Wunderkammen

Going to see Saul Williams perform live was everything I could have wished. He came out wearing a feathered headpiece resembling a mohawk and a suit with deconstructed boas hanging from the shoulders, along with a shawl and several pieces of clothing underneath. He performed songs from Niggy Tardust, his self-titled album and as he did he stripped down to just his pants. He was covered in blue and gold paint. It was brilliant. As he said, “I just want you motherfuckers to have a good time.” He danced and climbed the light fixtures. He jumped out into the audience and looked up into the balcony where we sat to make sure we were still with him. How could we not be? He was energetic and dynamic. It was a performance reminiscent of fire and prayer all at once.

He performed 5 Senses in the middle of the set and I just about yelled myself hoarse reciting along with him. The best part… he stopped in the middle and muttered “goddamn” he was so surprised that the audience had memorized the piece and could match him line for line. When he performed No One Ever Does, I teared up because after the past two weeks, which led to a hospital stay for me, the words hit me in the gut.

We called him back for an encore and he performed Sunday Bloody Sunday in a voice so pure, I thought my heart would break. He changed the lyrics some and it became a treatise on African-American treatment in this country. He made me want to fight and create. I was inspired.

Sorry the picture is so blurry. I took it with my cell phone.

It was a night I won’t ever forget, and if I do.. I have his t-shirt to remind me.

Posted by Kisha at 08:10 PM ∗ Comments (0)

I have a running list in my head of what I will not do today. I will not listen to this panic; the power of it making my heart pound beats so rhythmic I could dance Damballah. I will not think of the dreams where people close to me are cut open and splayed, organs removed and bionic parts put in their place so that they are alien to me, distant, removed, gone.

I will not pay attention to any of those voices that know exactly why the sky clouds over and whispers so loud that the ocean rings in my ear. Not today, Yemaya. Not tomorrow either.

Here’s why I won’t:

The last time I pulled myself together and started to fight, I had to reach so deeply inside of myself to find hope and reason that it would be foolish to imagine I’ll have access again. Every time I fall, it’s harder to get up. So I’m getting dressed. I’m going to therapy. I’m taking my meds and I’m leaving this computer alone.

I can’t be in control when I’m scared past reason.

Posted by Kisha at 03:31 PM ∗ Comments (0)

Relief can be almost instantaneous— a puff of breath sending dust skittering across the palm into the open air. Eyelids falling closed to hide the tears just beginning to gather underneath. It’s fragile and breathtakingly new. The message doesn’t hit the muscles right away. Time passes and there the knots remain deep in sinew connected to bone; the news has been slow to delivery just like a sleeping child realizing they’ve been carried to bed.

My own terrifying memories have not left me; we still share the same bed with a loving man but my skin aches less. The ache I feel today from a goodbye I wasn’t entirely prepared to say is a far cry from the woman who flinched at every shadow. I’m sad, alive, aware that I am going to wake up tomorrow and I’m glad.

All that said, this won’t get easier. I’d better pace myself.

Posted by Kisha at 03:30 PM ∗ Comments (0)

And there it is. Words printed across the teletype of my brain, pushing forward, trying to prove that I haven’t forgotten how to do this; how to write. I remember. Every line, every paragraph, every phrase, every word— it’s all here. Somewhere. Locked up in a sea of shattered fables, torn from my childhood, locked away while I heal and find words that aren’t just a cacophony of screams trapped in fragile bubbles on their way to the surface of my water, I know I haven’t lost anything. It’s just quiet. Gathering steam. Coming together. I’m on my way somewhere. Perhaps beyond this strange place where memories compete with the present as though they belong and the heat pulls me backward. I’m coming together. Carefully. Barely dried popsicle sticks and Elmer’s Glue. I’m a project without a plan.

Nobody chronicles what happens to the person born, love all but forgotten, who disappears into the stream of caked blood and violated orifices and survives long enough to try to find their way back. Back to a place where your skin doesn’t ache and you aren’t always nauseated, the vomit just begging to find a way forward. Up and out. Willing to pour out of your pores and saturate the sheets, willing to spill into relationships that did nothing wrong except exist, permeating even the dull and mundane— oh, the bus rides. I’m doing it and I’m speechless at the thought. Speechless at the idea of dropping anecdotes into sentences like perfectly round pebbles and disturb the water. When it’s quiet… and how I dream about the quiet… what I want is to leave it alone, let it fall and settle until I find myself back in a room with kind eyes paid to listen or a group of women who have been there and know that you never just pick yourself back up and the longer the pain went on, the more you have to struggle forth knowing that taking a trip into oblivion might be an option but not one you’ll allow yourself to ever consider for longer than it takes the sun to rise on an endless night.

Continue reading "Adam Mann's Second Cousin" »

Posted by Kisha at 06:05 PM ∗ Comments (0)

My extended history of abuse started before I had linear thought. A jumble of memories, stills and disjointed sounds crowd me every now and again; the only commonality is my hope that someone would come for me, that I could be saved. No one came. It’s a truth I’m learning to swallow slowly like choked sobs or cod liver oil. It’s a long way from children who imagine what it would be like if the parents they imagine didn’t care about them burst into their room to find their drawers empty, “I’ll show them!”, to realizing that if my flesh and blood parents came in they’d cry for themselves or head for the next drink and no one would really think about little girl me lonely and afraid on my own. I’ve learned too well not to trust or rely or cry. I’ve learned so well that, now, when I’m overwhelmed I tell no one at all. It’s just mine to deal with, to drown with; I’ll sink inexorably toward silt covered muddy bottoms and barely make a sound when it happens.

Continue reading "Down the Road" »

Posted by Kisha at 12:21 PM ∗ Comments (0)

One of the worst things about having grown up as a child forced to take on roles that were not my own is the chances I’ve lost as a result. I’ve never been a sister. I have been a precocious surrogate mother. I can’t seem to extricate myself from that position now no matter what I do.

The man I’ve thought of my entire life as my father has prostrate cancer. When he called and told me, I sat down and told my family. We’re lucky; it was caught early and the prognosis is very good. That hasn’t stopped us from all being collectively rattled, which would make it a perfect time for the battle between me and my sister to begin once more.

I’m the eldest by seven years and as long as I’ve been witness to all things secret in my family, which is as long as I’ve drawn breath, I’ve been the vault. Where all secrets go to die slow, painful deaths and I remain their guardian. My sister has been sheltered. The one to be protected and watched. We both have our reasons for resentment and anger. I found out after the fact that I wasn’t supposed to tell her about my godfather’s prostate cancer but that isn’t where things got heated. The issue today was her medication as it has been for the last couple of years since she was properly diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She doesn’t want to take this new round of meds anymore and has preemptively defended herself against my disappointment and frustration.

Continue reading "Family Relations" »

Posted by Kisha at 11:47 AM ∗ Comments (0)

Little man,

I stayed up until 12:15 this morning just so I could have that moment when I could remember what it was like to give that final push and hear your soft, reluctant cries for the first time. Part of me wanted to wake you but that would have been selfish.

You give me such a hard time but you come by your endless emotional shifts honestly. I’m proud of them, really, since there are so few people I know who feel as deeply and truly as you do. Your all ready convinced of the truth you experience and you’ll fight so persistently (and silently) not to have your mind changed. I hate it when I know I’m right and three days later you’ll come to it on your own without acknowledging that I introduced the idea in the first place. I love that you’ll be the first person in line to share or embrace because that’s all you. You can be so calm when tensions are high and then, unexpectedly, you’ll become completely unhinged because the white noise from the television has opened the door to some back room of terror that exists only in your brain and I have to make it stop because it’s got you convinced that the world is going to die a torturous death otherwise. Amazing.

You’ve stopped looking like Pooh just to spite me. I forgive you. You’re eight. I know you couldn’t have shirts that refused to stay put over your stomach forever. Besides, I’ve scattered old pictures of you all around the state just so I can refer back when I need to. For example, see here.

You have the best smile in the whole world and, charmer that you are, you know it. That ability of yours to wrap your arms around people with complete abandon, eyes pressed shut as though they are the most wonderful person that ever inhaled oxygen and nuzzle into their neck, may not work forever but I’ll confess even when I won’t let on, it still works on me every time. Somehow you turned me into a human being desperate for another person’s presence. I’m not sure when it happened. The biggest fear I have is trying to live in a world without you in it making me want to pull out the small bit of hair I have.

You keep doing your thing and I’ll keep trying not to hover nearby. Deal?

Posted by Kisha at 04:28 PM ∗ Comments (0)

But I never sat back feelin sorry for myself/
If you don’t give me heaven I’ll raise hell/
‘Til it’s heaven
— Jay-Z, “Justify My Thug”, The Black Album

The reason why I don’t ask for things that I know I’m entitled to is just so I can look certain people in their face and occasionally remind them of their irrelevance to my position. Requests can be used against me, turned into weaknesses that I didn’t know I had and when I can’t get someone out of my life the last thing I desire is to give them more fodder for their own overinflated sense of righteousness.

Child support would be nice. Being able to stand up for myself is better.

I cannot respect someone who cannot muster enough self-restraint to keep to their own agreements. Written. Spoken. With witnesses and without. It doesn’t matter why. I’m sick of wondering about people’s emotions who have never considered me and what’s more are incapable of acknowledging anyone as a feeling human being except themselves. That must be one incredibly hypnotic reflection since it’s that hard to pull your eyes away long enough to realize you aren’t alone in the world.

I’ve been up one too many nights frustrated and crying because there’s nothing I can do about being ignored even though I’m the person doing all the parenting day to day. So when it came down to it I didn’t even have to reach in to pull out the right note of anger, it wasn’t there to be found. Instead, what I had was truth. I discovered that the only opinion about my choices I’m invested in is my own. Those ties that bound disintegrated from neglect. How ‘bout that?

I don’t need anyone’s permission to insure my comfort and safety. If that rubs the wrong way that’s immaterial, too.

Posted by Kisha at 04:13 PM ∗ Comments (0)

Tuberose, usually waxy and pungent, is a love/hate note for me when it comes to perfume. Done well, it’s fleshy and warm. Done poorly, it’s clingy and saccharine; the stereotype of ladies who lunch (and behave) feminity. The scents I love that include tuberose (usually Gardenia since the two flowers share similarities) use it subtly, drawing out other florals and emphasizing their beauty with tuberose as an accent. Until recently.

Frédéric Malle’s Carnal Flower, created by Dominique Ropion has changed my mind. There’s no getting away from the tuberose in this scent. It pushes at you, dares you to turn away from it and reminds you that underneath the delicate petals of its bloom, it has a sinewy quality that reinforces life in a way you can’t ignore. Reportedly, this perfume contains the highest concentration of the flower on the market today.

The first blast once dabbed on is a heady menthol; cool, sharp and almost medicinal. Then the tuberose slides in and you feel the heat of it before the smell even hits your nose. I’m here, it announces and wraps itself around you. As it starts to drydown, the smell shifts again and suddenly there’s a faint trace of melon that wasn’t noticible before. A watery honeydew maybe. Barely perceptible beside the even lighter coconut note. It gives it a tender, sweet touch. It’s dense, and opulent without being overwhelming. Beautiful. Unapologetically sexy; never fragile.

The first time I ever saw a woman I wanted to be desperately it was Dorothy Dandridge playing Carmen in her now famous film Carmen Jones. There she was, fire and ice, passion and steely gaze, willing to say anything she thought and unwilling to compromise — unless she was protecting her freedom. The way she’d tilt her chin and focus those eyes on you for the longest moment. I sat breathless in awe of her and wanted to become her all at once.

When I wear this scent, I think of Carmen and Dorothy herself. Ready to be bloodied for being who she was, but she’d take you with her. In her good time.

Posted by Kisha at 01:18 AM ∗ Comments (0)

The day before yesterday, the house woke up to find that Pinkie, our cat, wasn't moving her back legs. It seemed like the only thing she wanted to do was lie down. She'd stand if you forced her but she'd quickly rearrange herself into a curled up position. Then she missed her kitty litter box three times in a row. We babied her and worried that she might be feeling a little under the weather. What else would there be to expect, she was going to be eighteen on the first week of November.

The next day things were considerably worse. She wasn't able to move her limbs at all and by the time I got to her, her breathing was shallow and she wasn't blinking anymore. I found a ride from a friend, called my love and asked him to meet me at the animal hospital along with my mother. She made only one sound the entire drive to the hospital and the wait to see a doctor; a clear high yelp.

Continue reading "Goodnight, Sweet Pinkie" »

Posted by Kisha at 12:18 PM ∗ Comments (0) ∗ TrackBacks (1)