nighthawkers

[nighthawkers]

03.11.23

[nighthawkers]

besos mwah ᡣ𐭩⋆˙ᝰ.ᐟ

[nighthawkers]

metamorphosis, adapted by lemn sissay

lyric theatre hammersmith

closing night 02.03.24

[nighthawkers]

s+t in paris jan ‘24

returned to paris with the love of my life at the start of january this year. it seems we’ve made a habit of running away to this city every january. i hope this habit turns into lifelong tradition.

we celebrated 10 years of friendship (our tin-aversary) just a few months earlier in sept ‘23.

recently i’ve found myself reconnecting and reconciling with parts of myself i seemed to have unknowingly buried years ago. in february, i reached for a diary that i used to keep when i was 14. tens of scribble-on leather-bound pages that i had hidden away out of fear of confronting the traumas of my past lives. however, this year, reaching out for it felt so simple. i led a revolution from my bed when i began to carefully flick through the pages by my fingertips. i may have been peering in hesitantly at first, but soon enough i was sucked in, charmed by her teenage wit. she was so… smart, funny, charming and so fucking headstrong. i see her forming parts of her identity with each page i turn. she had just watched mermaids (1990) and carved ‘winona forever’ on the page in black ink out of sincere admiration for charlotte flax’s catholicly coquettish style. she deliberates the idea of nirvana and wonders how those who believe in an afterlife and have strong faith in God can still be scared of death. she writes her desperation to have more band tees and is confident that, if called upon, she will always be able to name 5 songs from the artists she pragmatically chooses to wear proudly on her chest. she jots her 10-step plan for running away, a how-to guide in order to get out swiftly, efficiently and quietly in the night to start a new life somewhere far, far away. it should be more painful, but the feeling is… something i’m still unable to describe. perhaps bittersweet. seeing these words from my past-self reminded me of her pain. god knows it was so hard being 14. however, something strange happens to me. when the nostalgia would typically be all-consuming for me, i am instead engulfed in a complete awareness of my physical being. i feel the skin of my knees brush my starchy duvet as i sit cross legged on my bed. the pads of my fingers feel the grit of the moleskin’s paper. my breaths go deep into my chest and exhale smooth and steady from parted lips. i’m actually alive. i pay silent homage to the girl this diary used to belong to and hope my telepathic message of ‘thank you for keeping me her long enough to see this’ somehow reaches her through retrocausality. as i send my tribute, a brighter light begins to blind me from the page. i see the violent etchings of a T, an A and a Z. in capital letters, as always. underneath reads: dear safa, i really really really really really really like you”. i realise with every account of me, there is also an account of you. albeit, most mentions are referential only by your now-defunct teenage pseudonym, but where i saw your name i also saw mine. both aliases created so that we could escape the obligations of endurance that came with being born as ourselves. oh, how those names still felt like us. i read an account that i wrote exactly 10 years ago to the day, 15th february 2014, and, my darling girl, all i can think about is how far we have come. 10 years of alienation, reinvention and self-discovery, 120 months of the same bob mortimer youtube compilation, cd mixtapes and soul-bearing love letters to one another (i’ve kept them all), 3653 days of saving pocket change to spent at hmv to now spending freely as we lounge in hotel rooms eating tiramisu and doing face masks in paris. a decade of having you by my side. in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, til death do us part. a.h.k and jasey rae.

we will always run down the street with stars in our eyes, hand in hand, forever.

[nighthawkers]

[nighthawkers]

paris, 3e.

10:51am

04.03.24

[nighthawkers]

reviving this space. this will be my digital mindscape.

[nighthawkers]

[nighthawkers]

Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain dir. Morgan Neville (2021)

[nighthawkers]

[nighthawkers]

i’ll never get over the fact that my bf saw the nbhd live b4 me 💔

[nighthawkers]

i don’t understand how sumone as pretty as me can go thru this much pain </3

[nighthawkers]

i’ve been upset w myself for as long as i can remember. wen will it all end!!!!!!!!!