qujo6979

[qujo6979]

What Did I Love?

What did I love?

Words so solid and clear

You listened and spit back with understanding

You trusted me with sorrow and

Gave me brave faces

What did I love?

You played that song and I 100%

Can stand the rain; but this was no

ordinary rain; in this, the world flooded

and I saw you flailing in the shallows, like drowning a thousand times and I still can’t reach you

What did I love?

You asked me to have your baby

We deadass in our 50s and I

Couldn’t tell if you wuz serious

But I laughed, in the back of my head seeing the look on my GYN’s face when I come asking to remove my IUD

What did I love?

What do we love; I am no different than Project Shaniqua and Trust-Fund Monique; we love potential and promises; prayers and possibilities; we support habits and snatch weaves; we believe lies and ice our own black eyes; we ride or die until we actually do

What did I love?

The way you smile with someone else’s eyes cuz yours are too full of hurt to share; the switch-up in your voice when you tell a story; the absence in presence that burned in my veins

The pain, the pain, the pain that always drives me back home

©2021 QuYahNi Denise

[qujo6979]

Thank you @ourselfcarerevolution #selflove #selfforgiveness #selfhealing #allowing #evolving #growing #newchapter #morethanasurvivor https://www.instagram.com/p/CSQTZXJLR_Y/?utm_medium=tumblr

[qujo6979]

[qujo6979]

This is my first ever podcast, it is raw and undeveloped, so watch how ya talk to me. As Ms. Badu so eloquently put it some 24 years ago, “I’m an artist and I’m sensitive ‘bout my shit.” 😘🙏🏽🧡

[qujo6979]

7/3/21 ~ 9:59 am

i love how people get to love you and break you.

yes, yes you get to come into my life when i’m barely keeping it together and tell me you love me.

yes you can come and make me feel safe until you decide you’re done protecting me.

yes please let me swallow your trauma as you add to mine so i can have somewhere to lay as my back gets heavier.

yes please.

come i still have a little light left.

how much do you need?

do you have change for two smiles and an open heart?

that’s okay as long as your wallet isn’t empty.

yes.

acknowledge the weight i carry. no, don’t offer to help it’s ok, i’m strong.

yes, i’ll be right there.

you keep going i’ll catch up to you!

yes i’ll be right there.

keep going i’ll catch up.

yes i’ll be right there, keep goin.

yes i’ll be…

i’ll be right here.

-j.e.

[qujo6979]

6/10/21 ~ 3:27 am

safety.

i realize that looks different for all of us. feels different for all of us. as long as i can remember i have never felt safe. i grew up w/ my dad telling me he’d “never leave me.” when i was 18 he stopped speaking me for a year, i’m 24. i’ve spoken to my dad 6 times in the last 4 years.

i have never felt safe.

whether it was feeling safe enough to eat without him making the comment to, “slow down,” b/c i looked disgusting or to feel safe enough that when i left school i’d still be living in a home. to feel safe enough to stay at my grandmothers house w/o her belittling my cousins & i through comparisons or to feel safe enough not to get touched @ the same house that hosted family thanksgivings & weekend hangouts.

i have never felt safe.

to feel safe enough to have friends who see me. to feel safe enough not to have my gf of three years allow multitudes of people to treat me like garbage & pick up the pieces.

alone.

to feel safe enough to allow myself to feel my feelings. to feel safe enough to feel safe.

i haven’t had these things. even in my progression, i’ve always been scared. i’ve always welcomed the chaos & un-safety because it’s all i know. my life from the time i arrived has been nonstop chaos.

i’m black.

i have never felt safe.

i’m lesbian. i’m overtly loving and sexual.

i have never felt safe.

at times i am broken. naturally, i assume the position of instability. i do not feel safe in my own mind.

i have never felt safe.

i cant focus on something without a random video or unrelated task popping into my head. even this post i went between typing fast & really slow so i can gain “control.” i’ve been searching for safety. that’s why i’ve lost so many people this year b/c they couldn’t give me safety. i don’t know how to give myself that.

i have never felt safe.

i’m not sure i want to anymore.

i can’t have safety.

& safety doesn’t want me.

- j.e.

[qujo6979]

[qujo6979]

Ponder that.

The forgotten minority in police shootings - CNN

[qujo6979]

This Could Become A Blog 9/19/2017

We live in an age in which we push the idea that people are fragile. We have participation trophies and medications designed to control our feelings, behavior, thoughts. Nothing seems designed to push us to push ourselves.

I believe that the “push” comes from many sources. Trusted family, friends, support groups play a key part in that. But when do we take responsibility for ourselves? I think that there’s nothing like good old-fashioned trial to kick us into gear. Tragedy, problems, difficulty, obstacles, change, challenge, opposition. These things should motivate us to change, counteract, push back, rise above, conquer, overcome; but, instead, the messages in media and from the insecure people in our lives who use our personal struggles to make themselves feel better, tell us to submit to the discomfort; to stay there and medicate it, therapy-it, cry on shoulders and go back into it without doing anything about it.

We have become so insensitive and detached because many of us are unhappy with ourselves; because we have forgotten the reward of making friends and maintaining relationships in a way that keeps us touchable, vulnerable, available. Uninterrupted communication and undivided attention have been replaced by text messages and social media posts. It is too hard to be personal, reachable, completely available. It is easier to hide behind screens and posts, because the real-us can be broken, possibly irreparably.

This is what many of us have accepted. This is what keeps us from being our greatest “us,” and some of the most opportunistic of us, those who can see beyond their insecurities just enough, often become successful by helping us stay exactly how we are. They create more ways for us to be stuck; to be comfortable in our discomfort.

Now, I can say this all day and say that the only way to overcome is to fight past these things, to keep trying and failing, etc., etc., etc. But I know the darkness of being afraid to get up in the morning, because I remember that the life that was there when I closed my eyes the night before was riddled with hopelessness, lack, uncertainty and ominousness. I know what it feels like to have a few days of let’s-get-this be dragged down by the persistence of my unwelcome reality. I know longing for a magic wand to be waved over me and transform me into a go-getter, conqueror, an overnight success who doesn’t fear failure and triumphs over her own idiosyncrasies. What kind of liar would I be if I pretended that this “talk” is replete with answers to the foes mentioned here in?

I don’t write this because I have the answers. I write this while I pep-talk myself, while I try to steer myself away from the despair that my brain and heart were waltzing with this morning and are tangoing with right now. I write this because I want someone to know that he is not alone; that she is not peculiar just because; that we are each one of an army of would-be warriors against a thing that only has the power that we give it. We were created to rule and prosper. We are just not supposed to rule and prosper over each other; but over our gifts and talents, that they may earn us what is our due and elevate others. And I believe that if we learn that principle – the power of togetherness that fosters the strength of individuality; that comes through atmospheres and words spoken and used to build the right things – those of us who cower in the dark will find ourselves out in the light reaping of the same glorious sun of those who seem to have overcome.

[qujo6979]

Fairy girl, do you wonder like I do how it would be to pick up the phone and call? You have always been a being of magic, I hope you know, with big brown eyes that looked at the big world and prayed to be out in it one day. I know you felt too heavy, as if hands pulled you down to the earth dragging you into the dirt, but if you had tried, I’m sure you could have flown far away from the time your mother called you stupid and your father let his hand smack your cheek. I once hoped to run away with you and clutch your little hand for an eternity as we raced along a golden path, rose buds bursting from our footprints. Now I just sit and wonder what your hair looks like today, and if your big eyes still look out at the big world with big dreams. If it counts for anything, I hope someday you do learn to fly. I think you could.

Miriam K, Letter Sequence 3/? (via bumbleblossoms)

❤️❤️❤️

[qujo6979]

Why sugarcoat this, We know it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, There will be screaming, there will be shouting, There will be tears, Only some of them mine, This is anxiety, Not a quirk to draw your attention, Something’s broken in my head,  And well, There is no sugarcoating that.

sugarcoating // a poem (via writerpoetstoryteller)

Wow.

[qujo6979]

Aah; but, yes.

When We Went in Cotton

I met you at your funeral. A fresh-faced girl, in a plain cotton shirt (must’ve been your favorite– navy, ¾ sleeves, washed nearly to death) and blue jeans, copper button just peeking out from the bottom lid of your coffin. Eighteen years old. Dark, stubbly hair.

And my grandmother said, “It’s shameful, them burying her like that. She was so beautiful.”

And there were others who wanted you in a wig in a dress in pearls in heels.

“It’s what she wanted,” your mother said, wringing her hands. Shamed, but not grieving. “She said, ‘We all once went wrapped in cotton.’”

When my grandmother died the family asked me to pick out her cremation clothes.

I thought about you, and I put her in her pajamas.

We all once went wrapped in cotton.

– S. E. De Haven

[qujo6979]

Been gone for so long, but I come back and the beauty here has only gotten more beautiful...

PULSE, ORLANDO // t.e.

[qujo6979]

Amazingness.

im calling out everyone who says “this cleared my skin and watered my crops” when responding to images they like

i know you dont have crops

and i know you dont have skin

stop lying for a “joke”, this is a serious website for people to make posts on their blogs about their life experiences, not about making a ruckus and acting like fools

[qujo6979]

Any help you may extend to this wonder of a woman would be greatly appreciated!

seeking commissions!!

hello friends,

as some of you may have noticed, i’ve been less active on tumblr than usual… this is partially due to a slight case of writers’ block & largely due to bumps in my personal life.

long story short, some unpleasant things have occurred & i am now in a tough financial situation. i’m also seeking a place to live by mid-may.

i’ve never been in a position where i’ve needed to ask for help & honestly i don’t know how. i dislike putting myself out there like this, but…

i’d like to offer my skills as an artist/writer. let me write you a personalized poem, or draw/paint for you– something of that nature. the terms are negotiable, as are the prices. (: i may also set up a patreon account as well, but i’ve got to figure out the details first.

if you can help, the link is here. shoot me a message & we can talk about your piece! i’ll also be grateful for any prayers &/or well-wishes, because i need them! in any case, thank you all for reading my poetry and supporting me all this time. i can’t tell you how much it means to me. ♡