I've been inactive for so long! This is a charcoal drawing I did last month.
[Image Description: charcoal drawing of Black femme with short hair and hoop earrings underwater. Their eyebrows are raised and their left cheek is puffed out. They have a necklace in the shape of anatomical heart and are wearing a bikini top. There are white and blue bubbles coming from their mouth to the top of the drawing, the background water is also in color (blue).]
One thing that really bothered me while I was in the hospital was while talking on the phone with my friend, a nurse randomly walked over to me and put a thermometer in my mouth also put a blood pressure cuff on me. It just felt dehumanizing, she didn't even ask if that was okay to do at that moment. I was there for psychiatric care, so I wasn't on my cell phone (they take those away), I was using the public phones there, so that was like the only time I could talk to my friend. Also I wanted privacy :/
My college experience has been filled with very few good memories, mostly just racism and ableism from staff and students. I wanna design MRI's and microscope systems as well as come up with new brain imaging techniques. I feel like it would be beneficial to continue to a masters or PhD for that, but I'm not sure if I want to subject myself to those awful experiences again...
I was hospitalized in October for about a week and have an $8,000 bill. Im unislnsured so I have to pay it all my self. Im about $200 short or making rent and paying school and medical bills. No pressure, but if you could share or support, anything would help. Im not in contact with my family due to them being homophobic and transphobic, so I dont have many options for support.
[Image Description: Colored pencil drawing of two black femmes. On the right is black person with short green curly hair. They are wearing red lipstick, a black choker, and a blue sleeveless shirt. They also have plugs in their earlobes and a piercing beneath their lips on the right. The person on the left has long blue braids, dark blue lipstick, and a septum ring. They have gold rings and shells in their hair and are wearing a purple shirt. Behind them is a black flag and non-binary symbol made from a semi-circle sun. There is a yellow circle behind the person on the right, and the rest of the background on the right is purple and blue. There is a rainbow on the left with a puffy cloud and rain drops falling. Written beneath the clouds is, “We don’t need no ghetto Messiah]
[Image Description: pencil drawing of a black woman with her mouth open biting her pointer finger. She has long nails and big hoop earrings as well as a chain around her neck. The border of the portrait is pink, orange, and black. There is an array of paint tubes in a column to the left of the portrait, all different colors.
“But can't you even imagine what it must feel like to have a true home? I don't mean heaven. I mean a real earthly home. Not some fortress you bought and built up and have to keep everybody locked in or out. A real home. Not some place you went to and invaded and slaughtered people to get. Not some place you claimed, snatched because you got the guns. Not some place you stole from the people living there, but your own home, where if you go back past your great-great-grandparents, past theirs, and theirs, past the whole of Western history, past the beginning of organized knowledge, past pyramids and poison bows, on back to when rain was new, before plants forgot they could sing and birds thought they were fish, back when God said Good! Good!-- there, right there where you know your own people were born and lived and died. Imagine that, Pat. That place.” - PARADISE
[Image Description: purple watercolor colored pencil drawing of a woman facing her left with her eyes closed. She has a septum ring. There are black and blue dots on her cheek. The blue dots are drawn as if they're dripping blue. She has a green curly mohawk.
"Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them" - Assata Shakur