Whenever I Think About This I.

georgia.jelly on insta

my mom was murdered last week leaving me without permanent housing, work, and my personal items. please boost this fund to support me in completing her end of life services:

gofundme.com

In loving memory of Khalilah S. Elam, organized by Akeila Elam

Khalilah Elam was murdered in her home on September 2nd, 2022. She left behind a nex… Akeila Elam needs your support for In loving memory o

From the National Geographic cover on IRAN, July 1999 (Volume 196, No. 1)

“I have grown weary of talking about life as if it is deserved, or earned, or gifted, or wasted. I’m going to be honest about my scorecard and just say that the math on me being here and the people who have kept me here doesn’t add up when weighed against the person I’ve been and the person I can still be sometimes. But isn’t that the entire point of gratitude? To have a relentless understanding of all the ways you could have vanished, but haven’t? The possibilities for my exits have been endless, and so the gratitude for my staying must be equally endless.”

— Hanif Abdurraqib, from “On Times I Have Forced Myself Not to Dance,” in A Little Devil in America

Nizar Qabbani

I remembered the capabilities I possess and everything is gonna be okay

polynesians: have oral history that references a faraway land of andes-like mountains in the east, cultivated sweet potato (a plant native to central america, not the pacific), literally call sweet potato by the same word used by the quechua and aymara people indigenous to the andes, left physical remains on islands a few km off the coast of chile, have genetic links with native south americans

white academics: hmmm it’s very doubtful polynesians contacted south america.. they probably just stopped permanently at easter island for some reason after systematically navigating the entire south pacific. the sweet potatos floated to them across the ocean

gk

I’ll stay in Today by Chukwu Adaeze

“Even before I touch you: how you start to imitate the way the ground fog wavers across the grass. Some nights the dew seems to soak the stars. Your laugh settling in the corners. Your words weeding the flowers.”

— Richard Jackson, from “Things I Forgot to Put on My Reminder List,” The Heart as Framed: New and Select Poems (Press 53, 2022)