There’s this thing that happens sometimes when I’m writing, a hush that sneaks in, like the room is holding its breath. When memory guides the pen quietly, it isn’t some big dramatic flashback. It’s more like a scent you almost recognize, or a song you can’t quite hum, just enough to make me pause and listen.
Last week, I was sitting with my notebook, trying to wrangle a line about my grandmother’s laugh. It’s wild how memory can be so soft but so insistent. I wrote, “her laugh still lives in the corners of my mouth”—and then had to just sit there, pen hovering, because I didn’t know I felt that until the words showed up. That line felt like it belonged to my body before my mind caught it. Maybe that’s a queer thing, or a Black thing, or just a me thing—how the small details of family, of softness, always want their own quiet place in my writing.
Sometimes I look at my drafts and they’re a mess, scribbles and arrows and words crossed out until they look like a secret code. I don’t mind. Tenderness is messy. Queerness, too. I think I’m learning to let the gentle parts of myself be loud on the page, even if it’s just for me.
It’s funny, how a single line can surprise you, like bumping into your own reflection around a corner. I’m not sure I trust my memory all the time, but I trust the way it feels when a sentence lands in my chest. That’s enough for now.