It’s 2017, and the fever dream of limerence has faded. You grab your iPhone, open GarageBand, and, with your wired headphones, begin to process what the hell just happened. Little do you know, this is a cycle you’ll keep riding until 2024. Little do you know, this was a sign to PUMP the brakes—to try and save yourself from your greatest heartbreak at the hands of an Atlanta stud.

Cast Away in Waco

I REEEEEEALLY DON’T want to post some of these because *cringe* but this is an exercise in expression and exposure therapy for perfectionism. 

You’re visiting home – Zimbabwe – for the first time in a long time, and it’s not even your breakup with the girl you thought you would marry (and were budgeting to have a 100% biological baby with) that’s burning a hole in your soul. It’s the not quite, semi almost  – okay, the Limerence – your longtime frenemy and lover – fueled fever dream with a sadistic young man who lived in Azle, mixed with your other failed, semi-escalated relationships with cis men, that is (like there weren’t enjoyable and transparent situations you were a part of in undergrad). He told you she was just a friend that he wasn’t interested in but her lace set in his room said otherwise. So you’re home, overseas, and all you can focus on is the anger and frustration masking your heartbreak—a heartbreak born from ignoring red flags and not knowing what love is, a bold highlight of a pattern you’ll repeat over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Amarilli Mia Tortura

Looking back, I can appreciate Limerence for what it was—my attempt to connect with the world in a way that wasn’t truly what I wanted. It had me idealizing a person and our situation instead of truly knowing them, throwing around ‘I love you’ as I drifted from situationship to failed relationship. Drunk on the feeling of being deemed worthy because someone chose me, I mistook infatuation for something deeper and kept chasing it – till the wheels fell off and then some.

But I don’t blame the people I was involved with. In the end, I was the one who could have sobered up and made different choices.

Limerence

5’8” and a perfect smile—a fragrant, flowery whirlwind that should have jump-started my self-love journey, my journey to self. But I didn’t know the difference between avoidance for self-preservation, self-love, and self-respect.

I wrote this song in that space, three months after she and I broke up—an ode to selfish self-preservation masquerading as self-love because I was missing a key ingredient: facing myself. Facing myself and loving who I am as I am, acknowledging my pain and needs, and stepping into my own masculinity. Accepting myself —not waiting for someone else to give me value or meaning. To boldly choose my dreams and ideas instead of doing what was asked of me, even if it meant going in a completely different direction than the one I had forged for myself.

That’s right: I take full responsibility for my failings in all my relationships, regardless of what my former partners did, because I could have been fr and said, I love you and want this, but this isn’t aligned and doesn’t work for me.

Confession: I still love JND, and despite it all, I’d take her back (it doesn’t hurt that she came clean and apologized). Is that foolish? Maybe. But it’s my choice to make.
Would she take me back? I don’t know—I no longer identify as female, and she loves her femmes. But who knows? Things could be different now.
Regardless, I’m not dating until 2027 😝

Self-love is best love

IMPERFECT, UNHINGED, POST PROCESSING PROJECTS.
EXPRESSION FOR EXPRESSION’S SAKE. 

All my projects are the product of me releasing and expressing. If I’m posting it, I’ve processed it, and moved past it. Take what resonates and leave the rest.

IVRY