“The thing I need to do escapes me. Sit still and write. Get up and move. Prepare the meal and eat it. Consider sentences. Write sentences. Shatter sentences. Live inside an orifice wet with silver. Eliminate caffeine. See acupuncturist. Make a list of gratitude. Sit in the black morning. Drink water. Sit in the black evening. Repeat.
Commune with higher self :: { Do not ruminate on the lover who is not here beside you } :: Drink water
Walk. Repeat. Prepare the bath and slump in it. Listen. No, really, listen. Listen to light become instrument. The thing I need to do is write the feeling. The feeling is a magnification of the present. At present I am in love with a sequence.
The thing thins. As it thins I lean and fatten myself. It is a lean season now. I move around as a wraith. Wear black in summer. Lose touch. Fade into a scent, a sound, a secret. Replenish my energetic fields. Follow the cat. Enter the blank slate of day. Loop music: a single ambient track on repeat. For twelve or eighteen unbroken hours listen to instrumental music.
Make a simple gesture, a series of gestures. Cry.”
—fahima ife, author of Maroon Choreography (Duke University Press, 2021)