art + poetry
BODILY CONFINEMENT
“It is always the body that I return to -- our bodies and their various meanings.”
-- Kei Miller, Things I Have Withheld, 2021
I am confined to this body
that screams I'm from elsewhere
when I've known nowhere else
For this is how it betrays me
Confined to this body
people pull my hair out of curiosity
attempting to speak a language of cutlery
entitlement surrounds me
Confined to this body
I do what I can
to distance myself from that strange land
denying it has any role in who I am
Confined to this body
I never blend in
never feel comfortable in my own skin
Instead I learn to hate this body
Confined to this body
I take it to a foreign country
where people are more confused about me
unsure of which box to place me in
Confined to this body
as it hardens
tired of explaining again and again
how I can claim Jamaica as my origin
Confined to this body
it's all people see
but when they get to know me
they realise I am more than just my body
Confined to this body
I will love it for what it is
honouring the ancestors that got me to this place
where I will call home forever and always
HOMECOMING
You’ve been away for a while now
your absence is palpable
but this seaside town must go on without you
The giant poinciana tree over your home
wonders why you no longer tread on the flowers
she generously bestows each morning
Donkey eye seeds lining the shores of Kokomo
reminisce on greeting their daily patron
asking why she stopped visiting
Cabarita Island peers into your verandah
eagerly awaiting your return
but the outside light stays off
Like them, I have a naïve hope
this seaside town will see you again
For now, your new home is this hospital bed
EMPIRE STATE OF MIND
“loves are like empires: when the idea they are founded on crumbles, they, too, fade away.”
-- Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 1984
If ideas are the foundation of empires
then I subject you to my empire
state
of
mind
protecting and projecting this doctrine
I cling to for dear life
my clenched fist ingraining
this idea into my circadian rhythm
Our chance interactions
become hallowed halls
a display of circumstance
to which I desperately ascribe meaning
as I gently
place
this empire
on a pedestal
dumbfounded and starstruck
by its synthetic frame
I entertain this idea because
the banality of my reality
is too much to bear
Seeking to fill this lack with fleeting ideas
I comply
bending my mind and attaching it
to whom I’ve made you out to be
to suit my fantasy
my treachery
my selfish needs
I am tired of building this empire
only to watch it crumble
because of my clenched fist
I come to my senses
burn it to the ground
yet the foundation
remains
SCATTERED FAMILIES
I didn’t realise when I told my family goodbye
and got on that flight
it was the end of an era
Saying goodbye not just to my family
but their universe I had been immersed in
from the beginnings of my existence
Now I was free to be
whoever I wanted to be
To create a life for myself
informed by my family of origin
but independent of it
I swapped car rides with them for commutes to work
family dinners for solitary takeout
and nightly patio chats with weekly catch-up calls
The privilege of self-actualisation
is as freeing as it is terrifying
and sometimes I can’t help but think:
my family was not meant to live scattered
Days apart quickly turn into years
stretches of time punctuated by too short visits
miles between us tenuously connected by...
Poor connection. Reconnecting.
“Hello? Can you hear me?”
spotty Whatsapp calls
our lives filtered through what we choose to share
and limited understandings of each other’s contexts
I send pictures on our group chat
to give them some semblance of my life
and the people they’ll likely never meet
Meanwhile, my only pictures with them
are from special occasions, mostly graduations
While I slowly grieve the end of past eras
it makes space to embrace the new
The scarcity of our times together
makes those moments all the sweeter
Because for all those years immersed
I didn’t know the difference
