“I once had a dear friend– a beautiful boy full of life, with the face of an angel and the muscles of a panther. He cut himself while opening a tin of preserved peaches– you know, the large, soft, slippery kind that plap in your mouth and slither down. He died a few days later of blood poisoning… viewed as a work of art, the shape of his life would not have been so perfect had he been left to grow old”
-- . - .- .--. .... --- .-. .- ... ... .... --- .-: Friendship and Separatism in Malcolm X →
“You own your own land and women,” the logic of separatism sings. “I will own mine.”
Malcolm X was arrested for robbing wealthy white men of their excess. He served ten years in prison despite being a first-time offender; his real crime, he said, was sleeping with white women. Despite…
For those relegated to non-being, to even appear is a violent act.
— George Ciccariello-Maher (via ninjabikeslut)
(via fuzzyhorns)
2004 (Age 17)
My mother and I take Nicolette to the outlet mall and she chooses a pink Barbie lunchbox and a pink Barbie backpack and pink velcro shoes with pink lace socks. She picks a fallen silk flower off the floor and gives it to the woman at the cash register. She sniffles and I talk to my mother about my sister, she’s sweet. “And then, hell, then they grow up,” all disappointing nods in my direction. She won’t take the twenty-percent off coupon, it’s nine pee em, for chrissakes, and the skinny woman in the bag lane has a bleach ponytail on the top of her head; she’s smacking something in her mouth at us with her arms folded. We walk out of the store after the cashier drops a thousand things and flushes and sniffs. “Go on, now,” we’re reminded, and as we walk away the skinny woman flings herself against the doors. “Somebody SHOOT ME already…” my mother’s hands swoop down around my sister’s ears but stop a little short. We talk about what it will be like to start kindergarten.
That day, the Tampa City Council walked out on a man invited to give their invocation; he’s from the Florida Council of Atheists. “Human problems, the solutions to these problems can only come from human beings…” row of heads below the podium are bowed for an amen, it doesn’t come. All frowns but he keeps talking.
I started crying at my grandmother’s house when my grandfather told me God was on George Bush’s side, and my grandmother gave me her Power of Focus book and a pair of sunglasses she found while she was looking for it. Self Help/Inspiration. She wants to take me to buy some clothes and she’ll want me to buy a little jewelry, now, just a little won’t hurt. the next day at work, we sit in the office lunchroom and talk to the other working women. They tell us stories about when they had to wash their son’s mouth out with soap and then he started crying and the soap bubbles frothed out his nose. Everyone leaves and the shorter man walks in to grab a lollipop for the secretary. “What color…” he says to himself. then he looks at me. “I bet she likes… PINK, huh?” He walks away. The secretary’s trying to carry all the paper towel rolls and the phone rings so she runs and they all go trailing down the hall.
I get free sushi from the sushi chef next door, I don’t know why, I don’t know. But that night I have dreams about getting bitten by rattlesnakes and my arm numbing up when dialing 911 doesn’t work. My mother’s found the antibodies at a church hospital and I have to get baptized before they’ll give them to me. My leg goes numb and that’s okay with me. The thing is, my cat was bitten too, but she’s out of reach under the table and I don’t know how to get the anti venom to her. Next I’m running over these fleshy white lilies through a luminescent river and I wake up.
