You Can See Something With Your Unborrowed Eyes ...(Longthroat Memoirs - Yemisi Aribisala)
With Greg Philipi, Dennis Da-ala Mirilla, Vanessa Walters, Jennifer Nicole, Joseph Adeiye, MK Malaika, Haroon Khan, Isaiah Weekes, Gemma Weekes - May 18th, 2021
You can see something with your unborrowed eyes…
YOU CAN SEE SOMETHING WITH YOUR UNBORROWED EYES!
You can also see with your fingers and you can see with your smile but it’s your eyes that bring the world to your doorstep. Bobby sat on the front stoop with his last dollar, four quarters he’d palmed tightly, until his sweaty hands forced him to put them back in his pocket. Bobby wanted to remember this moment. He wanted to be certain that the events that would follow, would be forever burned into his memory. Bobby stood up and walked down the street. Sirens, car horns, jackhammers, and voices filled the air but Bobby heard none of them. He held one thought close and that thought was how he’d spend the last of his money. He felt lucky. It was more than a feeling. It was indescribable. He knew that he was lucky. As he entered the deli the man behind the counter recognized him and knew he’d come to buy a lottery ticket. I’ll take one. Reaching into his pocket he pulled the quarters out and put them down on the counter, his lips pursed in a sly smile.
by Greg Philippi
You can see something with your unborrowed eyes…
It was clear as day, she saw him with her own eyes, and here he was, denying again. When they newly got married and he cheated the first time her mother told there that man will be a man and that she should look the other way and not be disturbed by his misgivings.
But she wasn’t that type of lady, the one who looked away. She cared even though she sometimes wished she could be like Amaka, who worked at the women’s magazine on the third floor and wears a shirt that says PATRIARCHY MET ITS MATCH, and still, somehow didn’t care. When I told her I was getting married she asked with a straight face “to a man?” Almost surprised. “A man will just never make you happy,” she said. I shrugged her off because I thought he was different. We all think ours is different but he is after all just a man. Just another man.
By Dennis Da-ala Mirilla
You can see something with your unborrowed eyes…
“It’s not that I have to show you is it?” she said. “You can see for yourself and make up your own mind.” It was a trick of course. I didn’t trust her. Her eyes, large and glassy, bored into me. She almost seemed to be laughing inside, behind her pursed pink lips and stare.
It was a no-win situation playing with her like this or allowing myself to be played with. She was the cat and I was the mouse she poked at with her artificial talons.
It was the power dynamic. It went from Daddy to the male children from his former marriage and then to her and her children and then to me. “Don’t worry about it too much,” Daddy had said once. with a smile. “Your time will come.” What time? I wanted to ask but he had hurried off to do what men do.
By Vanessa Walters
You can see something with your unborrowed eyes…
An Egyptian goddess sees her power, stepping into a new world. A visionary queen, dancing with life, while walking into her soul mission in this life. Her third eye is wide open like the Queen she is. Her divine feminine is active and she begins to see herself again. Her soul and her inner child laugh once more like it did when she was younger. Black queen cracked open. Meditating on the sunset, her unborrowed eyes sees her Ascendent masters and ancestors cheering her on time and time again. She’s a different woman now, she’s not just the catalyst of change. Oh no she is the change, and the hope that people have been waiting for.
By Jennifer Nicole
You can see something with your unborrowed eyes…
Unborrowed eyes ,… borrowed from who ?
My postman who sees me every morning
Or my neighbour who asks how I am?
What do I tell her ?
The truth of my undermining colleagues.
The truth about my bully of a boss
I’m okay I say.
But as I look up at the sky, the rain that beats my brown coco skin represents how I feel.
Trapped but dying to be free.
Who am I really ?
Am I the person they see?
Or am I what the trees see? Am I really one with Mother Earth, mothering others but forgetting myself ?
Unborrowed eyes, you say? But borrowed from who?
By Jennifer Nicole
You can see something with your unborrowed eyes…
You can finally see with your unborrowed eyes when you’ve reclaimed your soul. I realized this after the Sultan died. He had been my father, my lord, and my god. He catered for me and directed me. For I had nothing and knew nothing. I would have seen nothing in life if not for him. The Sultan’s salvation offered me and my 42 brothers a new vista. But that’s all gone now. I have reclaimed my soul, and I can see how empty it really is.
By Joseph Adeiye
You can see something with your unborrowed eyes…
We’re
in a car, no, maybe a plane...
umm no maybe your brain... 🧠
Mmm maybe our brain?
Mummy mummy
I see with my little eye that I can fly
I see with my eyes that YOU can fly
I see with your eyes WE can fly...
Mum
Can I ask you ...
can I ask you a question please
Yes my darling, I’m your mummy of course you can ask me ...with EASE
Mummy I really want to know why?
Can I PLEASEEEE borrow your eyes to see what’s in your eye?
I want to SEE WHY?
I WANT TO KNOW WHY?
Mummy
We don’t have to talk about it because I can already see
Through your closed doors, what you feel, what you hear
Especially for me...
But mummy what about those who can’t see?
those that can’t ACTUALLY see....
would they let me feel what they feel?
Would they let me be in their shoes just for a moment...?
adult me :
What do you see Malaika?
Do you want me to say what I really see ?
Or what I feel ?
You choose.
OR Do you just want to listen to my interpretation of your imagination which is YOUR your beautiful creation your extensions of Your dimensions?
I want to eloquently SHOUT
“Your mind is SO beautiful so expressive SO colorful SO stimulating !”
Thank you for this transforming illustration
I finally tell my mother all this in my her sleep.
By MK Malaika
You can see something with your unborrowed eyes…
Love With Precision
You can see something with your unborrowed eyes
But only if you choose to
Filtered vision
Often the easy choice
in a world full of distractions
Strolls in my local park
take on a new dimension
Walking past plants
i notice multiple hues
Nature’s billboard
Photosynthesis meets technicolor
I took on a lover
She chooses to see with unborrowed eyes
I observe her observing
My child-like wonder finally restored
Peace
By Haroon Khan
You can see something with your unborrowed eyes…
Tick Tock
Tick Tock… Tick Tock
My eyes open but remain unseeing. My mind running. My body in a state of rigor mortis.
“A-am I dead,” I say aloud, terrified.
“No, but you will be.” A being hidden in shadow responds in a warped tone as if covered in a distorted mask. A thud assaults my eardrums, way too loud to be human.
A fuzzy hand swipes across my face, snapping my eyesight back into focus. Before me stands a hulking man, his head replaced with a clock the size of a coffee table. A thousand hands are held in place by sore red flesh caked in blood. His clock head rears back, the hands spinning faster, distorting time.
My eyes snap open.
I rise from my bed with a scream, panicking and looking around my room. Like a lullaby I say to myself over and over: “just a dream… just a dream…”.
My heart slows as I fall back to sleep, praying to every god I can think of that I never have to see that… thing ever again.
But in the distance, far, far away with a twisted glee none would really associate with such a benign sound. Tick Tock… Tick Tock.
By Isaiah Weekes, 14
You can see something with your unborrowed eyes…
You can see something with your unborrowed eyes
that you could never have seen before
you belonged to yourself
while you were still puppeted
by old fears and the emptiness of others
while you borrowed the idea
of yourself from a world that
didn’t see you.
You had to smash that mirror
use it to cut yourself free
from the bonds that fractured you.
You’re the same height, but taller
You’re actually where you are
in your own beating heart
in your strong legs and open throat
liberated from the past
the tangle of your head.
So when you see him
you really see him and
he really sees you
it’s a Saturday and you
are pleasantly fizzed
all over your face and
laughing at okay jokes because
it’s good to laugh.
Somehow at the end of the night
you get into a conversation about books
ones you love
the ones you are writing
His eyes are the sound wine glasses make
clinking together in a toast
This is a new story
right at the beginning
You have stolen yourself back
from all the stories you told yourself
that weren’t true
By Gemma Weekes