at night.

AND THEY STILL WAITED? AND COMPETED WITH MORE THAN A HUNDRED OTHER MEN? AND YOU BELIEVED HER FOR TWENTY YEARS?

What kind of legendary fine shyt was she???

I love the girlies who are clever and fine and fine and clever ykwim?

Also been thinking about Scheherazade of 1,001 Nights4 where she purposefully marries a violent king who became a woman-murdering tyrant. Each night, she tells a story so good that it leaves him desperate for more, and eventually, the king stops tripping out because she’s so smart and pretty. Like…she said “I can outsmart him and fix him” AND DIDDDD AHAHAHA.

Like, ladies, is it problematic to be so fine you can trick men you don’t want into leaving you alone and/or being better people with the power of your words and denial?

Maybe.

Anyway, put these classics back on my TBR.

PERFECT STRANGER

A love letter to someone I’ll never see again.

To the Man Who Held Open the Train Doors That One Time in 2019,

I love you, Perfect Stranger. Your gentle “I got you” when I made it, made me weak(er) in the knees than I already was.

For the first time in a long time, I actually cared enough to think, “I hope I didn’t look a damn fool in front of this guy. Oh my GOD.” It had been so long since I felt that feeling that I nearly laughed aloud in surprise.

I’d been shattered, you see. You were the first guy to catch my eye in a long while.

And you had the nerve to smell good, too. I can’t with you. Whoever put that white gold band on your left hand must have been a saint in their past life. I saw it when you hit the little wave you gave me as you walked onto the platform at your stop. That wave gave me heart palpitations, unrelated to the fact that I had literally leapt into the train after running up those steps.

Good for them. Good for you.

With someone so pretty and casually thoughtful at their side, I know life must be a hoot.

I think of you sometimes when I hold the door for someone else.

I love you, Perfect Stranger.

P.S, I LOVE YOU

Just a final thought.

I hope you’re surrounded by love today.~

Flirt with life and all its possibilities.

MWAH~ 💋

A song I’ve had on repeat lately

Love, again.

And again.1

And again2.

THE RADIO STATIC

bbbbbzzzzzchhhh…Transmission. Transmutation. Transcendance…..bbbbtzzzzz

[“Why is this beautiful man waiting for me to get old?

Why he already testing my patience?”]

Hahahaha, you got JOKES! I’m not tryna be rude, beloved, but

DROP THE LO.

I know you see the world order crumbling! If you’re half the lover I already know you to be, you miss me already. What — pray tell, you beautiful thing —is the mfing hold up?

I know you feel the losers buzzing and swarming around me like I’m the type to put out for anybody, and frankly, I’ve grown bored of life as a venus flytrap.

Even maneaters hunger for love3.

(If one more unhealed man claws at me, you might need to hold me down while I’m in the pen, baby. Maybe we’d even be in our Orange is the New Black era. Or maybe we’d get his and hers matching prison tattoos.)

I’m aware you’re on your way — I’ve seen it.

I’m just… advising you to maybe pick up the pace, considering the world is cracking beneath our feet with every headline.

[“While I've been reviewing applications
Wait 'til I get my hands on him, I'ma tell him off too
For how long he kept mе waiting, anticipating
Praying to the Lord to give him to my loving arms”]

Honestly, you. Don’t try to smile or joke your way out of making me wait so long. I know you will, and it won’t work.

(It will. I know your smile will feel like a lightning strike every time.)

We have so many things to do, and I have so many questions I want to ask you. I want you to meet my friends and adopted older siblings. I want to make your family laugh. I want to goof off with our siblings together and do those stupid freaking couples costumes and matching sweaters and tattoos and notebooks and trophies.

Do you even know I scan crowds for your face already?

I have a shelf on my bookcase of things I want you to read to understand me. I want to listen to every playlist you make.

Hurry, hurry, hurry.

Straight into my heart.

If it’s You, Cupid has my permission to aim true4.

Won’t stop until his brother approves, too5.

If not me for you, then who?

I don’t want to kiss frogs. I don’t want to wait to be rescued.

Come on here while I’m asking nicely.

[“I would like a ring, I would like a ring

I would like a diamond ring on my wedding finger

I would like a big and shiny diamond

That I could wave around and talk and talk about it

And when the day is here, forgive me, God, that I could ever doubt it

Until death, I do, I do, I do, I

Is he about it, ‘bout it, ‘bout it?

This man is testing me, uh-huh, uh-huh

Uh, help me, help me, help me, Lord

I need you to tell me

Baby (whoo-hoo), where the hell is my husband? (Whoo-hoo)]

And you know it’s gotta be pink to match my nails, right?

Of course you do. See you soon.

Words of wisdom from those who came before.

“If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”

THE MAIN COURSE

Why I’m here. What I’m mulling over.

If I am allowed to remix an ancestor….

If you make a joke of your pain, others will laugh and say you deserve it.

We moved from silence to satire.

I agonized and laughed and laughed like I was dying because I was.

But.

I’m no longer the girl who will nervously fill silences with self-deprecation or verbal diarrhea as a public humiliation ritual to earn admiration. I am no longer the friend who delights and enables emotional agony with a giggle.

“Here’s some fucked up shit that happened to me and a relatable meme about it for the group chat.”

I can no longer laugh to keep from crying. I prefer my tears flow where they must.

I do not band-aid where I’m bleeding out.

I told jokes at my poorest.

I told jokes at my most afraid.

I told jokes for years when I wasn’t even in my body.

We told jokes on the internet about the worst things imaginable because we were “coping,” and we laughed and laughed and laughed.

I consumed jokes from the internet to fill an increasing need for distraction from the ache. Now, I can no longer brush past the painful truths hidden behind a barbed joke or a smile that doesn’t reach the eyes. Instead, I offer a quiet “this is really painful” and allow the silence of the moment to twist and warp under its own weight. I allow the gravity of what is happening to me and around me to pull me closer to understanding and maturity.

I’ve stopped making jokes about what hurts me and have sought to stop making jokes about what I know is hurting others.

No, I don’t want to continue sharing memes about trauma.

No, I cannot stomach another TikTok where the punchline is “I am not okay.”

No, I can no longer tolerate therapy-speak as avoidance of the ugliest but most necessary truths begging to be beheld.

No, I don’t want another reel about being broke.

No, I don’t want to endure a lifetime of hurt people hurting people.

I won’t make my ache a punching bag punchline.

I won’t make your hurt a punchline either.

I won’t be a laughing, clapping spectator to your spin-out.

I don’t and won’t raise glasses and toast to our mutual dysfunction.

I have spent years finding the places I am jagged and cutting myself open on their edges to heal. I will not undercut my evolution by sitting in collective grief and misery and ignoring what they are trying to teach us.

“Lighten up.”

No.

I will not make light of the darkest parts of living when there is work to be done to ensure our children’s children’s children do not suffer our fate. I will not make light of the darkest parts of living when our ancestors were literally robbed.

When I called myself my ancestor’s wildest screams1, I meant that I’m tired of us getting our ass beat by gestures widely and after watching this world play in my face, my parents’ faces, and My People’s Faces, I am no longer asking nicely.

I’m coming for what we are owed and I’m not laughing about ts no more.

I will no longer use humor as an armor of avoidance when I risk losing my voice and legacy entirely. Instead, I’ll make sure my voice and legacy as an artist are ironclad and razor sharp.

Aka, consider this my

I’m haunted by the ghosts of my ancestors and yours who deserved better.

For her lifetime of brilliance and curiosity, Hurston died poor. Her funeral, undoubtedly filled with love, was funded entirely by donations.

A scholar, a genius, a Griot…

…and for lack of something as………..maddeningly inconsequential as money, time took her memory and buried it deep into the soil before she reached 60.

Laid to rest in an unmarked grave in a cemetery the Wilds reclaimed.

More than a decade before someone thought to look for her. And even then, the marker is technically wrong and on a grave technically unconfirmed as hers — her story is told by spectators, her legacy passed on by people who did not have the privilege of seeing her grow old. Someone burned many of her papers and belongings when she was gone, and it is only by the grace of God herself that what we have of her remains. We feel a strange longing for her and attachment to the mysteries still surround her lonely death. It’s this hunger to know her, even if it’s an incomplete knowing, that changed that overgrown cemetery to an altar to her.

Her story isn’t even particularly unique.

How many Titans who dedicated their lives and their genius to our collective knowledge, entertainment, and betterment lived and died POOR AND UNSUPPORTED (OFTEN UNCELEBRATED) UNTIL IT WAS TOO LATE?

How many were pushed around and to the brink and ousted by man-made devils disguised as a functioning society?

Phillis Wheatley, Vincent van Gogh, Billie Holiday, Bobby Driscoll, Julia de Burgos, Claude Monet, Antonio Vivaldi, Sammy Davis Jr., Marvin Gaye, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Judy Garland, Gary Coleman, Charlie Parker, Oscar Wilde, Whitney Houston, Herman Melville, so many more…..

A lot of these people died before even making it to 40. Many before 50. With a few exceptions, most were gone before 60.

FUCK THAT.

I am running from a similar fate, and I refuse to meme about it. Ain’t shit funny, actually.

(Artists who are starving, sharpen your teeth today. We have work to do.2)

I refuse.

I refuse.

I will dare to take my healing and betterment seriously, and the healing and betterment of the lives that touch mine seriously as well.

And that includes (unironically) getting this fuckin’ bread up for all of us.

Broke as a joke?

God forbid.

Onward.

BOO! TOMATO, TOMATO!

Hateration in the dancery as a healing practice.

Capitalism.

NERD (AFFECTIONATE) + TOUCHING GRASS

Whatever nerdy shit I’m into lately + A nature hobby that keeps me grounded.

WHOO HOOOOOO.

Spring semester is AFOOT! I started a four-month gardening and civics course to learn about the intersection of greening, community building, and city government. It’s also my first official year as a certified volunteer gardener at the botanic garden. Wish me luck. 🤍

It’s also already time to start my seedlings for my late-spring / summer bed in my community garden, and I started Astro 102, too.

February is gonna be a blast.

THE SACRED TEXTS

Something I read that shaped me.

I really, really enjoyed this piece!

I also like that Hurston has been top of mind for the scholars I know personally and for a couple I’ve enjoyed reading on Substack.

spikedholywater

Mystic of the Month: Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was a writer, folklorist and anthropologist. She was born in Notasulga, Alabama but her family migrated to Eatonville, Florida within the first year of her life. Eatonville was the first incorporated all-Black town in the United States…

Read more

8 months ago · 37 likes · 2 comments · Altagracia Alvarado

Inspired by us, I’m revisiting Their Eyes Were Watching God and crying a lot. It’s awesome.

THE CAMERA GOES ‘POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP’

A cool picture I took or a photo that moved me.

I was putting together the 2026 edition of my photography portfolio when this photo stood out. I’d taken it on November 20th, 2023. I posted this to IG.

Nature has been answering my prayers and holding me in my grief this whole time. And I wouldn’t be me without trying to love it back with every picture I take.

Got my new camera, so expect some really gorgeous photos this year while I learn with it. 📸

MUSE BEHAVIOR

A song I’ve had on repeat lately

Enen no Shouboutai (aka Fire Force) is completing its final arc this anime season, and though I have DEEPLY complicated feelings about that show that I’ll get to later, it gave me one of the bangiest bangers to ever banger.

“Act like you've only done good
Unfairly misunderstood
Play the victim, it's so you, what's new?
Lie after lie after lie
We all stopped counting the crimes
You know why we can't trust you, don't you?

Your crooked desire left us in disarray
Misguided, divided, at the point of no return
You started a fire, you're gonna watch it burn
Try to save yourself like you always do

Every bridge we build
You think it's yours to burn it down, just burn it down
When everything is gone
You'll wish you only heard us out, heard us out”

SCREEN TINGS

Something I watched that moved me.

DYNAMITE KISS

I liked this show, but I won’t recommend it without first critiquing it because of its fatal flaw:

The trope of the poor, overworked young woman and the tragic chaebol who ends up (for no reason at all) becoming an abusive boss during their misunderstanding arcs.

ESPECIALLY BECAUSE THEIR CHEMISTRY WAS REALLY CRAZY FROM THE GET GO AND NEITHER ONE OF THEM KNEW WHY…(lol)

It’s a good one with commentary on…

1. Classism - a huge theme and recurring motif across South Korean media tbh, and for good reason. We should be paying attention to how many shows about corrupt politicians, organized crime, and abusive corporations come out of South Korea and what they are saying.

2. Motherhood and Fatherhood - A ton of dramas feature parents or mothers as supporting characters, but the unpaid labor of Motherhood and what it means to be a working mother is given a ton of spotlight. The role of kind Fatherhood in the development of a child is also explored as a major motif.

3. What We Owe Our Parents / What We Owe Ourselves - Both leads are caretakers of their mothers — one struggling to hold his mother’s trauma after life in a gilded cage. The other, after a lifetime of financial instability, is struggling to come of age and start a career in time to provide a comfortable retirement for her mother. And sometimes, you’d do anything to take care of your parents, even if you end up putting your happiness on the back burner. But. That’s no way to live, either.

4. Environmentalism - The world we leave behind for our children is also featured heavily. Will come back to that later.

5. Spousal Abuse - A powerful man has a child out of wedlock and abuses everyone he can hold power over while maintaining a spotless public face? GASP!

6. Suicide, Recovery, and Mental Health - Another recurring theme in South Korean media across many genres, but one I find heavily deployed in a ton of romances of the last 15 years. I believe we owe the creatives of South Korea our undivided attention when it comes to commentary on suicide, considering how many young entertainers in the K-Pop and drama spaces have died in the last decade, especially.

7. Reclamation of Self in the Face of Misogynistic Abuse - The moms in this one are so freaking great, but one mom in particular had me WEEPING in my house.

…and more.

WHICH IS WHY IT’S SO DISAPPOINTING THAT THE POWER IMBALANCE BETWEEN THE MALE AND FEMALE LEAD IS NEVER RECKONED WITH. HE ALLEGEDLY IS IN LOVE WITH HER BUT REGULARLY ABUSES HIS POWER AS HER WEALTHY NEPO-BABY BOSS.

THE FACT THAT SHE IS POOR IS A DRIVING PART OF THE PLOT (a lot of media does this a ton tbh), AND THEN HE HOLDS IT OVER HERRRRRR.

He needed his ass beat at least once for doing her like that.

BUT GOD. They are so gorgeous together, and I loved the rest of the story.

So yeah.

8/10 when it could’ve been a perfect score. I’ll be revisiting this one, so stay tuned.

P.S, I LOVE YOU

Just a final thought.

I’m looking you dead in ya eyes.

If you’re a fellow brokie with a bone to pick with the Interesting Times, don’t stop making the art. Don’t stop building what is calling you to build it. Tell our descendants your story and let us tell them The Truth. Do it on the clock, between jobs, or on the weekends if you have to.

Do not let Them tie your voice and your worth and your power to your money. When it’s your turn, give $20 to another artist, and we gon be alright.

FUCK ICE, hug ya homies, pass the dutchie pon de lef han side.

An author’s note

A blessed 2026 to you! Consider this a B-side to my ‘theme of the year’ flavored entry from last year.

THE MAIN COURSE

Why I’m here. What I’m mulling over.

I wake up in a quiet home.

It embraces me and the noisy pounding of my heart. My mind is already racing by the time my legs swing over the edge of the bed. My shoulders ripple as I stretch and breathe into purpose.

Step by step. Day by day. Choice by choice. Closer and closer still. A life to live after many small deaths. Focus.

As the sun peeks over the horizon, my home smells of the lavender I burned the night before, the green tea I’m steeping now, and the joint I’m smoking out the window while I Wait.

I water my plants, and fresh flowers greet me in every room.

I’ve spent more time asleep in the first week of the year than doing anything else. I love it. That means I am strong1.

I made her worse and got better. I am better. I am getting better still.

My own capacity for continual renewal and growth sends a shiver across my soul and my skin. The chill seeping through the window helps.

I dip a spoonful of spiced honey into my tea and smile. The oven beeps — warm croissants I’m pairing with another, more subtle blueberry honey. They taste like a dream, and I think nothing of calories as I lick my fingers.

Soon after, fully moisturized after a steaming bath and running a chilled sculpting tool across my face, I answer a couple of emails and ignore a few others. I know better than to answer things that need time to breathe. Instead of getting trapped behind my screen, I slip on shoes and race to the biting chill waiting for me outside.

The street is quiet, and my walk to the train is uneventful save for the smile I give my neighbor.

My day passes without ache.

A late morning spent stretching in the sauna with tears and sweat in my eyes. A burger for lunch, and perfect French fries. An afternoon in the soft company of a loved one. A million love notes passed between us. An evening telling stories in which my other soulmates and I weave magic.

Exhausted gratitude on the bus after a day well done.

To my quiet home within myself, I return — full, prepared, happy. Glorious and focused.

When the underworld beckons me forward again, I remember that life is a cycle of returns.

I remember that one step in front of the other, I shall resurface.

Another quiet morning.

I cleanse and anoint my hair and body in thanksgiving.

I send more missives on the wind and on the page.

A day well lived after many small deaths and underworld journeys.

I can make her better.

Because I already have.

Upward.

NERD (AFFECTIONATE)

Whatever nerdy shit I’m into lately.

I JUST THINK MYTHOLOGICAL STORYTELLING AND SCIENCE ARE NEAT.

Planetary science would be nothing without mythology and vice versa. Same way I think about the relationship between astrology and astronomy.2

As part of my cool-down when I study astronomy and find myself painted into a corner (aka, this is currently too hard to understand using mathematics/physics), I pivot to reading related cultural history or mythology to get a grasp of how ancient peoples used stories to describe the things the heavenly bodies are doing. Then I work backwards to connect the astronomical phenomenon being described. Things like planets “disappearing” from our view on Earth, eclipses, etc…crop up as stories about gods and goddesses in our myths for a reason!!!

I try to read at least one new myth a month, but I also revisit my favorites pretty regularly as my whimsy leads me. I find myself thinking about the Love goddesses (I am a devotee of Love after all) more than any other, and when I’m thinking about change and return/reinvention, Inanna3 is top of mind.

Venus is cazimi today.

Here’s a bit on what that means from my favorite (anti-fascist, anti-capitalist, pro-community, queer) astrologer Chani Nicholas4. ✨

Cazimi is Arabic for “in the heart of the Sun.” and is used in astrology as a moment of potent potential.

From an astronomical perspective, a cazimi is when a planet is conjunct with the sun. They align~. And today’s is a superior conjunction5, meaning Venus is on the other side of the Sun and away from us. We can’t see it, and it’s at apogee6 too, meaning it’s as far away from us as it’ll get. Inanna has gone into the underworld, and Venus has undergone its seasonal shift from being a morning star in our sky to an evening star.

I’ve been chewing on the fact that Venus’ proximity to us has given us so much. We owe Galileo’s observations of Venus (planet of love!)7 credit for being the first evidence in support of Copernican heliocentrism8. It also tickles me that even though he absolutely NAILED it by figuring out that we revolve around the sun, Copernicus was still wrong about the shape of the orbits after all.

Overwhelmed by the fact that life is just an endless string of us passing imperfect love and knowledge/understanding of our existence back and forth until we figure out something new and then pass it on.

I love it.

MUSE BEHAVIOR

A song I’ve had on repeat lately

“I was lonely
I needed someone to see me through
And I was at the end of my rope
I needed someone to cut me loose

And then an angel out of the blue
Gave me the sense that I might make it through
And somehow I survived, with no rhyme or reason
And now I know I’ll make it through the miracle of you.”

I’ve spoken about how important to my artistry and idea of love this song is before9 and I’m revisiting because I’d like to dedicate it to my friends and family who have been guiding lights through my underworld journey.

The color of love is in all the people who loved me into loving myself.

TOUCHING GRASS + THE CAMERA GOES ‘POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP’

A nature hobby that keeps me grounded + A cool picture I took or a photo that moved me.

My weekend devotional was nothing short of perfect.

And here are the florals. When I choose my offerings, I go by pure instinct. For my first 2026 offerings, my heart led me to red, pink, and white carnations10.

I couldn’t choose, so I opted to buy all three for an arrangement. One of these bouquets was then gifted to me as the owner of the flower stand smiled and said “Take one for free. A gift. Because you always buy from here. Thank you. Thank you.”

I needed that kindness — I am so grateful my devotion blesses him and blessed me in turn.

My research taught me love, gratitude, purity, and good luck = Red, pink, and white carnations.

What a way to start the year. 🕯️

I love him. I love me. I love us. I really, really do.

P.S, I LOVE YOU

Just a final thought.

I don’t really believe in New Year’s Resolutions anymore — every single moment of every year is an opportunity for becoming more aligned with who I want to be and how I want to tell the stories of my life.

But.

If I had to choose just one, it’d be to continue embodying love of Self so fully that it makes me better every day. I’ve seen what it's already done for me, and I hope it does the same for you, too.

(Also, can you believe I wrote all this before I even knew what those carnations meant?! Spirit is LOUD, I say.)

Happy Venus Cazimi and 2026. May Love lead you through the dark this winter. ✨

A song I’ve had on repeat lately

I was 11 when I sang the lead for this song for the first time. As I age, the song takes on a different meaning. After the years 2024 and 2025 have been, it transforms once more.

THE RADIO STATIC

bbbbbzzzzzchhhh…Transmission. Transmutation. Transcendance…..bbbbtzzzzz

It’s been almost two full years since I decided to dedicate myself to

PHASE (1/3): HIBERNATION SZN

Quiet self-study, slowing down, sleeping more often, soaking up light, protecting my time with a sword, and Baddie Behavior 24/7. It’s been a mad one, and I’m really proud of the growth I’ve had, things I’ve seen, and people I’ve bloomed alongside since.

Like I did last year, I’m outtie until further notice in 2026.

Here’s a review of what I fed the Muses in this season of love.

1. Ate exactly six pomegranate seeds at a New Year’s party at the stroke of midnight, Jan 1st, 2025, and made a bargain. Did it all with the loves of my life.

2. Started boxing classes. (- $100 courtesy of my paid subscribers)

3. Did my first dance class since 2020. The instructor remembered me. I cried about it. (- $50 courtesy of my paid subscribers)

4. Have been relearning Italian for two years and held my first casual conversations by complete surprise.

5. Joined my first garden. Ate food I grew myself and cut flowers for beautiful people.

6. Summered on a different coast with the loves of my life.

7. Sang background vocals professionally for the first time in more than ten years.

8. Saw the biggest tree in the world with the loves of my life.

9. Sang emo karaoke and channeled my rockstar self with the loves of my life.

10. I pet sharks and stingrays, gave a sea urchin a finger hug, and touched a jellyfish.

11. Sang in five karaoke bars by myself.

12. Got certified to prune the trees of my urban forest. (- $100 courtesy of my paid subscribers)

13. Had my first solo vacation abroad.

14. Got absolutely smashed at Dallas BBQ with the loves of my life.

15. I was accepted to and graduated from my first gardener certification program at my local botanic garden.

16. Completed an Astronomy 101 lecture course.

17. New piercing.

18. After a year of practice, I captured my first high-quality astrophotography images of the moon.

19. Had my first soundbath.

20. Completed a course on extinction and deep time. (- $50 courtesy of my paid subscribers)

21. Went to a Korean spa and ate eggs with the aunties.

22. Saw My Chemical Romance for the first time.

23. Flirted with no fewer than fifteen people I never saw again.

24. Changed my name.

25. Donated more things than I bought.

26. Became the special lil baby of four new old women.

27. Argued with strangers.

28. Started relearning how to play chess.

29. Started relearning how to crochet.

30. Regained my flexibility and repaired my posture.

31. Went to the opera for the first time and was able to hold a profoundly stimulating conversation with older scholars as a direct result of the studying I’ve been doing these last few years.

32. Fulfilled my lifelong dream of going to the San Diego Zoo to see the pandas. And did it with a love of my life.

33. Visited the Met for the first time as an adult. Saw one of my favorite Van Gogh paintings in person with the loves of my life.

34. Had my oldest friend meet my found family. We both managed to create the communities that we needed as children.

35. Bought more than 15 bouquets for other people and 15 for myself.

36. Spoke less and with more honesty.

37. Hexed a man (like my grandmomma be doing) for trying to grope me. He dropped his phone in the sea within the hour.

38. Bleached my brows.

39. Saw THEE Kylie Minogue in concert. Did it with a love of my life.

40. Made my friends drink overproof Jamaican rum.

41. Finished my first Pathfinder campaign. Started a new one.

42. Watched Lord of the Rings (the extended editions in one day, too) with the loves of my life.

43. Spent more time laughing with my family than we spent crying.

44. Wrote two new short films.

45. Finalized the tracklist for my EP.

46. Identified my creative life’s purpose and gave it a name.

47. Directed a shoot for the first time.

48. Gave out flowers with a major brand in the middle of LA.

49. Slept on the beach after swimming for five hours straight.

50. Won a “Best Orgasm Sound” voice acting contest in a gay bar.

51. Killed five plants, raising 20 more.

52. [REDACTED] my [REDACTED] and finally [REDACTED] so that I can [REDACTED] in 2026.

So it’s NAP TIME~

If you need me, don’t. I’ll be burying my phone in the woods and howling like the Wolf Man in glee about it.

Thanks for Deidreaming with me this year.

Love you, mean it.

It’s been a ride, and I can’t wait to continue building this space in the future.

If you’re reading this: tell me something fun you did / you are proud of from this year.

Below are my favorite posts from this year. See you in 2026.

1. Starving Artist entry

2. Do or Die entry

3. Arrives Late to #MeToo… interstitial

4. Good Ancestor entry

5. F*cked Up White Boys World interstital

6. MANEATER entry

7. Madwoman and Muse entry

An author’s note

Perhaps this meme breaks the tension I worked so hard to curate but.

(REDACTED), WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?” HALL OF FAME

Something mad I said to my friends recently.

“We’ve moved past the self-blame portion of the programming and straight into the ‘I will fight all of you and then crawl to heaven on broken limbs and fight God with just my teeth if I must’ era of healing.”

- (REDACTED), finally catching her shadow

THE MAIN COURSE

Why I’m here. What I’m mulling over.

I cannot believe I’m already closing out another year in this art space.

I cannot believe I’ve been rebuilding my heart for two.

I cannot believe I have been in the midst of this undoing for three.

I cannot believe I have been peering into my future until my eyes bleed for four.

I cannot believe I’ve been on my knees, praying for relief, for five or more.

The grief has nowhere to go except my screaming prayers.

And my ancestors have begun to scream back.

Their voices, their regrets, my voice, my regrets - all of us have melded into one creature with a swampy, inky black face and countless rows of teeth. And she’s pissed and ready to scream about it.

I’m healed, and I’m happier, but I’m still burning under my skin.

Told you I had a Shadow.1

I be running away from her, and she catches me everrrrrrrrytime. Deidream be BEATING MY ASS, HER OWN ASS, ERRYBODY ASS. If I could best describe her now…it’d be like this:

I’d heard the term Shadow Work from the girlies with pronouns and waistbeads (positive), and even within the context of my studies at university, but I admit that in my more youthful ignorance, I wrote it off as edgelord shit.

“Ooooh you’re confronting your spiritual shadow?~ Okay~”

Then I had no choice but to take it seriously — circumstance pulled me by my hair, kicking and screaming, into the void of my psyche. Tumbling, tumbling tumbling down past all the ways I got used to intellectualizing my feelings, denying who I was, and repressing the darkest parts of me.2 I was made to confront all the things my ego had spent years burying deep in the blackened soil of my id.

I’ve been exhuming and reabsorbing my own corpses with every new heartache or personal insight unearthed from my subconscious.

(Watch and listen, curious reader. The pyre I’ve been building within me will soon be lit.)

The conclusion I’ve reached is:

If I don’t integrate the shadow, she’ll swallow me whole to ensure we survive. The organism must survive by any means necessary.

(It’s the 12th anniversary of the time you lived. Happy Rebirthday. I’d rather cry tears of blood than let you die again. I’d rather pray a million curses upon your enemies than allow you to turn our sword on yourself again.3)

When I described her for the first time last year4, I had a very vague vision and a lot of hope for what and who Deidream would be “on stage,” so to speak, when I performed her. I didn’t think of her as a true part of me at all. I spent hours moodboarding and designing the “character” of her under the pretext of songwriting and a personal makeover of sorts. And in a way, I was doing what I’d done with (RADIO STATIC) but conceptualizing someone darker, angrier, broodier.

Someone more unmasked, unflinching, and unrelenting.

I had noooooo clue that I’d effectively given The Thing a name and opened a door to my Shadow Self to basically throw the old me off a waterfall and hit me with a Killmonger.

I spent all of this year getting to know this version of me, and honestly? All metaphor aside?

I FUCK WIT HERRRRRRRRRRR.

I love who I became and who I am becoming with her help. At the top of 2025, I said I could make her worse. I did, and it’s LIT.5

So yeah, nice to meet you. I’m Deidream the Nightmare.

Forward.

MUSE BEHAVIOR

A song I’ve had on repeat lately

Re: my own music, I am currently burning with fury that some ol bulllllllshit beyond my control impeded me from doing what I thought I’d be able to accomplish this year. Sitting on the preliminary voice-note demos of the 10+ songs I shared the titles of last year in my first secret entry has been an exercise in patience. I did lay some background vocals for a beloved friend and have also been using the time to get reacquainted with music theory, and that’s been great.

May my bandmates find me soon. 🕯️

In the meantime, I’ve posted the Aphrodite’s Daughter playlist before, but Deidream is also Ares’ Son. Here are a few tracks from this playlist that make me go full God of War, Super Saiyan.

“I just want to kick this shit off by saying, “Fuck y’all!”
I ain’t gotta clear my name on a motherfuckin’ thang”

Lololololol. Do I even need to explain? Das my girl right there!!

“My bitches ragin’ and blackin’ out
Keep my name out your fucking mouth
Before you find out what we about
Type of shit that you read about
If you talk it then be about it.”

One of my favorite “I’m knocking allllllllllllllllll this shit over” tracks of all time. This is my morning alarm. Rico Nasty, the artist you are.

“Them bitches fraudulent, you know you the truth
(Get ‘em, Glo!) Stop overthinkin’, these hoes can’t fuck with you (period)
(Get ‘em, Glo!) Standin’ on business in these Chanel shoes
Before I let a ho play with me, I’ll go eat some jail food, on gang

Stomp a lil’ pussy ho with some shell toes
(Yeah, Glo!) Slappin’ rap bitches and makin’ bail, ho”

GLORIA HALLELUJAH. Let the church turn to Book of Baddielations, Chapter 1, Verse 2. I like whispering GloRilla lyrics to myself in the mirror first thing in the morning just in case I forget I’m The One.

“My secret side I keep, hid under lock and key
I keep it caged, but I can’t control it
‘Cause if I let him out he’ll tear me up, break me down”

When I say that I’m biting at the bars of my cage, this is the song that’s blasting through my head. I’ve been listening to this song since I was 13, and it still hits. Hilariously enough, I was thinking about how funny it would be to hear while I was making the graphic above, and THEN IT CAME ON SHUFFLE. MAGICCCCC~

“I declare war
On anybody standing in the way of what I dream for (dream for)
How could you ignore (ignore)
The ones that are voiceless, screams from the poor (from the poor)
They only here to score
I do it for the underground kings that’ll need more (need more)
I’m kickin’ down your door (door)
If I wonder why you got a pocket full of green for”

This shit goes so damn hard, and it was for a NETFLIX TV SHOW. PUSHAAAAAAAAAAAAA. PUSHA TERRENCE!!! YOU AIN’T HAVE TO GO SO STUPID, BUT YOU DID, AND THE WORLD IS BETTER FOR IT. THIS IS SOME PHIL COLLINS ON THE TARZAN OST SHIT. MATTER OF FACT ANOTHA ONE:

“Therapy showed me how to open up

It also showed me I don’t give a fuck.”

The Clipse album from this year, bangs. My favorite feature was the President of the Chaotic Evil for Good Gemini Association, Kendrick Lamar. I listen to Kendrick and Clipse when I want to be reminded that hating with specificity is key. I’m a baby girl of love and light, but I want my haters to know I hate them too, and I want everything I do to be an arrow to their heart. And I want to line the tips of the arrows with the gold from the trophies I win off hating their asses and the systems that let them get away with being stupid. When I first saw Kendrick’s Halftime show, I called his Emmy win. I just know Aubrey gets cold sweats every time he sees the letter K. I used to try doing that “I want even my enemies to prosper” but nah, now I wanna make my enemies my footstools fr and Pusha Terrence and Kendrick are basically Warlocks of Haterdom.

Speaking of….

BOO! TOMATO, TOMATO!

Hateration in the dancery as a healing practice.

🕯️ You Ain’t Ever Gon Read This But….

I hope you drop your chocolate ice cream cone on your favorite white forces. I hope your hairline disappears with every email you send. I hope your wildest dreams come true and then you wake up. I hope your crush likes your favorite homie instead. I hope you get a wedgie at the most inappropriate time. I hope your leftovers give you bubble guts. I hope you get bit by a mosquito riiiiight on the tip of your elbow or between your pinky toe and your fourth one. I hope the record you’re looking for eludes you forever.

I hope everyone sees through you when you be on bullshit.

And every single tongue that rises against me and my homies will be bitten off in anger.

🕯️

THE CAMERA GOES ‘POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP’

A cool picture I took or a photo that moved me.

I was angry-crying outside one night, and caught Jupiter being all big and super shiny in the night sky. I literally went “oooooh~ pretty!” and snapped a pic before going back to sobbing out of fury.

Taken on my phone in a flurry of “point and shoot”, so the glare from the light pollution is HORRENDOUS, but it's still PRETTY. It’s been too long since I shared astrophotos in this space — a full year since my camera broke, but NEW ONE SOON COME IN 2026 HOPEFULLY. 🕯️

NERD (AFFECTIONATE)

Whatever nerdy shit I’m into lately.

Pluto is the (not a) planet of underworld excavation and shadow. I’ve been trying to massage my scientific understanding of it, knowledge of Plutonian mythology beyond Pluto being the Roman equivalent of the Greek Hades, and exploring mythologies that feature a Hero’s Journey into the Underworld across a couple of different cultures. Recently attended a lecture via my astronomy association about the Giant Impact Hypothesis, the relationship between Pluto and its moon Charon, and the “Kiss Theory”. It was verrrry cool to understand the differences between how Earth interacts with our Moon vs how a binary system like Pluto and Charon work, and how the theoretical physics of the impact could explain things like the differences in rotation, orbit, and planetary shape/composition. Re: Earth, I had this recommended by a beloved friend this week.

I’m a little scared to get back into my worst science, but I’ll be taking my first physics classes in TEN YEARS in 2026. Wish me luck.

I’m currently taking a class on mass extinction. Will report back in the new year.

SCREEN TINGS

Something I watched that moved me.

Word to Jordan Peele, this single frame from Us sums up my entire Saturn Return and artistic POV right now.

I write screaming music and horror stories that feel like:

If you want previews like script and lyric pages out of context and more exclusive access to the results of my scholarship and artistry, becoming a paid subscriber helps me grow as an independent artist and researcher and gets you in on more of those [SECRET] entries.

TOUCHING GRASS + A _______ THAT GREW FROM CONCRETE

A nature hobby that keeps me grounded. + Notes on the plants I spot in the concrete jungle, wet dream tomato.

So many people should be grateful that gardening (and boxing) found me this year. Because the force at which I was swinging the hoe while tilling our beds as we laid down fresh soil and compost for the winter? Lethal, truly.

I spent my angriest days in the dirt, planting something beautiful that will serve Deidream well. You’ll have to wait a little longer to see the result of that work, but here’s an interesting plant I had to cut back in our garden lest it overtake its neighbors.

Phytolacca americana

Truly an absolutely STUNNING native plant with these GORGEOUS JUICY-LOOKING BERRIES.

Incredibly poisonous. Like, it can kill you for real if you interact with it wrong.

I love it. I’ve decided I want to learn how to handle it.

Something about a plant that’s gorgeous to look at, and tempting in its offerings, but that should only be handled with the utmost care and expertise, does it for me.

Same, sis.

PERFECT STRANGER

A love letter to someone I’ll never see again.

To Everyone I spoke to at the My Chemical Romance concert:

Thank you. To the mom and daughter who told me they’d seen me walk in from afar and hoped they could catch me to tell me I looked stunning, you have no idea what it means to me. To the security guards for the stadium that said “Mmmm! Show yourself.” and “Lookin’ sharp!!”, you have no idea that I took that into my heart as a prayer. To the group of people who stopped taking their selfies to scream, “OH MY GOD. YOU LOOK GORGEOUS.”, I thank you from the very bottom of my heart. To the two people who gave me beaded concert bracelets because “You are so beautiful, the vibe is immaculate”, I keep them in a very special place.

Sharing that space with you and one of my favorite bands of all time was already a blessing, and being showered with flowers of affection and affirmation was a blessing tenfold. After years of making my way back to music, I’d spent a long time meditating and planning that look because this was my first time seeing My Chemical Romance, a band that shaped my childhood and sound as a musician, and I wanted my official visual debut as Deidream to be perfect.

You made it so. 🕯️

I love you, Perfect Strangers.

ANCESTRAL RIGHTS

Words of wisdom from those who came before.

Darkness
Gives shape to the light
As light
Shapes the darkness.
Death
Gives shape to life
As life
Shapes death.
The universe
And God
Share this wholeness,
Each
Defining the other.
God
Gives shape to the universe
As the universe
Shapes God.

―Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

P.S, I LOVE YOU

Just a final thought.

This is my last full entry of the year.

Ion have no cutesy shit to say here this time — in the spirit of honesty, I’m thankful for the people around me and to myself for creating purposeful moments of happiness this year. I am also grateful for my personal growth.

However. This year was still deeply disappointing in ways Deidream deems utterly unacceptable.

2026 will be better….or else.

An author’s note

TW for implications of sexual abuse/childhood sexual abuse

I started writing this right after Maneater and just after the D*ddy trial ended. This is half unspoken word, half primordial rage on the page, half curse.

I also fully intended for this to come out next year. This space has fallen deeper into semi-thematic storytelling as it matures, and I’ve been meditating on the concept of “home” lately, but given how deeply triggering American News is right now, it feels right.

My love to any survivors of sexual violence reading this. May your righteous anger allow you to heal in whatever way you need to. 🕯️

THE RADIO STATIC

bbbbbzzzzzchhhh…Transmission. Transmutation. Transcendance…..bbbbtzzzzz

Every morning, I pray with thanks for the breath of life and all its simple pleasures. I thank the universe for the gift of friends and family, and I pray for the safety and comfort of those I love near and far.

Then I pray for my abusers to be struck dead wherever they stand.

I pray their (BEEP) shrivel up and recede into their bodies and cause sepsis. I ask the spirit of erectile dysfunction to haunt them like the Ghost of All the Women Yet to Cum. I pray their (WITHHELD) get stung by wasps because the idea of them out there, happy with women who don’t know what they did to me, burns me to my fingertips.

I pray for the abusers of people I love to fall off something tall.

I pray for them to disappear.

I even pray for secret abusers to be made to perform the Danse Macabre with the skeletons in their closets in a gladiatorial arena. I pray we can collectively thumbs down and feed them to lions. I pray Hell opens up like a trap door on the boys, who are now men, and the men who thought themselves boys young enough to attempt to destroy my world.

When my eyes sting like I’m crying tears of blood, I run from the shadow of the little girl, now a woman, who hurt me first.

And if I hadn’t been made to forget their faces …

(Some years feel like blank film now, others have ink stains all over them.)

…I’d play The Most Dangerous Game from city to city like a John Wick mfer. I’d paint over the heartbreaking gaps in my memories with their blood.

Crying in therapy in a world that gives abusers crowns is not enough.

Sewing my body and sexual shadow back together in a world that gives abusers glory isn’t enough.

I chuckle in my prayers and tell God that her wisdom is indeed infinite because if given the chance and the superpowers, I’d go full Wanda Maximoff.

God knew that the difference between an angel and a devil is a blurred line. It is vengeance and reclamation of the self as an extension of someone else’s design vs. an act of free will.

And She leashed me because the me I am when I pray for their blood is far from heavenly.

“Oh, some say, in life, you’re gonna get what you give
But some things, only God can forgive.”

I am not a survivor who forgives.

I want them to be struck by lightning or the plague or maybe turn into some hideous, Kafkaesque, unlovable, and disgusting creature doomed to perish from loneliness.

I am not a survivor who forgives.

But I wanted to be.

I really, really wanted to be.

I tried to be.

I prayed to be.

But hell,

Maybe one day I won’t pray about them at all.

Today is not that day.

You who sit awake at night and wonder who you’d be if you’d simply walked down a different street when you were eighteen. Or twenty-three. Or twenty-nine. Or if someone had been interested long enough to know what you look like when you’re terrified. You, writing this and sobbing because the grief needs somewhere to go, and you are weary from carrying the rage.

No longer will you swallow knives.

No longer shall you be shackled by the responsibility of remaining angelic in your fury.

Fall out of paradise.

Find freedom and your vengeance in the fires below.

Grab your flaming sword.

I am not a survivor who forgives.

Give me my heart back.

Pay the blood price.

bbbbbzzzzzchhhh…Transmission. Transmutation. Transcendance…..bbbbtzzzzz

One morning, I smelled my mother’s cooking.

The quiet of the woods behind me is nearly as heavy as the three blankets I find myself cocooned in.

[I could stay here forever.

What’s the point of trying so fucking hard anyway?

This is bliss, and I do not wish to leave it.

I wish this would all be over.

E**** here. M******* there. Someone wants something every single moment of my day. Produce, earn, achieve, yearn. How else will you live? How else will THEY live? Much to do, much to do, much ado about everything.

IfIwereamillionaireI’ddisappearwhereyoucouldn’teverreachme.]

I’m so tired. I’m so tired. I’m so. Tired.

Girl! Getupgetupgetupgetup. RISE N GRIND, SHORTY.

“You know, you shouldn’t sleep with your laptop on your bed.”

How else will I slam myself straight into earning from the moment I open my eyes? But maybe just…….five more minutes.

Is it still dangerous to say I wanna sleep forever?

But.

What tore me out of bed was the opening chimes of one of Our favorite songs.

What propelled me down the stairs, warbling with a voice full of sleep, was my mother’s humming along. What moved my feet across the kitchen was her laughter. For four minutes, everything went quiet, save for the jingle of the bells, Mariah’s ageless crooning, and my mother’s amusement.

I’ve heard this song a million times before, but this time felt different. I’d alchemized my grief before, but this time felt important.

I performed for my mother again.

I remembered the moments of my childhood when my silly little voice and my clumsy imitations of my heroes were just for her. I remembered what all our warm afternoons alone, when she smiled more often, were like. I remembered the first time I felt childlike wonder at being able to use my talent to make someone I love happy.

I remembered why it was important, for both of us. I remembered why choosing our joy over my grief was the best way to start our day right.

The earlier the Christmas cheer, the harder the world is breaking Our heart.

I am once again writing this from underwater, and we are once again facing Great Unknowns, but these four minutes spent dancing in the kitchen along with my mother reminded me so much of being a teenager again that I broke the surface.

It reminded me that we’ve had to spin broken straw into imperfect gold my whole life.

[Eldest daughters who walk a fine line, tend to your thread today.]

But even still, we dance.

“This is why I missed my baby,” said with eyes that crinkle in the corners when she smiles.

Eventually, a sibling and my father meander down. I miss the other sibling when they aren’t around.

The smell of frying eggs and the beating of my heart when I look at their faces overwhelms me.

Running away from home only makes the run back into its arms all the sweeter.