Some words really do drag little memories up by the collar. I was writing last night, half-distracted by the hum of the fridge and the way my socks didn’t match, when this line just slipped out: “My mother’s voice, softer than the evening news.” I didn’t plan it. It just landed, gentle and a little off-center, like the way I sit in chairs.
It’s funny how that happens. I wasn’t even writing about my mother, not really. But there she was, folded into the syllables, humming under the sentence. Sometimes my Blackness slips in quiet like that — not as a statement, just as a memory that’s been waiting its turn. The line didn’t ask for permission. It just wanted to be in the room.
I guess I’m learning to trust the mess of it. That there’s softness in letting a line be strange, or letting a feeling show up without asking if it fits. Queerness does that, too. My voice bends in ways I don’t always notice until I read it back and see myself glimmering in the margin — not loud, not hidden, just present.
Drafts are always a little awkward. This one made me laugh, because it surprised me. It made me feel like my own words can remember things my mind forgot, or maybe just tucked away for later. There’s something tender about that, about letting a poem know more than I do.
Tonight I’m not chasing the perfect line. Just letting the words recall what they want, and trusting that’s enough.