Timeless
My senses are being tugged by a lot at this moment. Music in my ears. Jill Scott. Love hauling my heart. Love for what or who? A lot of things and people. Some mango habanero wings and a mule are requesting I head to a bar and carelessly hand my card over to the tapster.
The murk of the evening consumes my room, softening my sight. Words are still here though. They are forever present. I haven’t written in maybe a week. The time spent in between writing is usually spent reading, or scanning all I encounter for inspiration. Just a little inspiration. That’s all I need sometimes.
I watched a clip of Lil Wayne on I Am Athlete podcast, mentioning he sometimes takes 7 weeks to write a verse because he doesn’t want to repeat something he’s said before.
“It depends on what it is. When it’s my sh*t, on god, man, I could take seven weeks on two lines.”
I can slightly relate, but I never usually run out of shit to say. I also didn’t make The Carter III or No Ceilings, so who really cares what I have to say anyway?
I consider the timelessness I’m intensely chasing with my words at hand. I also ponder the art hidden by my insecurities or fear of sharing it. Fear makes us hide more from the world than we believe it does. I often write and don’t share because I simply believe people won’t look at it. The fear of invisibility. I once wrote about what it means to be seen, and perceivable to everyone.
When I was younger I remember being asked “if you could have any superpower, what would it be?” A lot of the kids would innocently respond “I wanna be invisible.” Usually backed by some premature scheme to rob a bank or store, or sneak into a locker room undetected, because they’d seen it on TV. For some while, I understood this.
I connected with the desire to bounce through the world unseen. Untouched by insensible eyes and hands. As I got older I realized this was a lie I believed in my adolescence and desired to find some solace in. The reality was that as much as I learned to hide and conceal things as a kid, I quickly fled this and leaned into my need to be seen. I’ve always wanted people to notice me.
Even if not physically, I just wanted to be someone you couldn’t ignore. Later in life, this did me harm as well as good.
It’s so uncommon because I rarely said much as a child. But If I could have any superpower, it would be the ability to make myself evident. Apparent to everyone. To freely move and maneuver through the world and it be unable to shield its eyes or turn its head to avoid seeing me. Even my least desirable parts. I am here and you see me. The power of inevitability rests in how well you can make the world notice you.
Years later when my writing is discovered like fossils dusted off to provide some evidence of the existence of what came before, people will see that my heart was once here and beating. Timelessness and inevitability. I desire these things for myself.
To be seen, and outlast time. To be one with eternity. My soul and intangible existence will be as present as the ether, and as existent as nothingness. Even if I am nothing, I am still something, because I am.
Strangely, I think what’s interesting is that no matter what my means of doing it was, I always found a way to get the world to look at me. To see me. I think we all want to be remembered.
Storyteller: Kwon
