You come here constant reader to get all of me. I understand that it can be a bit…..off putting to cum for the kink and find politics but this is me. I am a lot. I will take this moment to remind you that while you get a lot of me here….you are only getting about 10% of what is happening in my mind at the moment I am at the keyboard. You aren’t ready for the rest. I know this because I have to live this shit everyday and I am not ready for it.

One of my stressors is that there doesn’t seem to be a safe place any longer. Historically there was always one place or one person who I could rely on to be shelter. If nothing else I could always walk into the front door of my home, lock the door and the rest of the world out. Even in the shelter there eventually was lights out when there wasn’t any conversation or interaction. Sure sometimes I would have to wait to pee because community bathroom but from 11pm until 6 am there was nothing unless I sought it out.

I no longer have that luxury. Unless you count the commute to and from the gig, and I do not for the record [ I will share why at some point ], I am surrounded by reminders that I am not enough, that I am unloved, that I am a problem for a whole bunch of people who would prefer that I not exist rather than grant me the opportunity to just live.
That motherfucking shit is exhausting.

I once dated a guy named John. We were dating when the movie 8MM came out. We saw it together in the theater. While I love the movie now, and did then for reasons I would not fully understand until later…I recall that he and I spent a good 2 weeks with him trying to explain to me what a snuff film was.

At that tender age with my tender emotions and limited life experience I could not understand on any level why a snuff film was a thing, and a thing that people paid for, and that was a whole industry. Of the things my brain can understand now, this is still in aspects an I don’t get it.

What I understand better now is the hatred of man to man and that Aphrodite represents everything that is wrong with humanity to some..which represents everything that is wrong with humanity to me.

The fact that I even exist as a fat Black Queer woman is enough for them to want my death. I have no sanctuary from that, not even in my own home any longer.

For self care I stopped watching the local news years and years ago. I was no longer able to watch the worst of my neighbors and feel safe leaving the house. Never leaving the house was not an option so I had to do what was necessary to make it happen..leaving the house.

After election night 2016 and once out of the shelter I stopped watching the national news. After my devastation at Hillary’s loss I knew that a daily reminder of the shit storm coming was not good for my mental health.

I was going to have to figure out how to live in a world which rejected who I am in the most vile way possible.

There were times when it was better. Moving, living in the ‘hood’, going to work with Black people helped. There is a certain comfort and safety with surrounding myself with melanin, and living in a community who prioritized day to day living vs the big picture. Yes that is troubling at times, but in this moment it is/was comforting. In that arena who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave really didn’t “matter”.

Then life happened as it always does and I had to leave the hood and move to Trumpnation. Well that’s not 100% accurate. The plan was to only stay there for about 2 months and then return to the city. These things rarely go to plan to quote Sam Smith. A series of things happened that made going to SW Philly not possible. The number one thing though was my mental health. I knew that living alone again was not safe with the new direction of my life, and in Trumpnation I was always surrounded by people.

I did not calculate though the stress of being with a child, and I did not calculate how living with my darling roommate and her 180 degree from me existence would add to my daily stress.
I live with a woman who is beautiful and brilliant and exceptional and incapable of seeing her damages like so many of us are. There is no place to shut out or vent because in this case if not others she is not safe.
I’m headed out to blackness in less than 30 days. Weekend Reunion the Final Chapter is happening and I will be around all of the versions of melanin and Blackness in America you can think of, and that will help.

And on Tuessday I have to wake up in Trumpnation and go to work in vanila land, and to bed with no one.
Sobering thought that yes after euphoria I come back to a hostile environment.

I know what a snuff film is now John. I’m just trying not to become the star.

 

Aphrodite Brown