(This is actually something I wrote in the fall of 2020 & then took off the blog though I’m not sure why. I’m throwing it back up as a way of both speaking my dreams into reality <“so be it, see to it!”> and recentering what is important to me…which, I guess, is me after all.)

I see her, standing at a podium,

Her archival images behind her.

Her hair & hoops are big & she is sartorially unfuckwithable.
I love the sound her acrylics make when her hands touch or when they graze a bamboo hoop as she tucks hair behind her ear.

I love the way her bold lipstick parts and her dimples bloom when she smiles at her own jokes;

those pearls of teeth that the dentist always marvels over, “are you sure you’ve never had braces?”

I love the books she’s published and her editorial drafts about art.

But what I love most about her are her notepads full of dreams that she jots down in the morning, her bad hair days, the phrases she takes down in her phone when an idea comes to her.

I love watching her decode a collage she made when she was mad. I love watching her mop: a seemingly endless chore.

I love her heart: honey in the shade, like Neruda said.

Once after a nap, she woke up & wrote down the words, “your soul drips honey everywhere you go.” & I love her for the sweetness she pours over anyone seeking the saccharine.

Except herself.

Jessica Dore said that when we are desperate for someone to give us something, it’s an opportunity to learn how to give it to ourselves. She said, “in the spots you yearn for sweetness, pour honey.”

& so here begins the grueling task of pouring honey over the parts of myself I’ve neglected to nourish; the parts I felt were only tolerable if someone else could love me or want me in spite of them.

Instead, my honeyed self becomes the person I yearn for, the person I want the most.

& I love her: standing there, at that podium—big hair, bamboo hoops, heart glowing bright like honey in the shade.