Me, Undone

Come away with me... come away with me. Happiness is a delusion—a collectively digested opiate designed to distract us from our petty existence. There is only pleasure, you see. I'm ready, yes, I am ready to forsake delayed gratification for hedonistic indulgence. Life is much too short to keep wishing and dreaming. Give me unadulterated joy—naked bodies, red wine, warm massages, late nights dancing, sweet crepes and the freedom the move as I please. I'm preparing from my greatest act yet. Come away with me.

Antioch is a little, white church on a hill. With aches and pains it welcomed us in every Sunday. It was a place for the weary—respite for tired hands and feet. My mother, unwed and with another baby growing in her belly, sat at the back of the church with her head slump down—me, sleeping peacefully in her lap. It was the pastor who finally called her to the front of the church and gave her a reason not to be ashamed. Old womens' arms and prayers held our little family together. During altar call, mommy would kneel on the stiff bench with tears in her eyes—praises flung up to the sky. At Antioch my brother and I grew and flourished. We were the darlings of the church—the fresh dreams and hopes of barren wombs... Years later, I returned to the little, white church on the hill. Antioch was still the same—but life had changed. This time, my brother was locked in a cage, and I was standing at the altar with my mother lying beside me in a wooden box. I stood there, in front of the chu...

I’ve got this funny feeling that something has been nibbling on my…carving away at my… gentle murders silent soul assassinations the kindest of body blows Zora Neale Hurston said that for women, the dream is truth. I believe this —and I wonder whether this heightened awareness, this intense obsession with truth, is a blessing or a curse. This search the authentic self –oh gosh, I sound so new age, has left me fraught with insecurity and restlessness. I wish sometimes, to roll back my senses –to present as stone to the world. It’s so exhausting to experience life as I do—I am so f-ing porous. The body blows are exhausting—one by one, I learn that my ambitions and expectations are overstated. Little by little, my hope in humanity dies. I am fighting against silent soul assassinations. Breathe—continue? Or stop?