mayathepsychc

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Happy 5 years since coming out, @danielhowell! 🌈

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The Book of Clarence (2023)

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Toni Morrison dancing at a disco party in New York. March 5, 1974. Photographed by Waring Abbott

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Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

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How I look when I’m busy rebloging on tumblr

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CHALANT

something I wrote in the weeks leading up to turning twenty-one.

I used to think that other people knew me better than I knew myself — that I was stuck in a perpetual blindspot, blocking my vision from seeing how I was  perceived. I remind myself in these moments of insecurity: I’ve never looked into my own eyes and I’ve never kissed my own lips. I cannot exist beyond myself. I’ll never be able to look at my life from the outside, but that doesn’t stop me from believing that my eyes are an earthy brown, the edge a ring of black that deepens their roots. I’m never gonna be able to kiss my own lips but that won’t stop me from leaning in with passionate intentions and smirks. I can’t love myself in the same way I love others, and I can't imagine how they love me. What I can do is believe my friends when they tell me they love me, and I can love them back. They can tell me what they love about me and while some sentiments always get lost in translation from their tongue to my brain, I know that love is real because I feel it too. 

I may not be able to look into my own eyes but I know that you'll never catch me dead or alive without love in my heart. And while I can’t love myself the way I love others, I love the way I love. I love the love in my life. It’s so abundant, I know I’m deserving of it. 

The art of acting nonchalant has never been something I could master. In fact, I could never lie about my feelings, you can already read them all over my face. I wear my heart on my sleeve, my thoughts in the knit of my brow, my fears in the wrinkles on my forehead, my excitement in the divots in my cheeks and the tremor of my limbs. I find it hard to hide anything at all when feeling my feelings is the only thing I know how to do without hesitance. I’m naturally myself. Despite the world’s best efforts, I’m persistent in my disposition. Besides, why would I want to be anything else when I have so much love at my disposal? 

In two weeks from today I will turn 21 years old. My life feels the closest to real it’s ever felt. Every day that goes by I thank God I was able to live the last day in full. These days, I'm busy singing loudly along to Chappell Roan with my friends and making a concerted effort to be kinder to the past, present and future versions of myself. Maya Jones of the past is a heart attack in a blowout and black hair dye, and I still wake up sometimes and forget I’m no longer her, that I’m not caked in foundation and hiding far more than my freckles from the world. 

When I was 16 I thought a bad hair day, some hate-speech, and a panic attack would be the end of me. I know now it’s gonna take a lot more than some heat damage and some trust fund baby in a Vineyard Vines polo calling me a “fag,” to shut me up. I have far too much to say than to let white people’s manufactured expectations for me affect any of the words that I speak into the world. If I'm not showing up authentically then I haven't shown up at all.

 Being anything but myself isn’t being, it’s lying. I've always been bad at lying, I can’t lie it through my teeth so my falsehoods come out misshapen and ridden with guilt. Besides, at my age, why would I lie when I can love even louder. I’ve been called brave for being so keen on being myself. In all honesty, I’m not brave — I'm stubbornly, candidly and spitefully alive. I’m nobody’s parent or politician, so why would I pander to you? Why would I edit the eloquence in which I speak when my natural cadence is so rhythmic? 

I never could master the art of being nonchalant. At this point, why would I try to? I am chalant and my presence in the world proclaims loudly: feel your feelings, fool!

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songs charlotte york would listen to if she realized she was a lesbian in that one episode of SATC

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save me playlist #835. i definitely need to make playlist #836… no no no i think just one more actually, i think playlist #837 will be the banger…

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this is still the greatest season opening in history of television

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I don't know. I don't know. + bonus:

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FLEABAG (2016-2019)