whoiseniola

[whoiseniola]

[whoiseniola]

I'm waiting and wanting to be chosen, picked, and desired by others. Fuck, I deserve so much more than to be wanting to give the power of my worth to *other people*. That's so much power to give away. That's so much of my worth that I'm allowing to be determined by someone else. Thats not fair to younger me, she deserves to be chosen, she deserves to know that her worthiness is innate. Who will chose me when no-one else chooses me? I will. Who will care for me when no-one else cares for me? I will, my darling. I am mine, and no one elses. When there is no one, I am there, I have myself.

[whoiseniola]

he called to check up on me, to see how i was doing, and to tell me that he had moved on, with her. my heart, my heart, are you okay?

[whoiseniola]

how do you describe the feeling of always having the latent desire to cry even without something to necessarily cry about? like sadness lives next door but i have to cross water to see joy...

[whoiseniola]

Your kisses will remind me of velvet, our hugs will feel like Tetris, and it is then that I will know that you are who I've been waiting for, dreaming of, praying for.

Until then, I will love me in your absence, because until now, I've only known myself as lovable because someone else loved me, but did yet realise I could be loveable in of myself. Now I am on a path of discovery, this vague, confusing thing called self-love is suddenly making itself clearer.

Perhaps, I now have ears to hear, eyes to see but above all, a heart open to feel. Forcefully broken open, to pain and sudden lose but heartbreak nonetheless. But it was then I realised it was more worthy to have loved than to have not loved at all. My caged heart was trauma, not caution, it was wounded, not wise.

In this time, I will tend to this luscious garden that until now I didnt have eyes to see. Me, I am that luscious garden, she is me. Filled with wild flowers, colour and varied. Unique and dynamic in their ways. The soil, oh the soil is fertile. I wanted her to be an inviting home to a variety of beautiful insects and bugs that will build the necessary eco-system to sustain her, pour life into her. I will tend to her.

Until then I will wait for your velvet kisses and warm embrace, pouring love into my garden.

[whoiseniola]

[whoiseniola]

I cannot express how jarring it was after being raised by a "Porn Addiction Coach" to get into a relationship with a woman and come face to face with the fact that she did actually want me to sexually desire her.

Like, in Evangelical Purity Culture, male desire was basically poison. It was a threat. It was this constant temptation that would destroy everything. And even after leaving, in the sort of queer, feminist spaces i spend most of my time in that wasn't something that pretty much anyone was spending time actively dissuading me from feeling.

But my desire is good. It's not something that I'm being accepted in spite of. It's a positive thing. It's a bonus. Not even just vanilla stuff, all the stuff I'd convinced myself were these weird terrible desires that were shameful to have.

It honestly took me over a decade to fully accept that. To stop dissociating during sex and confront that I was, in fact, being a massive perv and that was fantastic and preferable and that I could accept that into my self-image without shame or self hatred.

But it's important to do. It's important to leave relationships that don't welcome that part of you. To know that your sexuality is valuable and valid and worth owning and celebrating. Because the alternative is just...not being. Either existing as yourself and repressing the part of your identity that is sexual or allowing that sexuality to exist but turning off your self while it does.

[whoiseniola]

Wow

you're in the habit of denying yourself things.

if someone asked you directly, you would say that you love a little treat. you like iced coffee and getting the cookie. you drink juice out of a fancy cup sometimes, and often do use your candles until they gutter out helplessly.

but you hesitate about buying the 20 dollar hand mixer because, like. you could just use your arms. you weren't raised rich. you don't get to just spend the 20 dollars (remember when that could cover lunch?), at least - you don't spend that without agonizing over it first, trying to figure out the cost-benefits like you are defending yourself in front of a jury. yes, this rice cooker could seriously help you. but you do know how to make stovetop rice and it really isn't that hard. how many pies or brownies would you actually make, in order to make that hand mixer worthwhile?

what's wild is that if the money was for a friend, it would already be spent. you'd fork over 40 without blinking an eye, just to make them happy. the difference is that it's for you, so you need to justify it.

and it sneaks in. you ration yourself without meaning to - you don't finish the pint of ice cream, even though you want to. the next time you go to the store, you say ah, i really shouldn't, and then you walk away. you save little bits of your precious things - just in case. sometimes you even go so far as putting that one thing in your shopping cart. and then just leaving it there, because maybe-one-day, but not right now, there's other stuff going on.

you do self-care, of course. but you don't do it more than like, 3 days in a row. after that it just feels a little bit over-the-edge. like. you can't live in decadence, the economy is so bad right now, kid.

so you don't buy the rice cooker. you can-and-will spend the time over the stove. you can withstand the little sorrows. denial and discipline are practically synonyms. and you're not spoiled.

it's just - it's not always a rice cooker. sometimes it is a person or a job or a hug. sometimes it is asking for help. sometimes it is the summer and your college degree. sometimes it is looking down at scabbed knees and feeling a strange kind of falling, like you can't even recognize the girl you used to be. sometimes it is your handprint looking unsteady.

sometimes it is tuesday, and you didn't get fired, and you want to celebrate. but what is it you like, even? you search around your little heart and come up empty. you're so used to denying that all your desires draw a blank.

oh fuck. see, this is the perfect opportunity. if you had a mixer, you'd make a cake.

[whoiseniola]

"Papa, I love you..." "...I love you too" - last thing I said to my father before he died

[whoiseniola]

@ i z z a k k o

[whoiseniola]

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned since leaving the church is that my intrusive thoughts are not a moral failure, and I’m not evil for experiencing them. Once I learned this I was able to begin healing.

[whoiseniola]

Take your time.

You are lovable, and deserving being deeply and intensely loved. I’m excited when it’s your time to return the love, it’ll be hard and scary, I’m sure but you’ve got this. This journey is yours and will unravelling in the way that it needs to.

[whoiseniola]

she wrote... she smoked...

Slow dancing in my room, with the light dimmed low, Corinne Bailey in the background singing mellow blues. A joint lit and a glass of wine as I write some sections of my thesis. 27 years old, fully paid PhD, black woman, an orphan. So many odds…

I feel acutely connected to all the other black femme academics that have gone before me, with a joint between their fingers. Weaving together the words on the page as they fight the material and immaterial hurdles of academia.

[whoiseniola]

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just wait || bible blackout poetry for extember day 1 (The Garden of Eden)

original verse

[whoiseniola]

"my blackness..."

My blackness is one that I have the joy of discovering each day, outside of the shapes and moulds that I expect of it. Instead in the ways that it chooses to defy. Not out of obligation, or survival but out of choice. It opts in for freedom.

[whoiseniola]

“young people are leaving the church in droves! how could this be happening?” my brother in christ you are doubling down on racist, homophobic, sexist, and frankly dumb as fuck theology that hasn’t been relevant in 2000 years instead of actually caring about real fucking people.

[whoiseniola]

Asked my mom if she’d ever met an introverted missionary

She said “Of course, they’re always trying so hard not to be themselves. They’re trained to be a certain way, they never convert as many though.”