Thank the (Audre) Lorde for the Erotic
Because some roads can only be found with a map.
Welcome to Love + Travel – or welcome back if you're here for your weekly adventure fix!
You can find the entirety of my writing here, including last week’s, My favorite cardio is running from my emotions.
Today’s offering was originally published in BlackStack’s Week 15: Sunday Service Announcements.
Audio has been added for your listening pleasure.
Thank the Lorde for the Erotic
When I write, words seem to crawl out of the palm of my hand. The paper is a landing for their fall below. It means something to craft with attention and care in a world that often stomps and snuffs out. In weightless pleasure arm paper and pen move as one. Writing is a conduit. A way for emotion to outrun my will to keep it in. Where I am my most vulnerable, my most powerful self Creativity runs free I create worlds and then burn them down. Everything fits on a page that can be crumpled and tossed away. I sit with desires and feelings in a space Audre Lorde, described as the erotic.
“In touch with the erotic, I become less willing to accept powerlessness, or those other supplied states of being which are not native to me, such as resignation, despair, self-effacement, depression, self-denial.” -Audre Lorde
The erotic is a place the world can’t touch. It offers a rejoicing found in the pews of church or the playground of bed. My fingertips find the greatest self-pleasure: truth. And there is undressing where masks are removed and defenses are dropped. There’s a nakedness required to feel so free. The truth tends to brush against soft spots unfamiliar with its touch. I deepen my breath It ignites my core. And dip my finger into a process just as sweet as the discovery. Like a book I explore cover to cover admiring the curvature of my spine. There’s no shame in my emotions flipping like pages in the wind. I write from the edge of an event horizon. And used to be afraid of falling in. Until I reached into the dark and found my own hand.
TODAY’S TIDBIT
Chris Rock spoke with Anthony Edwards for Interview Magazine to discuss competition, inspiration, and their Georgia origin.
I read every question in his iconic voice.
COMMUNITY CORNER
🔦 Zan Tafakari writes The Two Different Attitudes Towards Life stem from having either a bucket or flashlight in hand. Which are you holding?
🧍🏾♀️Attachment is tricky. In Are we ever truly alone?, anxiously-attached Lover Girl reminds us the emptiness felt within can only be filled by our damn selves.
❤️🔥 𝐏𝐈𝐌𝐏𝐅𝐔𝐂𝐈𝐔𝐒 knows a thing or two about evergreen game. Align your head and heart by reading Double down on the Passion you Love but others Hate.
LET ME KNOW
Do you like to write on paper, or do you draft on the computer?
What’s an activity, craft, or skill you can spend all day doing?
Who’s writing has completely expanded your point of view?
Finish this line: “When I write, words seem to…”
'Until I reached into the dark
and found my own hand.'
Wow.
When I write, words seem to… understand me more than myself. What i thought i knew 2 seconds ago before hitting the page seem like strangers that have been watching over me longer than i can imagine. Words get me. Words feel like home. 🫂🫂