Love, Poetry, and InnerG Alchemy

Welcome to mid-May’s astrological archive of reflections on embodiment and art.

This last moon cycle, I used my personal innerg alchemy to sustain me and to keep me in my poetic, creative lane. I’m meditating on the binary of victimhood versus power and trying to carve out my own space in the middle where I’m simply free. I don’t want to overpower or outsmart. I don’t want to offend or defend. I don’t want to convince or cajole. I want to be free to receive, free to have and keep, and free to give away. These resonances echo innergetically from my religion deconstruction to entering a love affair with money and figuring out how to create more consistent presence and longevity with male lovers and girl friends. I made beautiful art that I’m really proud of while navigating elongated tension and difficulty with a lover. I was meaningfully supported in surprising and gratifying ways that made me reflect on the love I haven’t appreciated in the past as well as the love I’d like to call in.

As with every moon cycle, I come back to these three lenses: Reflect. Recalibrate. Refine. Let’s get started:

Reflections:

Submissions:

Last full moon, I wrote “During the rest of April, poetry month, I want to focus on editing and updating older fragments. I want to submit to other publications. Every day I see contest announcements and open calls. I know I have been hesitant with this because I am my own biggest critic. I also get overwhelmed by the amount of poems I’ve written.” I wrapped this all up into four submissions, three partnerships, and a major poem edit that turned into a powerful performance.

• submitted to and published in a Mother’s Day EZine for BlackStack

• submitted for an Afrofuturism residency

• submitted to have my books sold in a local bookstore

• submitted to a very lucrative Black book prize

• partnered with Black Storytelling Week initiative

• partnered with my friend Jabee to create an exciting Norman Music Festival experience

• edited “Resistance Anthem” poem and performed the “Resistance Remix” at NMF. Also purchased professional video footage of the performance.

A Little More in Depth:

Here are the key takeaways from this past moon cycle:

• Sinners - I have loved everything about my experience with this movie! I went from having never seen a trailer to seeing my Guatemala Black WhatsApp chat plan to see it together. I went from IG and Threads photos of Michael B. Jordan in red and blue, to having a guy (a twin) on a dating app spoil a line for me. I went from avoiding another group chat with discussion/spoilers, to seeing it alone on Friday 4/25 having no idea what I was in for other than the joy of Black art! I went in blind but loved the surprise of it because I’m very into vampire lore and obviously the griot/djeli conversation.

  • I saw it again on 5/5 and had a two-hour Mother’s Day zoom about it with group chat folx.

  • Now one of my top performing Threads is in praise of Delroy Lindo and I’m obsessed with Black Bookstagram’s reading lists.

    

• Met Gala poem - My outfit appreciation scrolling and sharing to IG stories began late Sunday night and carried through work Monday. I had also been watching the brand Every N****¹ Deserves (E.N.D.) tease and then roll out their Colored People Time campaign. When I saw Shaboozey’s turquoise grill, I reposted it in E.N.D.’s style and tagged their art affiliate saying: “Every n**** deserves to BE ART.” When I saw Khaby Lame’s vest decorated with a collection of pocket watches, and heard Brian Tyree Henry telling Blavity that our time to shine was overdue, I reposted Khaby’s photo and tagged E.N.D. with “It’s Colored People Time.”

  • Then on Tuesday, I saw Whoopi Goldberg, who been dandy, in her outfit that was so her and she had this incredibly huge full-face smile! I kid you not, I got tears in my eyes, seeing how happy and beautiful she is and how we were displayed in so much glory. So I decided to write a poem, y’know, because that’s what I do. And it came out so good, and people responded with so much appreciation.

• Norman Music Festival 2025 - I had to give NMF its own post. What happened was too magical for a recap.

• Mother’s Day poem - Shoutout to

  Jacquie Verbal
  for always staying open to the influence of a vibe. Shoutout to
  Graeme Seabrook
  k for all her hard work. They invited BlackStack writers to share writings on the topic of motherhood whether good, bad, or ugly. I don’t speak about motherhood publicly because my late mother was amazing and my best friend, and I feel guilty for what she had to go through in order to mother me. I also have a beautiful, funny, athletic, super smart miracle of a kid that I didn’t plan on having. And even if people were lined up to give me gifts, I don’t like most gifts (send food). I also fully disapprove of the way the U.S. hates mothers (as evidenced by how normal it is for us to have no help). I was grateful to BlackStack to be able to submit one of several poems I have written that is about motherhood, but not in celebration. Just in reality. The EZine they curated is beautiful. Go read it.

  Motherhood: The Whole Story

• Stats - The numbers aren’t everything, but I’m noticing a few patterns. Here’s what stood out across my platforms.

  • 7 new Substack subscribers and 9 new followers

  • Last full moon’s Substack post

    • email open rate up 5%

    • about 20 more views than average, but not my highest

    • the same post on my blog, 13 views when the previous were zero (increase 600%).

      • site sessions up 57%

      • unique visitors up 67%

  • Met Gala poem post

    • Average views and open on Substack, not posted on website

  • Instagram - all NMF and Met Gala and poetry, thanks to other account shares

    • post views up 678%

    • profile views up 63%

    • external link taps down 67%

    • 21 follows, 6 unfollows

  • Threads - followers not moving much

    • 90 day views - 36.4K

    • 30 day views - 21.7K

    • 90 day interactions - 1,154

    • 30 day interactions - 534

    • I’m not mathy and Threads gives numbers not percentages, but it’s up. Sinners, MET Gala, and a little dating content.

I am proud of my work this moon cycle. I also know that procrastination is less and less sustainable as I age. The book prize submission really took a toll on me. I can’t figure out how to do business-related tasks without falling in to the cycle of hustling and overworking. The only idea I have so far is to space out:

• easy submissions that don’t require extras

• short/small submissions that will only take a couple of hours max

• hard, long submissions where I’ll need to dedicate multiple days of focused attention.

I’ll also have to limit how many I attempt in that third category. There’s one I’ve been thinking about that’s due May 29th. It’s calling to me and I’m already nervous about the deadline.

Refining and Recalibrating My Community Curation

What I know:

• My people - those I need to further call in and support and show up for and allow to show up for me - are wherever the art and writing is. Thank you to

  Durell Carter
  and
  Britny Cordera
  for showing me that during this moon cycle.

• My people are also the arts appreciators/supporters, but in different ways and for different reasons. Love you, Vineasa. More random phone calls please. Also, always Dr. BAE.

• My people are the radicals. Wherever they are doing something that looks or sounds sort of crazy but it’s working, that’s where I should be. Always shoutout to Mystery School led by Nefer Phoenix (and loosely affiliated with Jay, but not his babies).

What I’m trying to figure out:

• My reaction to the tension with my lover was too much. It’s a trauma response. I’m not self-deprecating; it’s just a fact. How do we heal our relationship trauma in a non-capitalist, overworking, task-oriented way?

  • Maybe we find what soothes our nervous systems and do that action with our loved ones.

• How do we make space to love and be loved?

  • I need to BE with people, physically and mentally as much as possible.

  • What are the barriers to being physically present with each other?

    • I imagine some of the biggest ones are kids, spatial/timing preferences (daytime, evening, weekend, park, bar, backyard), work schedules, and willingness.

    • What are the solutions to those barriers? The Village

It’s hard to form relationships during a hostile government takeover. Self care and community care are hard to implement when we’re all going through it.

Thankfully, we aren’t going to die physically, but we want to support each other into thriving mentally, emotionally, and spiritually with our people around us.

I thank you for being part of my online community here, on Ko-fi, IG, and Threads. I want more voice notes and video chats with those of you who already are or who want to start to transform out loud together. Wanna collaborate or bring me in for something? Send me a DM or email. Here’s how we can work together.

Thank you for reading!
Reflecting through the lens of #InnerGAlchemy,
Listening for #InnergeticEchoes,
Being My Own InnerG

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