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i discover peace of mind through mindfulness.. i take moments to sit still in my thoughts& i freeze in timeless meditations with my self..i don't sensor my thoughts.. i thrive off the high of my hallucinations.. i hypnotize my mind into memory of a mysterious times when girls like me could be themselves.. i recall all the structures designed to break me.. i decide to stand, unbroken.. i used to bend and break, my mind gazing into the world through the most minimized lens of loneliness.. today, i shift my mindset.. i am everything i wished i'd be.. i process the pain and pursue the discomfort.. i decide to heal, mentally, holistically//

 

never thought i was smart enough.. never envisioned myself an intellectual.. my passion for people and poetry never felt it had its place in academic settings.. grew up in white classrooms with white walls and white students who reminded me that my black ass was inferior.. all A’s on report cards was not enough to convince me.. i had convinced myself that i was unintelligent.. it started in elementary school.. when all the white kids were placed in talented and gifted.. and my crazy black mama came up to the school and demanded they put me in talented and gifted, too.. so that was the only reason my report card said talented and gifted.. but i never believed i was talented and gifted.. i always believed they was just scared of my crazy black mama..

 

i never thought i fit into their definition of smart.. when i realized i was smart.. i realized i was uninterested in fitting into their definition of smart.. that knowledge is a constant struggle.. that i have learned more from loving people than i have learned in any book.. that my heart carries the most important knowledge and my mind processes the knowledge i gain from my heart and that alone is intellectual genius.. to know the connectedness of all things is genius.. to feel how deeply i feel is genius.. to know that your mind will never be a mental roadblock to your destiny is genius.. to know the power of imagination lies within.. that unicorns and rainbows exist exactly where you need them to.. to know all the things i know, that is genius..

 

when i finally recognized my genius, i felt confident enough to enter the world of the mind.. to embrace myself in the academy.. only to find how the mind played tricks on the teachers that taught me.. for what space do academics give for silent mourning.. where does the lost and longing intellectual go who cannot afford to separate mind from soul.. when heart needs healing and classrooms are painted with the blood of the ancestors you claim to fight for.. but they are forgotten because you are forgotten.. you claim to remember but you only remember in your mind and your soul is longing for you to remember differently.. my mind is made up.. i will not become you.. mental capacity only limited to theories and thoughts that never become realities.. regulating your own soul.. never allowing yourself to truly feel free..

 

 i create what i hope to see in my world.. and that is intellectual capacity.. current measures of intellect will never suit me.. what good does it do to pass tests and pretend to master the art of theory if you divorce from yourself in the process.. look who you have left behind.. you have left yourself behind.. if ever the process of knowledge production forces you to leave yourself behind.. then trust me, you have went the wrong way..