Reading Black authors and stories for a year.

Near the end of last year I decided I wanted to read more black stories and black authors. This was the result of realising the vast majority of my reading catalogue had been white people.

If it weren’t for me reading Queenie by Candace Carty Williams.

I forget her name but there was a lady on Twitter that only read black authors for a year as well.

My first instinct was to read more POC books and I flip-flopped between these two ideas. Finally landing on only black authors and black stories I think it’s something I deserve to immerse myself in blackness and black experiences. 

I’m discovering so many black authors and it is so exciting to me, it makes me so happy.

It also makes me sad because all this time his people were there and no one thought to tell me and I didn’t think to look.

I have read 11 books  so far which is a great accomplishment for me since my goal at the beginning of the year was 12 books.

12 is such a small number when you think of it as a year of reading. I reminisce over the times when I could easily read 2-3 books a week. I think when I went to university studying English part of my degree really knocked reading and writing for pleasure out of me.

It was a slow death though I struggled to post on my blog and every year the amount of books I read fell dramatically.

My required reading was so draining things the stick out to me are a module that looked into the history of the novel 🙁☹️😒 modernism and modernity 😫 and the deadest classic novel Jane Eyre😵.

It really had a major effect on me when I felt in the mood to read I hardly ever finished the book. I was stuck; sure this time under lockdown has given me a chance to fall back into reading. But I feel myself slipping, falling into a sea of DNF and I wonder if I let myself go in, maybe this time, this time I will drown.

Kiera

That last sentence is dramatic but sounded so good that I had to put it in.

Perfection

I think I have always striven for perfection, it is not something of a revelation. I mused about being a perfectionist from about ten I thought it was a good thing. 

Perfect has held me back from writing anything, no poetry, no essays, stories or blog posts. It was this idea that whatever I wrote had to be perfect and so good that it could be monetized and make me famous.

My brain was taking big leaps but I could not even manage a shuffle.

It was this expectation and pressure I put on myself that I had to be something because I had always loved writing and reading and at some point in childhood decided I was destined to write. 

I think that I was so desperate for my words to make sense, my grammar to be elegant. That I overthought to the point that I just never committed, I never finished anything. I think it’s about time that I realise that whether or not my words are elegant or my grammar is shoddy.

Doing nothing just makes a good foundation for regret to make a home.

It’s time that I just live my life by doing what I love. To stop being so fearful of not being good enough, because the only one who’s saying it and the only one that matters is me.

I’m finally realising that perfect isn’t all that great. It makes me anxious, it stresses me, it consumes me. And at the end of it all it disappoints me. So I’m letting go of perfection I might be a long process but I think it will be worth it.

Kiera

Here’s to taking a step and being okay with being okay.

Oh, and Happy Birthday.

How I Hate You So

Everytime I look at you
I’m reminded that I
Will
Never
Hate you
Enough
Your eyes
Your lips
The way the corner
Flicks up
And God. Your mind
What are you
Thinking?
Oh I, admire you so.

Holding On.

I can’t help but hold onto the daunting feeling, that I just used to feel more than I do now. Despite it feeling like the inevitable, this is a whole new concept to me I thought I would have cultivated my words into something more. I can’t help but feel that I have somehow lost myself, lost who I was going to be, strayed from the path where my poetry lit fires within me. Now it’s different, I smolder in the ashes of what used to be.

Where is the angst? Where is the passion? And the pain?

It’s gone. Those turrets that embody who I was on the page are just that on the pages of the past and everything I write now is a push to either get back or strive forward, and you should know if you continue to move in two opposite directions you will go nowhere. I think I’m finally realising that I am not going to live this great and profound life that I thought I’d lead. Of course I am in the beginning margin of my life, but still twenty years is still a long time there thing that I will never be able to do now, a gymnastics career is out of the question.

I see people who I know, in haze of glory and the only thing I can think is I have not even failed because I never even tried very hard in the first place. I would give the illusion but I would not step that far my first milestone. I’m not excelling or succeeding I’m moving but it is slowly.

How have I been oblivious to this development until this very point as I sit typing this? Where was my focus, my attention? Nowhere in particular which is downright saddening.

These very words could amount to nothing, or they could be a legacy to my name, it could be something that keeps somebody breathing that little longer. With the knowledge that failure only comes when you do not try, the knowledge that lack of success is not a failure, it’s a way to improve yourself to take on new brighter heights. The knowledge that failure is when you stop trying. Pause, breathe, take a break but, do not stop. You are strong enough to defy your doubt and push on you just have to believe it and proof with show.

Who are you, who have you become? Because I frequently look in the mirror and do not recognise you. I listen to the words you say and you are a stranger, the things you think are monstrous and to think I have become this person is disconcerting thinking of what is to come. There are traits that have never changed, but they are not exactly the good ones, my instinct to shy away from responsibility and the consequences of my actions. I am a coward, I am disgraced at my attitude to life. I am petty and inconsiderate. I make myself promises I make plans, and I make myself a liar because I don’t follow through. I am beyond anger and disappointment, because I expect it now. No amount of heart ache has changed this, my word means nothing to me, I mean nothing when it comes to trust and loyalty because I thought it was okay to betray yourself. Because you’re the only one who gets hurt. But it’s not true it’s not okay and you are not the only one who gets hurt. Because when you hurt, the people around that care for you, hurt too.

But a selfish person like myself took a while to come to this realisation. Despite the many vows I have made to myself I want to make another, I vow to be a good person. I vow to face the consequences of my actions always.

Because perhaps this is where I differ from other people of success the try and I squalor. I will not squalor I with grow and thrive.

I promise.

• Kiera.

On Writing.

Sometimes the little thing can be the mighty things.

What do you say when you have nothing to say?

Let the silence fill the space. Let your breaths punctuate it, until you find a rhythm and there is a flow. From there it’s simple; open your mouth and the words will pour out, only you have to be breathing for this to happen, so what happens when you have nothing to say and it’s loud and you’re asphyxiating? You fall into a hole and you wait to die, you wait to be buried.

Claw at your throat, your nails pierce the skin, blood blooms. And continue scraping until there’s an opening and you take that first exhilarating breath in a long time and find you have changed and grown. The space around you remained the same. But maybe now you have something to say, there is a low  hum around you and the rhythm awakens you from that coma and you breathe through the words and everything becomes easier again and you know who you are and you are not so scared or lost anymore and your laugh sounds real.

It’s the rhythm of love and life, many don’t find it they survive, and there’s nothing wrong with that. People have this grand idea about “living” – I should clarify that living and surviving are seen as different things. Surviving is the day to day its the primal need to see the next rising sun. Relish every breath, appreciate every sensation, your bare feet on the cold tile, the icy wind on your neck like a ghost breath, living, truly living. Living and surviving are the same thing do you really think that a survivor doesn’t love life  love the filtering of air in their lungs the rush of oxygen in their veins, they’re the same the only real difference is “living” is innocent.

• Kiera.