Thoughts of a minibus traveller

Afternoon of a Sunday which started with a lot of rain and there is a gathering of people to talk about  the right to dignified lives in Guyana.  Dignified life far from my mind as I choose a minibus with loud music so as not to be late - those of us who don't like noise often have to give in to those who believe noise with a deep pounding bass is part of the good life. But I choose my oppression for the short journey. Gays and the dignified life.. The Faculty of Law - University of the West Indies Rights Advocacy Project (U-RAP) j oined with Red Thread and other organisations to host the event. The constitutional challenge to Guyana's cross dressing laws provided the background to the discussion. In 2010, Candacy (Gulliver) McEwan , I sabella (Seyon) Persaud, Pheches (Joseph) Fraser and Angel Clarke with SASOD filed a constitutional challenge to the cross dressing laws in Guyana. In 2018, the Caribbean Court of Justice struck down the laws," stating “No on...

Breeze is cool , blowing on the skin as I sip from the large glass of a piece of the nice round lime squeezed into cold water.  The skin was full of sweat a half hour before as the body stretched and turned, part of the stretching and turning All of this about two hours after thinking I could not move, and after a period of barely moving through as the dense fog clouded the mind, and the stress remained in the lower back . August full moon. I watched the moon rise a few nights. The moon behind rain clouds and then in front. Beautiful.  There is no science I know. I thought I was doing okay, getting through day by day until I could not. Impotence raging and my thinking that this is it, you have no use for an erection and the universe has said to detach yourself from the useless things like the joy of doing nice work, and the pleasure from saying yes when requests coming instead of no's and the sense that I had some control over what a day would look like. So the moon,...

An egg fell out of Neem’s hands on the day he decided to write a short story. Neem had been thinking about Vyktr  when the egg slipped from his fingers.  Neem and Vyktr had known each other for 12 years -  a cycle of episodes when Neem and Vyktr were close to each other, sometimes even cuddling each other during the first three years, and episodes when Vyktr wanted nothing to do with Neem. Neem ended the happy episodes by asking Vyktr what he really wanted. Vyktr would then stop calling and talking to Neem.  Neem would then have imaginary conversations, quarrels sometimes, with Vyktr, rehearsing in his head how he would say no or try to be neutral with  Vyktr the next time they talked. The most recent break up had happened two days ago. The quiet crack of the egg interrupted the reinventing of the past and the creation of the what-if scenarios which were occupying Neem’s mind. Neem’s first thought was that the broken egg was a sign to repent from the...

Thoughts fighting with each other in the head and I nearly miss the two double hibiscus kissing and hugging up in the bright sunshine. Thinking of the loved one, of how loving nows, means leave the loved one alone, back off. Of the disconnect which has followed the brief wonderful connection and my inability to read the signs, of anger at wishing for a meaningful connection, nd then letting go of the anger to realise that 12 years later, that neither of us seem to break the cycle or imagine a new way of nurturing each other. Dear kissing flowers, love is on my mind as I look at you kissing and thinking that it was chance that the tree, today, put you together in the nice embrace and you join with each other to make another beautiful thing. And that you will die tomorrow , die like the connection which I thought possible. There are these two buds, standing apart, on the same tree.  The  buds will bloom , standing apart, but together on the tree which offers blooms ...

I am walking in Georgetown. Two women and a child are walking in front of me. I keep my ears open sometimes to listen to conversations, because I am often bored. I like  to hear  different languages, to pick up the language. I recognise some French, and what I imagine is Kwéyòl Ça va? I say and the women turn back and laugh.. Ça va bien.. they say. Pahlez Francais? one asks and I dig deep to find French words. I ask if they are from Haiti and they say yes, and they ask me if I am from Haiti and I laugh and I say no no .. Ne pas pahlez Kwéyòl I say, and they laugh as they ask me about how I know to speak French. I feel happy as I walk away that I could find use for the French I learned in school. I know, nuff people are coming to Guyana. My father in the private hospital draws smiles from the Nurses who he mumbles Hindi words to and from the doctors and one nurse who like him talking Spanish. A woman smiles and tells me Hola as I walk into a Chinese store and I won...