what else do you want from me, my soul?
"If caviar were a caveat to chaos, perhaps I wouldn’t have had to choose between a home and my autonomy at 19 years old."
Being houseless is one of the major dehumanization pacts of the country. There’s racism, gosh, a million —isms. One of the least verbally identified is… what is it called, if anything? Shelterism?
The times in my life when I did not have a roof over my head made me very sad. In my adult life so far, I’ve slept on staircases and under them, in study rooms, motels, abusers’ floors, and worse. My tummy pulls me down thinking of how often my thoughts in life have surrounded the insecurity of such a basic necessity. Even while living with people who will never have to fathom lacking a necessity like a roof (or any necessity, for that matter), I was deeply insecure about the certainty of my shelter. I had a right to be, not only considering where I came from but the environment I began navigating that was the stark opposite: a pool of white wealth. It surrounded me but I wasn’t a true part of it. Unfortunately, the hard truth is obvious: the darkest and most animalistically traumatized parts of my brain knew that something off was occurring there, yet I couldn’t (or wasn’t safe to) verbalize nor pinpoint it. If caviar were a caveat to chaos, perhaps I wouldn’t have had to choose between a home and my autonomy at 19 years old. This is the age that I first experienced houselenses (in my adulthood).
I knew how uncomfortable my body and mind felt around some of these people, but it is truly agonizing to examine how and why I ignored it. So many instances clearly against my body’s rules. I loathe the feeling: the pit I get in my stomach when I think of the casual exploitation of my body and mind. The coercion and abuse of power by people who understood perfectly the peril I already writhed in. To understand me in a manner many cannot does not equate to the compassion and desire required to heal deep wounds.
Furthermore, my life was being puppeteered; my warmth used as a safety blanket turned rag doll. Everything was contradictory: my love “couldn't, wouldn't ever be requited”, but I was also so desirable, so attractive? I decide how we present ourselves and who with, but when we arrive I’m paraded around like a show dog as the crowd is enlightened (unprompted, mind you) on how every accessory and article I wore was thanks to the so very genuine (sarcasm) benevolence of my humble savior?
America has always loved to dress up control as care. That’s the part that haunts me. I didn’t understand, at nineteen, at seventeen, at seven, that what I was living through wasn’t new but rather a dark sequel to something older than anyone alive today. This country has a long tradition of taking what Black women carry: our warmth, our intuition, our softness, our brilliance — and turning it into currency for someone else. The desire, the imitation, the punishment, the possession… it’s a cycle stitched into the fabric of this country. Somehow I got caught in the middle of it without knowing the script I’d stepped into.
