Knowing Before They Knew

I stained my white T tripping over my laces.

I knew better than to keep walking with them loose. Every step i took they'd tickle my ankles, wet and grimy from the city's sins. I ignored them because it wouldn't happen to me; I mean it hasn't happened to me since before i discovered velcro shoes that lit up green and purple. Talk about a pep in your step, and how quickly you can lose your pep with one step.

I ate shit on the sidewalk.

The embarrassing part was that there was nobody there to witness my embarrassment. I had to walk away with blood leaking from my nose, steadily dripping on my t-shirt without anyone knowing what happened except me. now i was doomed to explain myself, OR fabricate a story about how i was kidnapped and escaped and you should've see the other guy. I wouldn't dare lie but don't tell me you haven't thought like that when you've been desperate for attention.

It wasn't even a cool white T. the one where stains give it an edge and make people laugh with its origin story; No, it was as common as the story itself. I don't even remember where i got the shirt. When i thought about throwing it away it was as quick as the fall. I could wash it, bleach it, save it. But when i got home i just threw it on the bathroom floor to fit the paranormal story i was playing in my head; The one where i died, became a ghost and the cops are confused by the evidence because they only believe in logic.

We're fucked up, you know.

We ignore our intuition just like the colonizers taught us. When they segregated us from the spirit world it became harder to believe in ourselves, to trust what humans call "gut" rather than an ancestor poking your belly button. The ultimate signal of dissent was knowing before they knew; The Celia's of the world who killed their masters from my home state of Missouri. I'm proud of that, not of Missouri but that i can trace my geography to a woman who executed on behalf of her intuition and succeeded in killing someone who claimed to be her master.

I'd rather die than be held captive. just today i was thinking about a scenario where i was held gunpoint and given an ultimatum to get in the car or die. Oh, how i believe my response would be, "Then kill me right here mother fucker." But just yesterday, a guy randomly said to me "let me see your guns" to which i responded by slowly lifting up both arms until i registered the demand. "No" i asserted with my head bowed. He had the audacity to end his power-infused request with "your shoulders are huge." Confused i laughed and scoffed, "Thanks?"

I certainly would get kidnapped if his shoulders were larger than mine.

I like to think i'm tougher than i am. But i'm just a girl who trips over her own laces, who foreshadows and has premonitions and ignores them. The colonizers did me dirty, and now i want to haunt them. But living just across the energy plane sounds miserable; Either you want to be seen because you're stuck OR you're passionate about merging all planes, determined to prove people wrong because believing is not seeing. I've had all types of spirits present themselves to me: the good, the bad, and the posers. You think ghosts trip over their long victorian dresses? Victorian era women certainly have a vendetta against colonizers.

Fuck those corsets.

Validation

I head bang to take up space, tighten the clothes on my body and expose bits and pieces. I leave no mystery for what I am becoming. I close my eyes and contort my torso; a snake shedding her skin. Live action, I’m rattling about past memories that make me contemplate if I am a “good” human. Like the time I convinced myself that stealing from the rich was not stealing at all, just payback for all they’ve taken from my people, a sneaky middle finger to the opulence that glitters among dismal poverty. I took clothes from designer brands that I would never wear simply because they wouldn’t notice them missing. There was no feeling of thrill as much as a hope for some sort of reparation, perhaps a spell transforming beast to peace rather than rags to riches. Here I am justifying it again. Does that make me selfish? A rebel? 

These labels come up dry. 

I tap into the drums that keep the rhythm steady. Sometimes I count in my head and anticipate the change up. Other times I act surprised, like I didn’t know the beat was going to drop. I hate how much humans think into the future. I used to sit in philosophy class completely enthralled by the act of reflection and all I got was an ego-centric curiosity of what it means to be human. So I tried meditation, inserted enough credits for a few games of mortal combat between consideration and surrender. Both had their own explanation for suffering that fell short. Both offered retreats from society — into the mountains and into yourself or into your overpriced city apartment and into yourself. And both flirted about some sort of enlightenment that had nothing to do with paying my rent, my hospital bill, or my time. Think, and you will figure it out. Don’t think, and you will figure it out. Humans think they can always figure it out.

I take up more space on the dance floor. 

Reveling in simpler times is my cruel obsession. I imagine the subtle removal of inanimate objects that rule our world, like mirrors and shoes and cutlery. I reminisce on the night when a spirit glanced into my innocent three-year-old eyes while an episode of Scooby Doo played in the background. I was so scared then but now I daydream of “mythical” creatures making their presence known to me as if to console me from my own hubris. I long for something humans have never had: silence. Not in our own heads, not in a tropical jungle, not in the other worlds that titillate with energy. When I was younger, I had this recurring dream that I was floating in complete darkness. The fear of impossibility did not outweigh the familiarity I felt; I had been here before and I wanted to return. Who was I before I learned to lie, steal and cheat? Here I go again, thinking. No, not that kind of return. Not a purity from my sins or a heaven from desolation.

A space where I create things that don’t harm, with a giant sitting to my right and a fairy sitting to my left.

I move towards the back of the room. A man-boy locks eyes with me and slides closer. He doesn’t need to say anything. A simple gesture to join side-by-side will do. I will make the first move, so long as we remain silent. He has missing pieces of clothing, too, and smells of sweat and amber, ever so subtle. I can see a tattoo peaking out, adjacent to his belly button. As he takes up space I noticed scars on his right elbow and left knee and know: He has stolen things, too. There are people that believe we’re bad people, degenerates, agitators. If validation is approval then we are unapproved and hence have nothing to prove to each other. Compliments are momentary. Save them. Instead, help me caste a curse on the nobility that summons us away from mirth and magic.

And just dance with me.