| “If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”
I’m eerily calm in times of crisis. I’m the one folks call for a level head or for a joke. And even when I myself am hurting, I still deliver. The day after I was raped, I submitted an application to transfer to UVa. I cracked jokes with my suitemates. I ran into the culprit and comforted his guilt.
So though the people closest to me know how hard living in Houston has been: road anxiety that left me just short of panic attacks, sexual harassment I’ve endured breaking into male-dominated stages, day job induced fantasies of slitting my wrists, homelessness or rather housing instability when I quit said day job, loss of respect from my family, and every fucking publishing delay imaginable, somehow the pain of it did not register. I’ve been too calm. Too funny.
Amber (“roommate”) being here has forced me to take stock of this. I had to ask myself why I was so enraged by her presence. The truth is simple. I have no space for it. My soul is tired. And admitting this to first myself and then to her brought something far sweeter than calm. It brought peace.
Banke Awopetu
Word Goddess
P.S. Today’s quote comes from Zora Neale Hurston. She’s both hero and cautionary tale for me. I don’t wanna die before my work is acknowledged as brilliant.
P.P.S. Okay, time for our daily task! Write out your worst-case scenario. This helped me when I literally had to decide between a paycheck or my life. “What’s the worst that can happen if I pursue my art fulltime? Hmm… I could be homeless.” Once the fear was confronted it wasn’t that scary. And sleeping in my car and sofa surfing was actually fun. I took pride in it. Shit, the best artists in the world have all faced the same.
P.P.P.S. God always gives beauty for ashes. If I hadn’t been raped, I wouldn’t have gone to Uva and I would not have met some of the beautiful women who are reading these words.
P.P.P.S. Click here to pre-order New Black before they sell out!
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