Words From Before

Words From Before

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Women power my body:

they are neither consumed for calories

- eat their love and labour -

nor burned for fuel on pyres

- their bodies have always fueled hatred -

yet they are the force behind

every action, each choice.

/

My mitochondria: powerhouse of the cell.

We consist of cells and stars and oceans;

we subsist on truth and tales and lies.

My mother told me I have in me

my grandmothers' mitochondria

- I don't know who told her -

but she wants to believe it so I believe it too

- my mother told me so I want it to be true...

/

Being a woman is just:

[inherits mother's dreams and trauma][inherits grandmother's trauma and mitochondria][inherits great-grandmother's dreams and trauma][inherits]

...

I never research for poems or I start writing essays;

I just listen to my elders,

listen to my ancestors,

and get lost there instead.

Listen to my self and my body and the 'verse.

/

In the shower I let my body be

itself

its curves not hidden by tucks and layers,

not displayed in heels and high-waisted jeans,

not stuffed into bras

and smuggled into knickers;

I just let the water run, let my calloused hands smooth my soft body, wash and stroke away the hurts I've caused.

My hair tangles, it wants to be short.

But my body just is

as it is

as it is.

/

Powered by the mitochondria of my grandmothers

and their grandmothers

and theirs

and the 'verse.

/

AKB 2020

Day 4: Freeze. Couldn't get this out of my head today.

/

Bright noise, Loud lights flash.

Freeze! Hands up, Down on the ground.

Mess of cops and kids.

/

AKB 2019

*sees another human being*

> experience the end of days

Day 3: Bait. To reel 'em in. Another poem to go with my sketch and I'm falling for Inktober. Hook, line, and sinker.

/

My heart on a hook,

Such sweet bait to catch a crook.

My soul on a string.

/

AKB 2019

/

A tree is growing

In a place it shouldn't be;

But it's beyond me.

/

AKB 2020

Hearing and History

12th April 2023

So, I recently found out that my level of hearing is a lot lower than I thought it was and probably always has been.

What does this mean? Basically I probably would've benefited from hearing aids and learning sign language as a child rather than relying on self-taught lip-reading, guesswork, and asking people to repeat themselves/be patient.

Let me tell you, people are not always good at being patient.

I have very mixed feelings about this. Listening is very tiring, and I have always said this! I couldn't do mental maths questions because they were on a tape recording. Ditto language listening and oral exams, which I kept failing at school. French was nearly impossible for me because I cannot hear the words or make sense of the month movements. Thank gd for Spanish!

I didn't have a hearing test until I was in secondary school. That policy has changed now in the NHS so hearing loss is picked up very soon after birth. Basically, there were a bunch of points in my life when someone could have intervened to give me the tools to navigate the world rather than just let me figure it out.

I am not part of the Deaf community. I don't know anybody my age who is hard of hearing or deaf. My family thought it was 'normal' because my mum, her sister, and my grandad all have hearing loss. I was teased for being deaf while simultaneously nobody taking the implications of my deafness seriously. It was a lose-lose situation. Essentially, it wasn't that I wasn't deaf enough, it was that it didn't effect me obviously enough for anyone to do anything.

Now I have hearing aids, I can hear music, I can hear lyrics. I can hear (although not focus on) multiple conversations. Birds are insanely fucking loud. Projectors and air-conditioning drive me up the wall. My tinnitus is definitely worse, but that may also be a side effect of long covid (apparently that's a thing). It's a wild experience that I'm still getting used to, a year later.

I would still love to learn sign language. But now's not a great time: I'm tired, working and studying full-time, recovering from covid, and generally have shit going on. British Sign Language lessons are expensive in person, but learning online is something I'd rather avoid as I can't concentrate easily. This means more travel, more money, more time, more energy. This means I have to wait.

I wish I could've had the chance to learn when I was first diagnosed.

TLDR; just because you can work to the point of exhaustion to fit the needs of the world, doesn't mean you should have to! You deserve accommodations. The world needs to bend so that people don't break.