I have died a thousand times.


In the silence of rooms where I learned to make myself smaller.
In the hands of men who only held me in the dark.
In the mirror, where I spent years trying to love something I was taught to hate.


I have buried myself in the spaces between other people’s comfort.
Lowered my voice so they wouldn’t flinch.
Made my body easy to leave so no one had to carry the weight of me.


I have been a funeral no one attended.


And yet—
I wake up.
Every day, I wake up.


Breathe in. Breathe out.
Move through a world that never made space for me,
but take up space anyway.


I am not supposed to be here.
I was supposed to break,
supposed to fold,
supposed to be a name they only whispered in past tense.


But here I am.
A mouth that still speaks.
A body that still moves.
A breath that still fills the room.


I have died a thousand times.
And still—


I am here.


And ain’t that something?

Light,
The light from above has bestowed upon me the urge to dance, despite it all, all, all. A spark has spread a little fire—the music never stopped, despite it all.  

Affection,
Facing slowly—affection all over the floor. Summer has not started yet, but there is heat, devotion, warmth in absence. I nod to the sun. I turn towards the dappled, bronzed skin of mine.

Jazz,
There is something ferocious living inside this four-cornered apartment, where the absence of childhood has taken half my life—but there are flowers, flowers in my head. Slowly dancing in the whiskers of the afternoon—velvety, yes, velvety notes striking the rhythm of my body. Swaying, swaying, almost lost in the murmur of the piano—the saxophone aggravates the thrill in my bones. I look up at the ceiling; colors start to swirl even more. Strings spill like liquid—smooth and endless, more and more. Conversing here and there, I am alive again.  

“Turn your face towards the sun,” they say. I dreamed of my childhood, and the heat of the sun felt like slow jazz in the afternoon.