#86 || [ glitt3r in the $ky, glitter in 0ur eyes ]

Here we all still are, just post-    une nouvelle lune. What an interesting mars / mois, the nostalgia has been          w i l d    as of late. It's like a montage of carefully-curated memories flicker at the forefront of my mind, in combination with some incredible stills of what is yet to come. I am waiting (im)patiently for compassion to trump complacency (!), I am waiting for a stroke of luck and for a dream to come true. The method and meaning of everything seems to rear its little daisy-head through the     fog and haze     of the stress and anxiety and denial of everything that is happening all around us. The fear of it all reminds me of the same moon we see at night, it's the same     sun and moon     that orbit around this planet that we all share altogether.     

The contrast of every day, the            distance            so surreal it almost seems metaphorical? And I wonder why this was meant to be, because that seems important. The delicate balance of resistance and community and sacrifice and compromise and discomfort ::     I am  fearful of the fear, because when it felt like it was just me, it seemed like the entire weight of the world and now it's the world, it's the terror multiplied by seven point something billion and, no pun intended, it feels impossible to breathe under the immensity of everything.     outside,         You could cut the air, the tension is unreal. 

                 " But whatever , let's get lost on mars... " - Dula Peeps

With love, A. x

#85 || WITH NOTHING HOLDING ME,I HANG LIKE A STAR.

~ ~ ~

For ever and forever and ever I have been drawn to the sea ;; it's something about the childish wonder of the water on the horizon. I liken the excitement of that initial regard of the ocean -- through the windscreen of the car -- along with rollercoasters and birthdays and seeing somebody you love after a very very very long time. The last few months and maybe most likely many more to come :: are re-defining me. There are no lack of lessons, lately - every other day I feel the earth being pulled out from underneath me and I wish I could bring myself to write without romanticising everything, but it's a guilty pleasure. The comfort I have in creating hyper-verbose sentences with too many adjectives and alliteration and not enough punctuation is one of the few joys in one of the greyest summers I have ever seen. 

Where do free spirits fit, in the intricate puzzle of society? Is it realism and the rigidity that bind us to these invisible rules of normality? With little else to lose, it is the intangible that seems to propel my physical and emotional reactions - which thereby has created a newfound empathy from deep within my heart. Because the truth outweighs the facts :: the undeniable calm I feel in your presence that makes me curiously blind to everything and everybody around us. But as real as the calm, I sense the disparity between us. And inside that difference is an unmistakable distance :: there is a very real divergence that simultaneously breaks my heart and has made me realise that the underlying complication has nothing to do with you and maybe everything to do with me.

It is the seemingly infinite disappointment that I think may one day get the better of me. Latterly, the layers of (my)self are stripped away and I am terrified of what may remain at the core when I have nothing left to lose. Every time I think I can't possibly feel more naked than I do in that moment, something happens. I wonder, at the end of everything, what else is there? 

There are moments where the descent down-the-rabbit-hole seems to lull and I am suspended in the air. In those instances, I can see fragments of the future and I can see myself exactly where I am :: I am a tangle of introspection and I am all alone, I have everything and nothing but the frightening secret is, I don't need anything or anybody. Truly, it might not seem scary on the outside but inside I am absolutely terrified. All. The. Time.

The fear is in the moment when I realised that was little comfort left in y o u. Because even the most gentle of reminders would instinctively present itself as a harsh slap-in-the-face that I am never going to be half of a whole. The gratitude, the stars and the fortune of the smallest pleasures :: their memory is fading faster than the speed of sound. I see you and I see headlights and explosions, I have a sip of wine, a cigarette, and feel my heart splitting at the seams. I catch my own gaze in a mirrored reflection and I wish I didn't have to be any-body or any-thing any-where any-more.

                                                                             Yours Sincerely, A.

#84 || "You are what you love, not who loves you back."

my baby versace-on-the-floor, versace-in-the-sky, c'est pour toi ♡.
 

Once upon a time, secrets were the propellant to my existence. I believed that enigma and mystery would make me magnetic and then I wondered why I felt so lonely. One of the most significant alterations I made to my mindset was to never underestimate the power of communication and honesty and diplomacy. It is in my innate nature to withdraw, to resent and encourage indifference. But the moment I became the individual who would initiate and wait for a response than expect a prompt from the other, my life became considerably more interesting.

I think I forget that in this very moment, I am the most evolved that I have ever been before. Even if for every three steps forward it seems I take four steps back, even if I find myself weeping over the same woes time and time again, even if one time out of ten I forget to bite my tongue and recklessly release all sorts of cruelties and criticisms to the hearts that can't handle it ::: it doesn't mean this life was all for nothing, it doesn't mean I am the incompetent pond scum that I think I am. Remember that this life is a ride not a race; it is a crusade not a contest and you have your whole life to make your dreams come true.

The moment you leave your doom to destiny, you've already lost ( but not forever, everything can be transitory! ). We are the world we want to live in and we are the love that makes magic transpire. The moment you are blindsided to the soul behind the (re-)actions that broke your heart and would keep you awake at night, the moment you forget the innate good in the greater number of human beans coexisting on this planet, the moment you rank your own woes and worries ahead of others, it becomes all too  easy to fall down a rabbit hole.    

You are allowed to feel however you do and you need not apologise for something mattering more than you believe it should. The intangibility of feelings and emotions and thoughts are just as valid as the tangibility of scars and destruction and devastation. So, be the friend you wish you had and overlove how you overthink and be kind. You'll feel so much better, I pinky swear.

love always,

Afifa.

#83 || TO THE MOON AND NEVER BACK

( you are all the colours in one, at full brightness )

Trust Disregard the darkness inside you and the loss of innocence without losing your purity. It might seem ingenuous to let yourself believe you are more intuitive than you tell yourself you are, but I promise it's okay and it might even probably be real. Sometimes the un-happy-ending you envisaged is inevitable, just like you knew it would be, but it's never the end until it's the end. And you'll know. Nobody, no-one ever deserves to be situated in the shadows and for all the heavy-heart-ache, I would never wish a reciprocation upon anybody   I don't understand why the overwhelming gratitude comes in waves, why can't it be a constant? But then I've always believed that emotions ebb and flow for perspective, so that you can appreciate the disparity for all that it's worth, for the dull ache, for the thrill and to not forget what it's like to want to keep going when you want to give up.

The same goes for hope, the hope that my mother tells me not to lose but it doesn't seem as simple as ironing on a transfer label with "if found, please return to my full name here>" on it like we used to. But lately I feel calm in the waiting and even more calm in the unknown, because you can manipulate the future and fashion anything you like. The details in the exterior, the particulars of your environment aren't anything if you aren't a dream from within - and you are already everything that you love. 

Love, A x

P.S. \\ I think you bring out the realest real inside of me, the child, the candour, the coy and the calm. The latter is something novel. Sometimes it's the stormy sea in calm but that seems to be what you surrender when you want to experience something a little more acute than ordinary. //

#82 || { IT TAKES AN OCEAN NOT TO BREAK }

LE DÉBUT.

Three decades later and there is a strange serenity in the air. Perhaps this is the calm before the storm, the ebb before the flow, the waning of the moon. I still bite my tongue in an attempt to quell the blood boiling within my veins when nothing is as perfect as I can imagine it. I still dare myself with the challenge to keep my secrets safe. I never used to believe in keeping secrets, and perhaps that still remains true, but sometimes the shame of my own recurring woes gets overwhelming and I can't bear the thought of being a burden. I am guilty of disguising my disgrace as drollness, perhaps it's often easier to make a joke of one's misfortune rather than confess that you care too much. When there was no way to confirm the acknowledgment of a transmission or trace the timestamps of your interactions - was that medieval love? It might be archaic but I wish I could elect a love stripped bare of read receipts, twin (plus some) ticks in between comebacks and beaucoup conversations giddy as if you are one too many red wines deep but you are not even.

In contrast, I foolishly urge myself towards an idyllic solitude, if such a thing exists. I move through moments of placing a lone wolf atop a pedestal and imagine myself as a superextraordinary superhuman unencumbered by mortal demands and desires. Sometimes all the memories, great and grand and small but significant, flood back in succession and I wish I never knew anybody or anyone ever so that nothing had to matter so much that it seemed like everything all at once.

And at the end of the day, I don't know what lesson I have learned here, other than the art of perseverance and patience in combination with the essence of empathy and sometimes even a touch of indifference. I wish some things didn't seem so important. Some sentiments seem like they're balanced at the end of the world, they're feelings so magnificent it feels like life or death.

LA FIN.

DEAR UNIVERSE,

RIGHT NOW, I FEEL LIKE A PRODUCT OF PERSUASION.  ONCE UPON A TIME I WAS THE SPIRIT BIRD IMPELLING THE LIFELESS TO LIVE BUT TODAY, IN THIS INSTANT, I FEEL VOID OF INSPIRATION. THE VAST DEPTH OF THE OCEAN, THE RIPPLE EFFECT, THE IMPACT OF MISJUDGEMENT, THE TRANSIENT CHAGRIN THAT IS SIMULTANEOUSLY INFINITE: SOMETIMES I WONDER HOW IMBALANCED I MAY HAVE BEEN AT SOME POINT IN THIS LIFE OR IN THE PAST, TO BE ON SUCH A CONSISTENT COURSE OF DESCENT. 

TO LIVE FOREVER IN THE WAITING, TO FOREVER HOLD ON TO INTANGIBLE HOPE AND TRUST THE TIMING OF LIFE, DO YOU PINKY SWEAR THAT ONE DAY IT'LL ALL BE WORTH IT? I DREAM OF A SINGLE MOMENT OF CLARITY, A BRIEF INTERMISSION WHEN THE SECOND-HAND STOPS AND I REALISE THAT THIS IS THE LIFE I ONCE PRAYED FOR, I DREAM OF A DREAM COME TRUE.

 THE SINGLE THING I AM CERTAIN OF IN THIS UNPREDICTABLE EXISTENCE, I HAVE BEEN BLESSED AS A RARA AVIS; A WONDER, A RARE BIRD, AN ANOMALY. FOR EVERY METAPHORICAL MINUTE IN THE GUTTER, FOR EVERY HEARTACHE OVER EVERY LOSS, EVEN WHEN I THINK I COULDN'T POSSIBLY COPE WITH ANOTHER:

 I AM THE SUNSHINE. 

DEAR UNIVERSE, FUCK YOU.

Yours sin-cereal-ly,

A.