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Joy Imani Lackey

@joyimanilackey

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when you transition does the pain travel with you? by @joyimanilackey

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a year ago

beloved you are not obituary, not tombstone of hollow body etched across fields of yesterday
no
you see this place of shaking, splitting, erupting
yes
even decaying
is cosmos of new beginning
beloved you are not dying
you are where breath bends into light breaks into being and by great faith
you are here
still…
hoping
—

for me, depression is so easy to write about, it is comfy. safe. it really is a huge risk to hope. to believe. it is daring and so damn hard.
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but when i wrote this i wanted to be the type of person that believed. and what i found is change doesn’t start with belief but desire. a wanting. however, even that step is scary. bc with depression everything is washed in the colors of apathy and pointlessness.
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but i remember two years ago i used to repeat a version of this poem to myself, to find a way out of bed. i hung onto this. and slowly, very slowly (some would say too slow lol) it started to change something in me.
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it is strange how words can do that for me, idk if they do that for you. and i know this post doesn’t give a solution. but im not here to give solutions. i’m here to share in honesty. as a reminder to the low and lonely that i see you. and in many ways i am you. and that we can do this— together.
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im sorry that some days it hurts to continue. i’m sorry life can seem so lifeless. i’m sorry, i’m so sorry. but beloved you are not dying. you are here. and if you are here, hope is indeed within you.
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you got this. slowly, slowly. 🌱 by @joyimanilackey

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4 years ago

i was apart of a project today that put me in the room with a lot of prominent people + big personalities and i won’t lie there were moments of intimidation. and moments of ‘i’m too shy to do this, look at how talkative and direct they are— im not like that’ but in that moment something in me said ‘nah, you don’t have to be like that to do this work— you can be you, you are valuable just as you are…’

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and for the first time in 25 years i actually believed myself 😲. i’ve struggled for so long with being the quiet, weird one. and believed that was the bane of my existence and so i tried to change that part of myself. i learned tricks to seem more outgoing and legit would burn my social battery out trying to be ‘that girl’. but i’m not that girl. i am just me. and that is enough. and i am learning to see the value i bring to every single space i enter.

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i may not be the most boisterous person in the room but i am kind and gentle and passionate and clever and talented— i am quietly powerful. and i want to lean into that and see where it takes me. i can still impact the world in the ways i want with the leadership style i have been gifted. the world needs more gentle leaders and i believe i am that. and that’s on period aheheh

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what’s something you’ve been denying that you could start believing in? if you feel comfy let me know down below :) taken in Raleigh, North Carolina by @joyimanilackey

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4 years ago

This goes out to 16-year-old Joy, who truly believed no one saw her. What would I say to that tender girl? I’d share that to feel invisible is not to actually *be* invisible, even though it can seem all the same most days. I'd also tell her that hiding won't help the feeling, that sharing our honest selves is what opens us up to the joy of actually being seen. And best of all, i’d add, that I see her. I see her so well. Have you stopped to see yourself today?

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#aprilpoetrymonth #aprilwritingchallenge by @joyimanilackey

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4 years ago

allow 🍃 // i am allowed to be human. i give myself permission to be human. it is ok to make mistakes. it is safe to make mistakes. i will not get in trouble for making mistakes. i am safe. i am ok. i am free. by @joyimanilackey

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4 years ago

they cried with me last night, shared wine glasses of tears and told me that they haunt me out of hope that i might come to them one day, be with them, love them into the light.

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I used to think the haunting was a hex. but now i know it is a longing, a yearning for the darker parts of me to know light— to know love. by @joyimanilackey

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4 years ago

hi. it’s been a minute lol. but i was going through my camera roll the other day and happened upon this video i made about two years ago. the intent was for it to be a note to myself— and man what a reminder.

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i was healing from a lot of pain when i made this— fresh air had finally found my heart again—which was ironic because this was a month after COVID lockdown began. i made this because i wanted to remind myself that i would be ok. that despite the stuff that was suffocating me, i was still breathing.

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im sharing this because… idk i guess i want to help someone who feels like they can’t breathe, who believes the pain is all they are— it isn’t. and i know that’s an over simplification of the severe. but i promise there is fresh air. and even though i don’t have the answers to *your* how or where or why, i do know your body is breathing for you already; it is holding onto you despite all that has gone wrong…

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i hope you continue. and i know continuing is the hardest part and i know it hurts. but keep going, it is not in vain.

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and if you are suffering, therapy was one of the tools i used to find my breath again and maybe that could help you too <3 by @joyimanilackey

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5 years ago

“Babygirl, our freedom has not died. Death did.”

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Wrote this not long after finding out about George Floyd’s death. I couldn’t watch the video. Stuff like that is hard for me...

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Anyways, i wrote this because poetry always seems to say the things I’m too scared or confused to verbalize. I’ve had a hard time this past year abating depressive thoughts (i’m getting better at this tho!) and all this Black death has made me question if God would hold up his promise to protect me, or am i just hoping in vain...

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Even though i still have my hesitations, I think he’s made clear, that even in trauma, he has actively cared for me, protected me. Even in the midst of other’s violence and negligence he’s still fiercely loved me and fought for me— for Us.

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But most of all He’s reminded me that His healing is active. That the freedom of heaven can be experienced here and now, that healing can be experienced here and now.

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Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth, as it is in Heaven.

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Freedom is here and now y’all. He promises. So I pray to believe.

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Art by me, poem by me lol :) by @joyimanilackey

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6 years ago