Tag: personal
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i get by with a little help from my friends
i’ve spent more time than not oscillating between ambivalence and hatred toward my body so accepting it as my home was only a recent decision. it doesn’t need a physical descriptor; it’s not good or bad. it just is (and more). it’s made sharing my body with others easier. fucking a stranger in the backseat…
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where is my inheritance so i don’t have to work anymore: part 4/x
if someone walks in with a phone in hand and appears out place, i do one of four things: confirm if there’s a food service ticket on the back counter before they inevitably put their phone in my face. ask if they’re looking for einstein’s which is two doors down. point them to our menus…
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it’s the holidays? press fast forward.
my mom took me to (who I imagined was) the only black beautician in lakewood. it was raining and i thought of raphael saddiq, crooning, “it never rains in southern california.” i thought he was in for a surprise. it was 2003. 2004, perhaps. i ran inside using my magazines as an umbrella. my mom…
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panicking at the disco
“you are loved. you are safe. you are cared for,” i say as i toy with the shell charm on my necklace. i wish i got my necklace because it symbolized good fortune. but truthfully, i thought it was cute. i wish i was ok. i wish i weren’t having another panic attack. i had…
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on my first year with locs
When I run my index finger and thumb along the length of my locs, I’m met with thin and thinning locs, some of the same density from root to tip and others with thick bulbs along their ends. Sometimes, I find myself combining locs or seeing how much of my locs I can gather into…
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monday: take me outside, sit in the green garden
The late Oliver Sacks said this about gardens: “All of us have had the experience of wandering through a lush garden or a timeless desert, walking by a river or an ocean, or climbing a mountain and finding ourselves simultaneously calmed and reinvigorated, engaged in mind, refreshed in body and spirit.” That’s how I feel.…
Bryanna Beaman 