Member-only story
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. All the ideas whirling around my mind keep spinning and turning, bypassing the departure gates.
Even my own kindness prompts on Spread the Ripple go unanswered.
I’m reading and thinking; I’m listening and reflecting. I want to tell you a story from many years ago. The tragedy of finding a four-year-old child wandering around the city streets by herself and how the lack of concern by the public for this little girl was integral to the colour of her skin. An incident I’ve only recently learned was dripping in racism.
Stories are sweating from my pores, ready to be shared. I pass them through my quality assessment filter and find them missing angles, nuance, beauty, and magnetism. Their lacking makes me retreat even more until I have faded away from civilisation. And so I wait and observe and summon my inner poet. But she doesn’t answer.
Does anyone else struggle with their birthday? Aging is a privilege, but birthdays pick at old wounds for me. They suck me into a whirlpool and take their time before spitting me back out. I didn’t message her, she didn’t message me, and yet it is a day that will always symbolise us.
