Small Worlds

by Caleb Azumah Nelson

we allowed that prayer to make space, allowed ourselves to explore the depths and heights of our beings, allowed ourselves to say things which were honest and true, Godlike even.

I’ve only ever known myself in song, between notes, in that place where language won’t suffice but the drums might, might speak for us, might speak for what is on our hearts.

I’m pulled to nudge Raymond again, to try to say to him, I wish we could always be this open, wish we might always feel some of this freedom.

I wish we could always be this open, in tender motion, shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart, energy energy, gimme that energy energy.

We’re young and often struggle to express just what it is we need, but I know we all value closeness.

I know that a world can be two people, occupying a space where we don’t have to explain. Where we can feel beautiful. Where we might feel free.

the soft pounding of fists accompanied by, in a bit, which is less a goodbye, more a promise to stay alive.

It feels arbitrary to rely on a small group to decide whether we are good enough, when, until this point, much of our judgement relied on feeling.

To go back home is to wrangle with who you are against who everyone thinks you should be.

off, the grief broke and breaks her open. Her life is informed by loss but because she’s lost, she loves and loves freely, openly, with all she can.

‘nothing’s really stable any more, we’re living in a different time.’

He’s always at his worst at these functions. Feels like he has to be something more than he is, you know.’

‘Sometimes you just gotta do stuff for yourself. You can’t please everyone.’

‘That’s my problem. That’s all our problems, all the men in our family. Why you think Pops is like he is. It’s like we’re all haunted by the same thing.’

‘We’re all scared. That we might offend someone, or we might do what we want to do, and it gets snatched away from us. And I hear it! The world’s a scary place. But fuck all that, Stephen.’

‘Don’t be scared of being honest, being yourself. Or you’ll end up like me.’

‘I’m inconsistent. I’ve got a lot of love but I don’t keep anything for myself. And when I can’t cope, I drink,

only think of value; value that can be rendered in words and numbers, can be exchanged with a signature.

Perhaps it’s that I’m trying to make space for the version of myself who is secure, often at ease, who might fill summer days with trips to the beach and house parties, who might slide inside a moshpit until I’m pressed up against a sound, who might cradle my trumpet in hand, send a low hum out in the world, make a note a home for feeling.

I probably won’t call Ray tomorrow, and if I do, I’ll hide my desire away. I’ll hide away my solitude, how its enormity has turned it into something I don’t know how to wrangle with, something thick and heavy and suffocating. Rather than tell him of the loneliness, I’ll tell him it’s all OK, everything is OK.

What I do not say is that I am hungry for something I have lost.

I’m cold and so tired.

I’m cold and so tired but that no one warned us about this cold. No one warned us it would be this hard.

It isn’t just that he doesn’t believe in the possibilities I see for myself; it feels like he doesn’t believe in me. I needed more from him.

I didn’t like this me, who was insecure, and rarely at ease; who felt like he was living in a city with no community to lean on, no one to just spend some time with; who, not knowing how to dismantle his loneliness, cocooned, retreated.

‘I don’t want to stay where I’m not wanted.’

What happens to those who don’t have the room to express their ache, are unable to tell their stories? What happens to these histories which might only be spoken?

to forge these worlds for each other means to collectively dream of our freedom.

solitude became loneliness; this loneliness became oppressive, the sadness of it pressing down like two hands on my shoulders.

I felt so unwanted, I didn’t want to be with myself.

of the tears, of feeli...

‘That generation. It was hard for them and they don’t know how to deal with that. He’ll come round.’

all of us needing that closeness.