E X O D U S
A N E X P L O R A T I O N O F T H E E M A N C I P A T I O N O F A D O L E S C E N C E
[ E K - S U H - D U H S ]
N O U N
A G O I N G O U T ; A M A S S D E P A R T U R E
The term “Exodus” translates to a going out; a mass departure. “Exodus”, as it relates to me, speaks to my own departure from childhood and movement into womanhood.
This body of work is intended to explore my most sacred and suppressed memories and express my fears I carry at my core. The child within me sits patiently as I find the answers to my own questions.
It is my hope that, through this work, we will meet with open arms, enfolded in one another, prepared for childhoods final curtain call.
" I’ve written of bird cages in my chest.
Sometimes too big, but always too small,
that opportunity of release right under my itchy toes.
I’ve written of bird cages in my chest.
My name is not mine, but I am not yours.
I’ve written of bird cages in my chest.
A structure my Mother gave me, a story my Father named me after. "
" At the end of guileless lies a room that muzzles and leaves me blind. The vignettes around my childhood memories have swallowed every answer; and I descry but only a circle of light stalking my vicious ogle.
At six years old, I dreamt of geese ripping out my hair; this nightmare took away my ability to sleep under the covers until myths of fertility and an ode to empowerment made themselves known.
They masticated and gnawed until my scalp was weak and my cloak of protection confiscated.
Extrication is cradled in my infantile palms but my emancipation from this expanse is my induction to my own inquietude.
I now drown in my own exodus scouring for an entity to shepherd me out of this amnesiac-induced concealment.
But it is within this labyrinth - trapped by brick and mortar - that I fear the incubus’ - the one I fight and the one I feed. "
" There is a round room in a round house
with yellow walls, a grandfather clock,
and Precious Moments
figurines staring you down
wherever you go.
I remember white trim and
sandy carpet under my toes
in the house that built me,
the home that burned me.
They called me the “Vulnerable Child,”
a self-diagnosed burden.
I am now becoming a mirror
of my younger self.
My hair is still full of tangles and
reminiscent of the rats nest I built as a kid, and
I still chew my cheeks when I get nervous like I
did that night in Baton Rouge. "
" You say your hand coming down on me is justified, yet when I run away with my tail between my legs, you drive away as fast as you can; not because you do not see me, but because you see an obligation
that you know you are not cut out for yet.
And as I sit there chanting my chant - too much or not enough - there is nothing left for me to do but accept that this is not my “forever home”. "
