I had not been home to Jamaica in over a decade. In August 2015 I took a trip, and while there, visited Marcus Garvey’s house, which still stands atop a small hill,…
Author: zaji
the living
There are days like today when the living ain’t easy. I sit in the back of the store—breakroom slash stockroom—waiting for things I cannot name. Boxes stacked to the ceiling containing gadgets…
in elysium
Your whispers reach me across time. They find me standing on the edge of awakening. My dreams leave, then your dreams ask to enter the space of love that eases our pain….
feeling jolly, maybe
It snowed last night. This morning the sky was clear and the snow bright. While I do feel a sense of jolly when I look at the blanket of white, I continue…
i built a story
I built a story that was tall and wide, stretching across miles of land like the Great Wall of China. I did not use brick or stone or plastic or metal or…
hate speech vs my mighty voice
Mighty Voices Rise I don’t give two damns about “hate speech” against me, a brown woman. Not two. I have a mighty voice and know how to defend myself against words meant…
unfurl
i am unfurled unwrapped by life’s hardships, joys and mysteries. without understanding why, i have lived without a name. Unfurl
mortal words
i’ve decided that i don’t want to write, not with my hands anyway. i want to think words onto paper and screens and leaves and stones and skies. i want words to…
i am the stream…
i am the stream… of consciousness. it is 2:38pm, monday, the In The Beginning day of the week august 14. twenty seventeen, whatever that means it is the day when i want…
save words
i will save words for you. bottled and pickled words for you. then feed you synonyms of me, so you will always remember my taste. i will flavor your life until all…
satchel of poems
I had a satchel filled with poems that I tossed into the sea. I wrote them on tiny circles and squares and rectangles woven with jute, some in permanent gold ink, others…
ink spill
I spilled ink across the blank pages of my notebook. It was then that I decided to write stories with my fingers.
the words spill
The words spill from my pen, blood red, no longer wanting to be ink, but to be life. The words follow me into my dreams. There, I am sky bound. Landing is…
freedom
We all seek freedom in one way or another. But in the end, we live in an age where none of us know what true freedom feels like. We’ve never lived it…
i hide
i hide inside myself, in the dark corners of memory, in the light of a thousand what-could-have-beens.
existence remembered
The words leave, drifting atop my misconceptions. I am looking backwards. Why did we come here? Was it only to see if being human was a strange fad, something new for our…
parallel universe
In the space of memory resides the fence we stand atop, teetering on the edge between hard ground and water. In that space we remember the moments that embrace us before we…
your lies
Your lies won’t save you from death. You will die anyway. Death is the great truth teller. When it comes, all you will know in that moment is the truth; which is,…
little expectations
Writing Prompt: Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt. Expectation. I am sometimes filled to overflowing with a cauldron of expectations. Ideas mixed in with opinions and beliefs that…
the thinning web
The silken network of threads thin inside me; those webs that stick to everything that I am. They thin, inch by inch, but strengthen, holding on to heart and lung and liver…