Not Expecting Anything
from my trauma anymore
Not asking it to make me a better writer or a best-selling author. Not asking it to make me friends or make me less lonely. Not secretly hoping it had bring over new people to say this happened to me, when did yours happen? Or so I can brag- dish out advice on how adept the human body and mind is at surviving.
What called me first to share my writings publicly was the possibility of fame and wealth. I remember a friend - or stranger (frankly I don't remember who) telling me if I loved writing I should think of starting an Instagram page so I could be catapulted to stardom. I remember what that statement woke in me. What the possibility of being heard and seen meant for the young girl I was. I remember sprinting to action. I heard money and fame, and I ran without hesitation, because who says no to money and fame (something I thought = more money) when you come from where I come from?
In the beginning, I stuck specifically to the theme of heartbreak, because there was a crazy market/demand for it. Coincidently, I had just received my first dose of romantic rejection. I also changed pseudonyms quite regularly. From Christtie Jay to M.M Black, to Christtie Black, and soon enough the fame came. Hold on, not the Beyonce kind, but the kind that left you with 1000 likes, 200 retweets etc., and got you literary friends. The kind that got you invited to radio houses and festivals (even though they never had the funds to pay).
And so I kept at it. Wrote the heartbreak poems because people seemed to love/want it.
But it was never enough.
As seasons changed themes and pseudonyms changed, but a constant melancholy and sadness remained in my work- because although it was untold, everyone knew. People loved the sadness and christened it honesty. More honesty, fellow writers screamed. More honesty readers screamed. Do it with the poems, do it with your captions, more, more, MORE. And somewhere along the line, honesty became a synonym for scabbing and stabbing wounds open in public.
Sometimes I cringe looking back at some of my actions. How in my chasing fame and money, I exploited themes of pain and solidarity to gain entry into certain circles. I yearned to belong everywhere, and I wrote about it all. The political, the not so political…. because a writer belongs to everyone and no one. And yes, there was a kindness in that, there was concern in the poems, an anger at the world, but there was also greed. Plenty, if we’re to be honest. This made me oblivious to the fact that sometimes the best support one can offer a community is to amplify the voices within it rather than speaking on their behalf.
When everywhere you look, there is someone making money off their trauma, you start thinking up creative ways to barter yours.
I wrote this down in October last year. And that’s not to shift blame for me, I should have looked elsewhere. It is to acknowledge. For the longest time, I wanted that to be me. I wanted to be a hitmaker too. Especially in this capitalist world. How cool it will be to pay rent with the evils others/life have done me. How karmic, to say look- you made me a billionaire. LOL.
And so everything was up for display for me. I told myself I was writing honestly, learning to write better poems, honest essays, and better non-fiction. It was a lie. I knew it then, and I know it now. I was driven by hunger, not honesty.
Few things fill me with as much pride as reflecting on my past, particularly when considering my environment and background. It's shaped who I am today. However, it is true. Geography is destiny, and so many of our dreams are powered by the environment and poverty. You do any and everything to get out, sometimes even laying out your trauma for the world to pick at. You write the story and you make it spicy or bloody. Not because the gore is needed to make the story good but because you hope to captivate or astonish, and if you can maybe you win. Maybe this can be the story that lands you that TV interview or retweet that matters.
Thankfully or sadly, I have not had the success I thought I would have in writing. I say thankfully because I cannot imagine learning this lesson with success. I do not think it’s a lesson I would have held out both hands to grasp gracefully. This. This relinquishing, this burden, this no longer seeking validation or material gain from my craft….I digress…. Thankfully, I've not had the success I set out to have in writing.
Several times I have cried out to friends about this. Asked them to be honest, to tell me if writing is not a strength of mine. If it's something I should quit since every time I submit the poem or book it's a no. I have cried and cried and tried and cried. Written metaphorically, written fast, written shabbily, because I put my love for writing on its knees, insisting that it feeds me and makes me a king.
Well, not anymore.
There's a Yoruba proverb that says “The wealth which enslaves the owner isn't wealth.”
I quit.
No not the writing. I would be dead before that happens. I am quitting asking my writing to make me someone. To give me something. That endless chasing, digging, for the next poem, the next book, hoping that it's this one that puts me in the light. I am tired. I do not want that torturous dance with hope anymore, I haven't for the longest time and now I can finally afford to quit.
It’s a privilege though. Let me be the first to admit that. To be able to decide to return my hobby to a hobby because I no longer have poverty holding me by the throat. To witness and write without a crazy urgency. To support, genuinely. Either with words or otherwise. To quietly quit Instagram and social media. Because I can afford to love and make the art I love in private.
For the first time in a long while, I am not asking for anything from my writing or poetry. I am not bothered or in need of it to keep my heater running or a roof above my head. I have failed my writing that way for too long by refusing to liberate her from the shackles of ambition and self-doubt. Whether my words resonate with a single soul or fade into obscurity is of little consequence.
I am terrified though. Extremely terrified.
I am not sure if this silence, this decision, is not floated by self-erasure. I, after all, have a long history of life in the shadows. I am terrified that my invisibility will come at a cost. I fear that I'll be forgotten. That I will be a writer with no readers. That when the new album which is already done is ready to go up, no one will be there to listen or buy the books. I’m terrified that I am and will be a failed artist. Most importantly, I worry I have lost my writer friends. The banter about “…have you read that…let’s write this…can you help edit this…” And you might wonder is that love or friendship? Yes, it is. We writers love words and love with words. When we love we gift words, we talk words, we call our friends and scream about words, that book we just read, our work that just got published, their work that just got published……etc. And now I worry not being an ‘active writer’ will get me left behind.
The truth is while I say I do not care I do. And I do not know what to do with this sort of ‘caring’ and fear. I do not know if the future of my dreams will be built by writing, by this love for literature I discovered in junior secondary school that was watered by heartbreak and strangers but I do know I no longer want to barter my sorrow or life for a like or £££. I know now that however therapeutic writing is, it is not therapy. And healing is more than being able to write about the wound. It is more than being able to look at the wound to investigate, scab, sore…. I don’t want to do that anymore.
Healing can mean many things and sometimes it’s forgetting the wound exists.
All these to say I do not know when next I will write you, but for the first time in over four years, I am writing and not thinking I hope this blows up so I can think of the many ways to monetize this page (not that there’s anything wrong with that if that’s your cup of tea).
A Poem I listened to today at least a dozen times and cried:
See You Around,
CJ.