Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Excuse me while I reel though the protocol of addressing all the persons in the room.

The distinguished members of academic and administrative boards of the University of the West Indies; a principal I have only seen once; a dean I have only ever heard of in passing and countless other ever so important officials- good afternoon. Good afternoon to the distinguished members of the Guild- a student model of the Jamaican government with disappearing funds, lack of accountability and the like. The Guild, a body, which after countless town hall meetings, managed to invest time, publicity and of course money into every trivial thing but in the same breath, seemed to overlook something as minimal as decent, clean and adequately equipped bathrooms.

To the lady in the Pentecostal length skirts who puts the air conditioning at 19 degrees, a frosty good...

It must be nice to feel so entitled
to so much of somebody else;
to somebody else’s body,
time,
affection,
attention.

Doesn’t it get overwhelming?
All this entitlement?
Doesn’t it get heavy?
To walk around knowing you have so much claim to that which isn’t yours?

Isn’t empowering to have the right
to police so much of somebody else?
Doesn’t it feel good to be able to talk a woman
and feel righteous indignation when she doesn’t give you the response you’re entitled to?

How amazing so much entitlement must feel.
I cannot relate.
As a woman I cannot relate to how it must feel to have that much entitlement over another human being.
Not when I have to fight for the right to my own feelings,
wants,
needs,
desires,
womb,
sexuality,
body.

A few weeks ago, at the pinnacle of the outrage in Jamaican society about the frequency with which women were being sexually abused, a young man in one of my seminars at university cracked what I’m sure he considered to be a ‘joke.’ After his tongue, hard palate, nerves and brain had collaborated arduously to gift the rest of the room with the phenomenon referred to as a rape joke, he was met with a odd mixture of nervous laughs, unbridled disbelief and outrage.

Truthfully, I wanted to spew forth every expletive I knew and bash them against his forehead until he registered that there was nothing possibly hilarious about rape but I remembered a time, not so long ago when I might have been guilty of doing just what he did.

Back in high school rape jokes were the wave. They floated around my Catholic all girl school with as much familiarity as discussions about cafeteria food, Disney...

One of the worst attitudes citizens can have in relation to their country is one that posits that taking care of it is the responsibility of somebody else. The notion that keeping Jamaica clean is the responsibility of the government or the NSWMA and not the responsibly of every single Jamaican is an attitude which has made campaigns such as “Nuh Dutty Up Jamaica” noble, but not as effective as they have the potential to be.

I remember walking around the campus of UWI Mona and reflecting on how much had been done to improve the green areas of the campus. I was a few steps behind a little boy who was walking and eating a zinger. To my shock, he removed the last morsel of his sandwich from the wrapper and just dropped it on the lawn without so much as a second thought. I stood there shell-shocked that he would see the beautiful lawn with the recently planted trees and blooming flowers...

I’m exhausted. Being a woman in this country is exhausting. I came home tonight to hear that the body of a young girl who went to primary school with my brother was found in a barrel. Processing that information took more than a few minutes. Processing that yet another woman lost her life and trying to come to grips with how viciously her life was taken and how terrifying her last few moments on earth must have been fatigues me.

Feb 6, 2017. A day slated for women and men alike to wear a black tshirt to show solidarity for the ‘End violence against women and children campaign"

Feb 5, 2017. A lovely evening spent discussing the choice to wear said black tshirt. In short, a night spent reiterating the fact that wearing a neatly stitched piece of black cloth would not end violence against women. Sensational nightly entertainment featuring Jamaica’s most brilliant minds coming to earth...

I’m a sucker for online surveys. I see them, especially the ones that attempt to explain my life and they just scream “pick me. pick me” and I fall for it every single time.
I took one of those random online tests today about the 5 love languages. My love languages are apparently quality time (I’ve known this) and words of affirmation.

The words of affirmation one really lick mi fi 6. Me? Vanessa Roseway? Expert mirror talker and positive affirmations guru? In need of affirmations from these men? LIES!!
Well, apparently it’s the truth. They said it on the internet folks. It’s true.

Lately I’ve been picking my life apart trying to figure out who I am, who and how I love and what I want. I’ve known that quality time is a craving I have, not just in romantic relationships, but with every kind of relationship I have. I like being around the people I love. Even if it’s just to engage in a...

Some memories I feel.
Their shadows crawl up like spiders
webbing their way across my skin
welling up in my stomach
sending swarms of butterflies
with wings so sharp they cut
making me bleed from the inside.
These memories
I want to forget.

I want to forget my childhood.
I want to forget moth balls in mirrored closets
bubbles and butterfly clips,
“I love yous” followed by endless lists of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’
I want to forget not wanting to eat
Not wanting to sing too loudly, or dance too wildly
or be too much.
I want to forget being forced into dresses and stockings
but being banned from nail polish and pearl earrings.
I want to forget
muted arguments and loud silences.
I want to forget stiff, stifling hugs.

I want to forget songs about socks
poems about chickens.
I want to strip myself of all the things I cannot forget
the unsaid words that fill my mouth like cotton.
the unreleased...

Today was the anniversary of Daddy’s death. I knew it was because it felt different today. I woke up and it felt like life was trying to fight its way out of my body. It almost felt like I was just now missing a limb that had been amputated long before. The grief came in waves and I lay in bed, unable to move even though I wanted to, paralyzed by a loss that I should have been used to by now.

My therapists lied to me. They explained grief like it was a computer program, with 5 executable, chronological and distinguishable steps. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression then Acceptance, they said. They lied. My grief was an unending blur of all of the above. Some days I felt more angry than depressed and some days I’ve fully accepted that he isn’t here anymore.

Now I was feeling a muted sense of anger and an overwhelming sadness. It wasn’t the sadness you felt when you lost your favourite...

Jamaica’s known for a lot of things. Lovely beaches, Bob Marley, one of the most vibrant twitter communities, wet t-shirts, great cuisine, the fastest taxis, the wildest parties and the funniest DJs, just to name a few. Our vices are just as colourful and range from a ridiculously high crime rate to an unshakable ‘informa fi dead mentality’ and the big one, homophobia. Jamaicans, for the most part, accept all our vices. Some might even say we laud them in the typical Jamaican spirit of “tekking bad tings mek joke.”

Homophobia is one of these vices. Jamaicans will sip beer, play dominoes and make idle chat and bawdy jokes about any other sin; tekking people man, brukking anada man foot, scamming, scaling walls to steal etc etc. The lyrics that permeate our musical genres include light, heart healthy commentary on topics ranging from cheating, political corruption and even murder...

The funny thing about leaving your comfort zone and learning to get comfortable elsewhere is that your life becomes one big, restless and uncomfortable blur. I’ve often heard horror stories about how difficult it is to say goodbye to a place you’ve come to adore. For me, however, saying goodbye to Europe wasn’t too difficult. What proved to be and still continues to be impossible, is the never ending period of adjustment that follows the end of travelling and returning home. After my 8 month sojourn in France, life in Jamaica, the other country I called home, became uncomfortable. Little by little, I started to notice all the things wrong with everything; with me, with my family, my relationship, my friendships. My life. The way I spread my bed began to grate on my nerves and seemed to be in need of a complete do over.

As a French language student, getting the opportunity to travel to a...