English 101: Notes from an Unexpected Teacher

A noun is a person, place, animal or thing.

A noun is a person. This person was a friend with whom I shared time and space, a friend who taught me lessons she will never know, a friend whom for now, I will leave nameless.

A noun is a place. The place is the toilet she went to after every meal like clockwork. A ‘meal’ could be a piece of candy, a bowl of cereal, a salad, it never really mattered. She would go in and turn on the tap, thinking it drowned out the sound: the sound of her liquid pain- her vomit.



A noun is an animal. A butterfly is what I hope she will evolve to become. She lived her days like a caterpillar, constantly searching for the things that were already in her. She was searching for wings, searching for beauty, searching for an array of geometric color.

A noun is a thing. There are the things she hid behind: like alcohol and the size 0 jeans that could no longer fit. There were the things only she could see: like globs of flesh where I only saw bones and skin. Call that thing dysmorphia*. A noun is the untangible things she wanted: things like love. Assurance. Acceptance. Stability.

It will always be my regret, that all that time I waited too long to tell her about the one thing that the English lesson of her life was missing-Adjectives. Adjectives are not as straightforward as nouns- they modify nouns.

I wish she knew adjectives like beautiful. Beautiful woman.

Loved. Even when not shown by the father who left her, the boyfriend who was never there. I wish she knew she was loved in unquantifiable ways by One who saw it all. Her vomit. Her pain. Her laxatives. Her tears. Loved woman.

Enough. Skinny enough. Pretty enough.

Beautiful enough loved woman.



* Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is psychiatric disease that causes several women with eating disorders to obsess about their appearance and see themselves with flaws they do not have. It is often called ‘imagined ugliness.’
**7 million women in America suffer from either Anorexia nervosa or Bulimia nervosa. 6% of those with serious cases die.
***A Nigerian study by two professors from the University of Benin found that 60% of girls studied between ages 13-17 induced vomit after eating meals and regularly used laxatives/diuretics.

Come...

Come. Come disrupt this world of earrings matched to shoes, of color coded files, measured spoons and ruled lines. Come bringing with you chaos, unbalance and untested theory.

Come like water, rejuvenating this throat parched with sense and sensibility. Come like star dust, sprinkling madness; signalling the return of a normalcy that never was.

Come be my tree that grows crooked, my car that speeds past the limits, my rich decadent indulgence. Come feel this heart beating, this soul aching to be freed of the accepted and expected.

Come be my Picasso, painting with unconventional brush strokes and irrational paint splatter. Paint rage, paint desire, paint animalistic, paint soft.

Come, and this time I promise to not seek immediate definition. Come and this time I will let heart roll out of tongue without pre-thought or post-fear.

Come like rain, quenching this burning; this desire so counterintuitive yet as natural as dessert sand. Come and grease this mechanical heart.

Come like hunger,
Come like fire,
Come, and

...stay...

Shades of Gray: Life from an Amateurs Lens

I have a thing for life's non-post card moments, for I am convinced that therein lies the truth.It is in these shades of gray, that the majority of the populace often color their existence. Sometimes my words are intimidated by the realities of these gray areas, so I am learning to drop my pen, and speak through my camera..

Home to the Eiffel Tower, and the homeless:










High Fashion:



Another Day, Another Euro:




“All I wanted was to connect my moods with those of Paris. Beauty paints and when it painted most, I shot.”
Ernst Haas



**Note: Please do not use any picture without my permission. Thank you!**