remembering Dhaka

it’s been more than a week since i got back from Dhaka, and i still don’t know how to feel about it: the city, the spaces, the people, the moments. two things have made a deep impression on me though: the rememberings and the mosquito bites.

i believe that i’m a highly sentient being, in that, my reactions and experience of anything that involves the seeing, feeling, smelling, hearing is tremendously heightened, and intricately interwoven in how i experience and remember anything and everything. although i see myself as a photographer to some extent, a lot of these heightened experiences are often undocumented with photographs as i just cannot, or at times, refuse to translate them into photographs. instead, i just remember them, as rememberings.

i can somehow still remember the smell of the drizzle and the pastry buried under my nose in Barcelona; the majestic oxen with its shining horns slowly crossing in front of the cab under the fluorescent din of Delhi; the feel of grass in the grasp of fingers in San Francisco; the sand burying toes in Santa Monica; constellations blinding the night in Jaipur. for Dhaka, i guess my most vivid memory is that of me and Seuty, mirrored across different parts of the city, in and out of groups, in and out of laughter, conversations, and the quiet. and the mosquito bites, leaving marks i can still see on my feet.

other than that, i still don’t know how to feel about Dhaka. due for another visit i guess.

Filed under: words, memory, she, words

I think you’re Beautiful. a reading

wrote a piece for this project that i started a few years back. it is called the “I think you’re Beautiful” project. they are stickers that i would print and give out to women i would meet. in the train, on the streets, anywhere and everywhere. i believe there is much power in the conversation between women. a conversation. not gossip, mean girls, competitive shit attitudes where women pit themselves against each other, comparing, pretending, enforcing. the sisterhood should not be infested ideals of one-upmanship, nor should it be wallowing in the steely claws of envy. instead, the beauty of it all resides between woman to woman. to speak, smile, love, lead.

presented at Sugar & Spice  last night, my first reading, ever. dedicated to my loves, all women, girls, and you. i think you’re beautiful.

…

I think you’re Beautiful
by nuruL H. 2012

 

Hey you
I think you’re beautiful
You they named woman
To be of ripe breasts like
Pomegranates with blood
Seeds that trickle into your womb
Another name secretly sewn into your belly button
Unleashed when blossomed
A grave for the fossilized future
That you are to carry,
That you are to nurture
Expulsed out of you
With the ripping of skin
Torn by a prince, uttering love like artillery on his lips
A prince whose presence you await
But don’t we already know
Rapunzel’s hair is rotting
Be no mere woman
Be you
Because
I think you’re beautiful

Hey you
I think you’re beautiful
But for goodness sake,
Drench
That damsel in distress
Douse her in a cocktail of rude awakening, so that she may be alerted to skins more real than plastic
Burn those neon cloaks of fancy fannies and kitten-like dispossession
Chastise that infantilized ideal, baby prostitute, lolli-sucking Lolita
For they choke your body, strangling it into their representations
Offering you on the palms of their hands
To be exhibited, showed, displayed, judged, critiqued
Too fat, too skinny, too flabby, too slutty, too dark, too smart, too slow, too aggressive, too loud too liberal, too feminine, too tomboyish, too opinionated, too ugly
Too ugly
They only want to bang Barbie
But you will not become an ambassador for Mattel, no
For your skin is real
It bleeds, has pores, stretches, cuts, ages
As it will, and as it should
Don’t you know?
I think you’re Beautiful
I think you’re beautiful
I think you’re beautiful
I think you’re beautiful
I think I’m beautiful

Filed under: words, her, she, words