.292 day 263

 a visit to ellie's...

.291 day 262

things didn't start going awry until i start letting people move beyond the point where i generally turn them all away.

(loners don't keep love. we find it and hold it with a barely there grasp)

i don't do hurt well. i don't do lost well. but what i do, do well...is seclusion.

everything happens for a reason. i birthed an aquarian. the only child that i will ever have.

sometimes i tire of optimism. but then what? 

"but then what" keeps me going. it always has.

but...then...what?

none of my thoughts make sense tonight.

(god favors babies and fools)

as a child, i use to watch plastic bags blowing in the wind. would follow them until they reached a point i could not venture to, then imagined all of the people that they passed, all of the places that they traveled to, obsessed on where their destiny ended. i presently do the same with balloons that float beyond the clouds, both, envying and pitying their freedom. there they go, i think, soaring to heights man can never reach without tools, only to die the moment they're out of the atmosphere (cause life is morbidly ironic like that)...

.290 day 261

le sigh...

my running sneakers that i never run in. at most, t'is a brisk walk.

i want to get back into film. there is an intimacy there that i presently crave...

sometimes...we're merely an extension of each other. this love is incomparable to any other.

.289 father's day

visit site for more info.

.288 day 260

when troubled by my emotions...i clean. it's my safe haven. 

(i once cried my eyes out while hand-washing all the floors of my old apartment with just a cloth rag and a bucket.)

today, i was engulfed by my emotions. i spent the majority of my time deep cleaning our forgotten basement. hulling huge bins of seasoned clothing and neglected exercise equipment and barely-used baby strollers and out-grown high chairs out to the garage. i wiped down wooden surfaces, dusted hardback books and 3 feet tall statues, sprayed and vacuumed, both, couch and carpet until they, both reeked of cleanliness. i rearranged furniture, took down old photographs and hung vintage art from my father's (r.i.p) home until i had, subconsciously, redecorated the entire basement. 

but i am still ill-at-ease. my finger-tips are wrinkled from cleaning solutions and my body is tired from the moving. i make a quick lunch: baked french fries and a garden salad. i clean the stove, irritation fueling the soapy circular motions i make on it's surface. i look down and see my reflection. my hair is matted on one side and my eyes, like black holes: dark, never-ending and the ability to pull anybody into them against their will. this isn't working. i still feel...distant...and slightly somber. maybe i should cry? i shrug. tears do nothing. the laughter of my child keeps me from drowning in my own thoughts, keeps me as close to light as possible. i sigh. today is just one of those days where my emotions need to be felt. i'm sure there is a lesson here. there is always a lesson. and sometimes, just sometimes, i simply tire of learning them...

these statues belonged to my father. we put them on an alter during his second memorial service (the first was islamic and closed to everyone except the immediate family and fellow muslims from the community) and i bought them home when it was over. he loved them, along with a smaller set of maasai warriors, in action, spears aimed at various guests, that sat at the center of his coffee table. standing three feet tall, these statues are very much like him: larger than most would believe, regal in their simplicity and so rare you're unaware of their magic until you're close enough to actually feel them.

.287 day 259

being alone is not a bad feeling to be had, when it's of ones own volition. 

i revel in my solidarity. have thoughts and habits that can fill a space better than most bodies can. but alas, i am human.

i open up my heart for fleeting friendships and wayward romances, only to regret the unrelenting powers that lie in vulnerability.

i despise when souls enter my life and present their love as permanent fixtures, when their actions make them temporary.

"i paint self-portraits because i am so often alone, because i am the person i know best"

[frida kahlo]

.286 que sera, sera...

...whatever will be, will be.

the future's not ours, to see.

que sera, sera...

.285 day 258

i never speak about my relationship with tootie's father.

partly because, unlike the typical "don't ask, don't tell" policy i put in place for all my past relationships, té and i courted an extremely public "romance". so when things went south, in ways you wouldn't believe, even if i had the heart to tell you, i retreated back into my old way of social living: it's nobody's business. in fact, it never was. 

(that was my first mistake)

however, one sunday, possibly this sunday, he mentioned to me that i never tag him in any photos. that never do i post portraits i take of him, or of him and toots, up anywhere, online...and he is right. i lost a lot of friends because of the illegitimate and downright "lifetime movie" way he and i got together. lost even more as the relationship progressed and seclusion became my 'go-to' safe haven. i am still recovering from revelations, still piecing together parts of a never-ending puzzle that has no boarders. it's all too much. too much to address publicly...ever.

i do not believe in half-truths. 

to talk about the dissolution of our relationship would require me to, either, hold back the details of some rather cryptic and strange moments of said union, or release it all with no regard to, both, public or private backlash. the former would cause me ill feelings, the latter would cause him the same. i keep the peace by narrowly walking the neutral ground that lies in the "in-between".

.284 day 257

jalen. 11 years old. sagittarius. 

michael jackson, dance impersonator.

musician who plays by ear.

one of the sweetest souls you ever will meet. 

such an undeniable talent, the world will know his name. 

mark. my. words.

(please show him love and like his page on facebook)

(this is a just a teaser from our shoot earlier today. more pics to come.)

.283 day 256

sometimes...i feel like a character from a spike lee film.

.282 day 255

.281 day 254

bare.

toddler toes