LXXXIX

I don't expect a thing, honey
Work with me on this
No dollar
No declaration
No private suite
And no twinge
Of regret when I walk away from you
Down the alley
Of lost loves and thieves
I don't expect a thing from you
But honey, you deserve more than me.

[Image: Celine]

LXXXVIII

The reality is, we don't always want to give of ourselves. Our time, our mind, our eyes, the insides of who we are, our hearts. These are the places we clench tight and where we hide. But once we do - give, that is - it grows so clear that our stepping-out and letting-in changes the game for another self, mind, being, heart. And is that not the sweetest knowing. Is that not breath. Is that not life itself.

[Image: New York Magazine]

LXXXVII

Today I met a man called Emir*. I was in his home, I met his child, I met his wife. I know where he lives. I was trying to buy his second hand couch. And when my all-Australian husband asked no less than kindly, “Where are you guys from?” there was the flicker of hesitation in his eyes. Ryan didn’t see it. I know he didn’t. But I saw it. Because even I know a little of what it is to be asked that question and be uncertain of the reaction your answer will trigger. To be one of the ‘lucky ones’ who have the option of denial; who have a way out through falsity, if one was wanted.

Emir was a middle aged man. He lives in Sydney, Australia and his child was born here. He was tall and lean and olive-skinned. Near bald-headed – by choice or genetics I don’t know, I didn’t pay attention. His facial stubble and the hairs on his arms were a dark colour. So were his eyes. “We’re from Israel,” interjected his wife. Is that the truth?

I wonder what he’s seen that made him hesitate in the first place. Here in my country. Here in my city. What has he seen? Was it the little-longer-lingering gaze of a stranger passing in the street. Was it the hint of uncertainty in the demeanour of a potential employer. Was it the almost-imperceptible reaction of another when he gave them his name. Was it watching the news of a morning and stepping out the door with a hyper vigilance that his name, and his eyes, and his skin, and his voice put him in association with the towns he’d been watching burn, and the masked militants he’d watched torture – that we’d all watched.

And he’s one of the lucky ones. No hijab for his wife. No keffiyeh on his head. ‘Normal’ clothes on his back [read: white, Anglo, middle class male appropriate]. Just the voice. Just the eyes. Just the name. One of the lucky ones.

*Name has been changed

[Image: Pinterest]

LXXXVI

As if what I do is more important than who I am. I guess for some people it's the same thing.
You are and you do. You can and you won't. You do and you don't. Sing louder, they might just hear you scream.

[Image: i-D Magazine]

LXXXV

Dark side of the moon. 

[Image: Claudia Schiffer by Peter Lindbergh for Harper’s Bazaar Mexico, June 1995]

LXXXII

Breath.

That is the contraction of your diaphragm and intercostal muscles to decrease internal air pressure and allow oxygenic air from the outside to rush in, then the releasing of these muscles causing carbon dyoxidic air to be pushed out.

That is you being alive.

That is you doing better than you think you are.

[Image: Rachell Smith]

LXXXII

Thankful for legs that walk a heart that beats eyes that see and a mind that dreams.

[Image: Cakies]

LXXXI

Lover of my soul.

Even when I don’t know you know. Even when I don’t hear me you hear me. You hear me when I don’t speak and when my heart sings. When my heart beats and my ears ring and my mind's lost and my souls clinging. You hear me. You hear the me in me. You see the you in me. I can't see but you see me and I can't think but your thoughts are of me and I can't breath but you breath into me the best of me and the most of me and the you in me.  You beat in me. Your beat in me is more of me than any else of me or he or she. You're doing a work in me. My heart sees. My heart beats. You're doing a work in me.

[Images: Pinterest]

LXXX

'Stranger than fiction'

I once saw my dad hit a man on a zebra crossing. Right there in the daylight. Not with his fist, with his bonnet. My dad hit him and I saw because I was in the Mazda too. The Mazda with the bonnet that hit the man on the zebra crossing. I saw him hit him because I was in the Mazda with the bonnet. Does that mean I hit him too? Right there in the daylight.

LXXIX

Write about what you know.
Write about ethnicity, and love, and love of difference.
Write about wrongs and rights and righting wrongs, and the wrongs that are the hardest to make right. Perhaps the ones you can't.
Write about fantasy and make-believe, the things you're scared to think. The things you can't think when you're awake. The things you dream.
Write about what you know so they it can know it you too.

[Image: Rachell Smith for Rhye album cover 'Woman']