There are two trauma boxes hiding in the back of my closet. Hidden beneath the need to function - I am now only just glimpsing blurry memories of the reasons they make me cry. I refuse to look in them...I'm not even sure what's in there bursting to reveal incoherent tales of submerged details. But … Continue reading A moment in time, a shovel of dirt
Scary office furniture and supplies
I was once afraid of everyday office supplies, office desks, ergonomic office chairs, black laptops, and photocopying machines...with closed doors were torture tools. Seeing a filing cabinet was particularly painful. Wooden shelvings were essentially torment. Recycling bins for shredding confidential documents were haunting sirens. Stacks of printer paper made me hyperventilate. I would hesitate going … Continue reading Scary office furniture and supplies
Functioning, but still trapped
I am acutely aware of my insignificance. It is clear that I matter not in a well established racist and sexist system that is stacked firmly against me. This makes me even more determined to kick and scream and shout even louder for my demands to be heard. I demand humane treatment; I demand an … Continue reading Functioning, but still trapped
The scariest place to me is an office
There's something that's just not right. We are not supposed to be terrified at work. No matter the field we are in. No matter the gender or skin we display. No matter what we believe, disbelieve, hope or dream. Even before the pandemic, I was terrified. My nightmares are set in places of power...What do … Continue reading The scariest place to me is an office
I hide
I hide the brokenness of my mind.
Triple standards
I get criticized for things that others are praised for. It saddens me to realize it's often just a simple matter of very large biases. Having learned about life in blocks of time, the truth has built on recent experiences. The boxes I tick are too many to list off and as the year comes … Continue reading Triple standards
An aberration
I’m beginning to understand that my existence is by virtue of the grace of others in their privileged spaces. I merely represent a hassle, a bother and an aberration. It is said that I am ungrateful - as I strive to thrive, forgetting that I should just contend with surviving. So many times I’m told … Continue reading An aberration
I have the freedom but not the luxury to…
Life...So many thoughts go through our heads as we ponder what our future may hold. So many of us are writing out loud, screaming our distress and labeling our terror. There's no place for indifference to hide anymore. If you're not enraged, then you're simply not paying attention. My truth - I aspire to write … Continue reading I have the freedom but not the luxury to…
Are you a Size Queen?
Being small isn't what bothers me. I was born on a small island, within a small Caribbean region. By no coincidence, my professional expertise is in small states and it's an obsession for me. As we see our coastlines disappear while larger countries argue about the realness of climate change, I ponder. What will it … Continue reading Are you a Size Queen?
Movies Translation
There's an obsessive repetitiveness to the thoughts I put on paper...aka. my writing... It's as if I'm learning a new language that demands mastery through repetition. I'm self-taught and thus inefficiently so. I don't understand the evil that drives the prejudice. I'm not familiar with the culture, the coding, the innuendos or the secrets withheld. … Continue reading Movies Translation
“Justice” or “Just Us”
I was obsessed with my professional self. My work was meaningful to me. Not because of the employment of it but because of the understanding and the access to cultures, travel and other ways of life. In every job I held, I sought things out for the learning. This is how I made sense of … Continue reading “Justice” or “Just Us”
System knock out
I have been so beaten down.
My resume is a graveyard
The tombstone I have erected to grieve over the end of a blissfully ignorant professional life stands discolored in the snow. I hate the cold..but I dislike the trickery of the snow most of all. It's deceptively beautiful in how it blankets the landscape. Until it melts into mud mixed into grime by human activity. … Continue reading My resume is a graveyard
I burn sage and toxic bridges
I am but a spec in a system that churns along lubricated by the sweat, blood and tears of exploitation. I am, but one, of countless tortured souls. I stand alone, shivering, dying...limply resisting. I go against these entities that will not hear us. As they remain blinded by their own claim to moral rightness … Continue reading I burn sage and toxic bridges
Blinding
There are days when I can't see. I literally lose my vision...whenever I'm Level 10/10 triggered. The nightmares, memories and objects that have such blinding effects on me, are varied but apparently all too real and linked to great darkness. I'm ashamed by it. I'm afraid by it. I'm paralyzed by it. Often times I … Continue reading Blinding
The poison in the cure
I write. I'm a writer I live. I'm alive I hurt. I'm always in pain My childhood was forged in chronic pain or the promise of it given my genetic condition and resulting disability. I don't experience emotions enough and I definitely don't share enough with the people I love. I'm afraid they'll love me … Continue reading The poison in the cure
Missing memories
There are parts of my mind that are misfiring...even more, there are large chunks of my memory that are missing. So I can't even fully provide the details that would support a legal case. I'm not well enough to be adequately prepared. I'm not able to organize well enough to get the evidence together. I've … Continue reading Missing memories
My year in review
Is it even a surprise when racial injustice, inequity and dire health crises have been the lived experience of so many, even from birth? It's been my life ever since I left the Caribbean for a global calling. I've lived this year over and over for 5 years now...and then came 2020. The world experienced … Continue reading My year in review
Too many pandemics to process
To mourn the losses we've suffered for 2020 is too much for me…I can't fathom the human suffering, I can't find the steady reasons for gratitude and I can't process what's happened to the collective this year. Why? - Because it's not over. To be alive is to be a part of things we can … Continue reading Too many pandemics to process
Where there is loss
I am tormented By hurts that's not mine alone By a past I cannot shake By a city I once loved She is tormented By choices that's not her own By pain that she cannot make By a place that she stood above We are tormented and we scream as we mourn and we are … Continue reading Where there is loss
Colour in International Development 