vetiveroil

July 27th, 2026 Lately I keep finding myself bracing for something to go wrong, and when it does, I always ask myself: What did I do? Is there a blindspot somewhere? Am I not seeing what others aren't seeing and maybe that's why I just leave a bad taste in everyone else's mouth?  You were kind, and warm, and somehow by the end of it all, I turned you cold as ice, and I'll never know why. Or how.  What did I do? I thought I was putting my best foot forward. I thought I was being my best self, and somehow even that didn't stop the stench from hitting the back of your throat.  I think I was putting on my life vest, and maybe I elbowed you in the process.  I stopped afterwards to see that you were okay, but by then, it didn't seem as though you wanted to speak.  I tried to show you that it was an accident, but you'd stopped listening to me by then.  Am I such a rotten girl that I could convert a friend into a bitter foe unknowingly?  Could it be that I hur...

​July 18th, 2026 Last night, as the cough medicine started kicking in, and my eyelids started getting heavy; I started drifting into a fantasy.  It was evening time, we were together in Amsterdam.  I had my back against the railing. Behind me, the water was sparkling from the moonlight above. You leaned in and wrapped your arm around my waist.  I leaned in, and kissed you. It was just us two for a moment, on this planet.  Our planet.  I ran my hand up and down your chest, and your shoulders, and took in the fabric of your shirt. The smell of your skin. I ran my fingers through your hair. You held me close, and I felt myself melting in your embrace.  Cheek against cheek, I just took it in. You and I, entwined by the water. I wish we could stay that way forever .  A lovely evening in Amsterdam, indeed. 

 February 28th, 2026 Today I remembered that tiny piece of the island I was born on.  I remembered my grandma. I remembered being rocked to sleep on a late afternoon on my dad's lap. How his voice hummed and his heart thumped, and his anxious tics served as a tonic to make me fall asleep.  I remembered the taste of black coffee hit the back of my tongue.  How it felt to eagerly await the arrival of my aunty who always brought me a pink and white sachet of  Pistache grillée .  I remembered my red and white uniform dress. My classmate Coralie . How my father used to hold my hand tightly as we crossed the streets of Champ de Mars .  I remember tiny statuettes of the Neg Mawon for sale, carved from wood and dipped in black lacquer.  I remember the time my grandma took us on a pilgrimage, and how foreign it was ride a donkey .  I remember tiring myself out and lying on the tiled corridor floor in our house.  Colored pencils scattered about, ...

​February 18th, 2026 In our little loft... Our sanctuary, our sacred cocoon of shared devotion. I like to imagine that I am sitting in your lap, caressing the back of your neck, running my fingers through your locs with your hand in my lap, your arm around my waist.  I like to imagine we’re in our garden, watching a sunset with our limbs entangled.  It’s quite cozy in our little loft.  It smells faintly of freshly burned incense sticks.  The humidifier is running, rose and ylang ylang wafts the space.  Traces of you, and me, and us scattered throughout. You and I coexist in it beautifully - like two toddlers engrossed in their respective tasks.  We parallel play, LOL.  We just get one another, without a word.  Your moon is in Cancer, mine Taurus .  My  venus in Cancer, yours Virgo.  We just click. You’re the button I loop around.  You slide your hand around my waist, pull me closer, and we connect momentarily. Without a word,...

 January 25th, 2026 I hid when I saw you Because I was afraid And enthralled all at once And I chose the cowardly out: Hiding.  When you first came near, I stayed It didn't feel threatening But when I looked into your eyes  And I saw how deeply I could look into them I braced I braced for what I had grown accustomed to: The drop,  the disrespect,  the disregard,  the death by a thousand and one cuts You know, the relationship stuff . So as soon as I felt that warmth flooding my chest, it felt scary And so I hid.  I guess that says everything about me, doesn't it? That I flee when you come close, but stare at you with contempt when you stay back.  I want you close, I just can't reconcile The person I see when I'm hurt and the man I see when I'm craving your touch.  I kept saying how much I wanted you to come in , To sit on the windowsill and people watch with me. But I've never had the courage to invite you in. I keep leaving the door ajar beh...

 December 14th, 2025 On Friday, I took home my desert rose. Work didn't feel like the right place for it anymore.  Truthfully speaking, I've been neglecting it. Frayed leaves, mineral build up all over the rim of the pot, Underwatering some weeks, low sunlight on most days. Where now, do I put this living thing? I used to have a clear place for it, A place with lots of sun, and close to me. Now, it seems like no matter how much I move it,  I just can't give it what it needs.  My precious little desert rose.  You fed me all Summer.  With your pretty pink blooms, And elegant caudex, And shiny waxy green leaves. I just don't have a good place for you right now.  I'm hoping to figure it out soon. - vetiveroil

 November 23rd, 2025 Is my life starting to revolve around food again? It's because I've become lonely and afraid again, isn't it? I'm uncertain about a lot, fearful of it all. School? Work? Men? Beauty? Desirability?  Why isn't therapy working for me lately? Why do I need the validation to feel human?  To feel like a whole person, instead of a fraction of one. I've come really far in my relationship with my body, But all I can think about is how to drop these last thirty pounds.  And how my breasts no longer look how they used to. And how my ass is shrinking.  And how I can't actually let anyone in until I look the way I want to. The way I'm supposed to. And how not to regain.  I guess my vanity is a proxy for connection.  I want to be beautiful. I'm working on looking my best everyday, That way I can't be rejected again, And if I am, I can be certain it wasn't because I failed to look good enough .  I'm struggling a lot to figure ou...

​ November 11th, 2025  My home is spacious.      With soft sheep's-wool rugs, Warm overhead lights, An intricate hand-meshed mosaic at the entrance floor, My home is heated with love . My home is safe.  My home has depth .  Character.  Everything in it was intentionally chosen . My home has beautiful wooden doors, like those found in Zanzibar.   Console tables cut from petrified wood.  I have a garden full of terracotta pots and blooming plants.  I can ask for anything I want in my home.  I can ask for my needs to be met, I can ask for support to be extended, I can ask for affection to be provided, and I can share that warmth back.  My home is fueled by  ritual  - I practice them with intention, because they give me  meaning . My home smells like vanilla, and sandalwood, and vetiver, and star anise.  I play with my cat and my rabbit.  My home is filled with friends who love me.  My friends are kin...

November 9th, 2025 Pick me. Like I picked you . In a room full of people, look for me first . Memorize the tone and varying inflections of my voice, Memorize every speckle in my eye, Refuse to forget how the scent of vetiver sticks to my skin, Think of me before you drift off to sleep, Think of me while you work,  Ask me about my feelings, See me as a person, not just an object of desire, Be curious about me,  Prod at me, even when I am reluctant to respond, Lean in , even when I lean away at first, Initiate touch, even when you're unsure.. _ Am I asking too much of you? Have eyes only for me, Like I am unique and not just nice to look at , Sit with me, even in the heaviness of my silence, Don't flee when I ask you to be honest,  Come into my home when I invite you, It's just me in here, but make yourself at home, Notice the effort I put into it, Care about the things I ramble about, Watch this documentary with me, Look out of this massive window with me, Don't prete...

 November 9th, 2025 It hit me like a ton of bricks today that 2026 is a mere 53 days away. That's more than half of the decade I've lived through, Next Summer, that'll be half of my twenties I've gone through,  I remember being eighteen, just leaving the town I "grew" up in,  The town that I refused to make a home out of,  I felt at that age that I was just on the precipice of my life.  Telling myself that made the negative experiences so much more bearable - I could accept those circumstances if I felt I had a chance to overcome them. Today, I asked myself if I'd lived at all. I know I've been alive , but I do not think I've lived at all. It made me feel sad, because I feel as though I've been forced into a house I didn't build. A house I didn't agree to inhabit.  For the past six years, I've been going through each room, finding so many locked doors,   I have no keys, I'm just going door to door trying to see what opens. It d...

September 13th, 2025 I figured I must be hallucinating, I got on the train back home this evening, and on the other end of the train car stood someone who was a spitting image of you. Down to the side profile.  I was starstruck, and kept trying to imagine the irony in it actually being you. I kept staring at the poor guy, trying to make out the differences I could spot from far.  Relief and disappointment filled me up when I realized it wasn't you. Relief, because I don’t think I’d muster up the courage to say anything, I don’t really think I’d have the words. Everything feels too casual and heavy simultaneously.  I thought about how much it meant to me that we crossed paths. How it destabilized me at first, because I wasn't really prepared for what that sort of thing when we first met. In fact, I was still hiding from myself (and the world). Anyway.. I'm hoping that we'll meet again, and that I'll have the bandwidth to learn you more without getting whisked away...

September 8th, 2025 ♦ I'm thinking of you I'm thinking of you Thinking of you Why can't I tell if you're into me? I'm on nine, you're on five Been away for a couple of weeks Could be more 'cause I lost track of time Driving on the wrong side thinking of you On the tenth floor, thinking of you And it isn't like me to be insecure Oh, what have you done to my mind? Oh, oh, wanna be with you, wanna be with you Oh, my God, I'm a mess Boy, you got to me, got to me You know you got to me Try to forget about you, with no chance I wasn't looking for romance Blue skies but I'm in the dark Waiting for someone to come pick me up Uuh uuh, oh, oh, I'm thinking of you, I'm thinking of you Uuh uuh, oh, oh, I'm thinking of you, I'm thinking of you I'm thinking of you I'm thinking of you In the hills with the windows down, Telling me he wants to show me around He knows somebody with the fancy house On the playlist, soon to be famous He ...

August 11th, 2025 “Mercury is the planet associated with communication, expression, and cognition. It's also thought to influence how people think, talk, and understand things, and can affect learning, curiosity, and the ability to communicate.” ✶ I used to like it when we were together.  There was a time when you understood me better than I understood myself. That touched me so deep, because I was used to being misunderstood, rejected, left out.  When we were together, it felt like that was all I needed.  Y ou were peering into my soul, and I was naked, raw; unashamed. Today I woke up, and you weren’t next to me. Laughter has gone quiet.  Brazen attempts just feel foolish now. You’re peering into me; but it’s no longer my soul you’re seeing. 8/11/24.

June 6th, 2025 The first time I ever saw my father as a boy I was twenty-two years old.  The beauty of life is in how subtle it all is. How we can trek between realms without ever realizing it. For the first time in nearly a century, the sun has risen and set without my grandpa - my darling grandpa. I began to understand the preciousness of death - not just life. I understood that a husband, a friend, a father, a grandfather, a person had passed on.  The grief I experienced came from a place of understanding the weight of a life.  Today, I am honoring you among the ancestors.  On this table, I lay a wreath in your honor.  “Consider this – nothing is permanent. Someday, the place we call home will be emptied from the inside out...” - Noashin Ghanbari, Transient - vetiveroil

PORT-AU-PRINCE "Land of my mother's mother's mother.  Under the grace of the sun I sat behind my infant sister, watching her little hands touch.  The land where my grandmother's mother birthed 9 - and buried 6.  Where the soil is rich, and so is our skin.  T he place where I received my very first compliment. "une belle noire" - the streets where my father stopped to hold my hand as we made our way across the street.  Port-au-Prince..land of sweet, sweet fruit, fragrant ceremonies, and bitter fights.  You have given me so much, Port-au-Prince. I love you, and shall always return to you.  My dearest Port-au-Prince, the air of my very first breath still lingers in you.  Port-au-Prince,  I . Love. You. Art is vivid, streets are crowded, markets are loud.  You tickle every sense I have.  One day I was a girl in a red and white uniform.  Today I am becoming a woman in black.  All these years, I did not realize it was you that I...

March 15th, 2025 Wedding Parade In the heat of the daluka dreambeats, the young girls were casting charms, from kohl-lined eyes, where beauty felt at home.  Tonight, mother of the bride, we brought you our cream of the cream; palm fonds in our hands, a good omen for green times to come.  Virgins as soft as young plants, nursed in the shades for blooming time.  Rapture flying out of the drums, like flocks of birds taking to the sky, as the wedding parade gaily slid along the Nile bank.  We would catch rare glimpses of unguarded beauty, yet we never go beyond the limits.  Tonight, mother of the bride, we brought you our cream of the cream; palm fonds in our hands. A good omen for green times to come.  A proud community servant did the honors; carrying around the incense burner, barefooted, in the brisk steps, all smiles, he warmly welcomed the parade.  An elated old woman recited warm-hearted verse, her voice underdulating, recalling past glories, the gi...