Heavy

When I finish reading Heavy I sob in the bathtub until the water turns cold.


I feel so much sorrow for Black pain, for the fact that "my" country is premised on the exploitation and the fervent, mob-ish hatred of Black and Brown bodies and Black and Brown people, that simply because of the color of my skin I am in some ways complicit and in so many ways brutishly empowered. My chest hurts. My stomach hurts. In the words of the small refugee Brown girl interviewed by Valeria Luiselli, it gives me bellysadness.

I am so bellysad.


And I am so inspired to tell the truth.


This, perhaps the only bit of worthwhile feedback extended during 45 minutes of egotistic bullshit: I've been hiding.



He is trying to care better.

Wilson keeps seeking my chest but the cartilage attaching to the bones within my sternum is so inflamed, for 11 days now I have been short of breath and in so much pain, I cannot cuddle the way we normally do in the evenings while I read or write on my back on the couch, but I cannot tell Wilson that and he cannot understand or accept why I cross my arms over my chest each time he draws near. So he holds Wilson on his stomach, so that I won't be hurt by nine more pounds of pressure on my chest, which already feels like a bear is sitting on it, a big round pre-hibernation bear that has been gorging itself for months on mountainside berries.


And here is the lesson again: I have to slow down sometimes. I have to take time to breathe. I have to tell the truth.