January thaw

I swear there's only two more months left of winter left. My parents call it the January thaw. It's been raining and above 0 degrees the last few days. Canada gets less brutal. I stacked up a pile of zines that my friends made for me and put them in a pink crate at the end of my sofa for easy access. I purged the shit out of my place, giving Ginger 4 garbage bags full of clothing and shoes, bras and bathing suits. I like leaving and saying goodbye the best.

Blackness

I think I'm Black. If I were a Black girl, would I be Nigerian? Ethiopian? I choose Somali. That's my favourite African-American culture. Once, Rima told me a white guy asked her to dance at the bar and when she said no, he called her the n-word. So she got her cousin to stomp his face on the curb. 

Mantra

Self-care, focus and boundaries are my mantras for 2026.

Crime__view/Pineview

U smell like purple flowers. The ambulance is close-by. I pace the hallways of our haunted house and wonder, if this is the last time I'll see you alive, if I'll kill myself. Suddenly, Vanier seems scary and mean. Suddenly, I don't seem so tough. It's 11:30 pm at night, half an hour away from when we were supposed to start partying again, and you don't seem so alive. 

It's me who's different this year because my bf isn't here and I'm alone again. I think of his ex, somewhere in Blackburn, struggling without thinking about me or where he's touching me. She never has to be jealous again. I think about my belongings and how I own them now, how he could never give away my stuff again. I hope it's worth it. 

He chain-smoked. He smoked in my house. I told him we can't smoke in here but I opened the windows for him nonetheless, I let him do whatever he wanted to. I can't stop myself from thinking about him today on his deathaversary, like that, with his chain around his neck, dead.

Chief Keef

At Broadway, my old cook Georgie, this big, fat Black guy, used to play this song on repeat and make neighing horse noises at the hottest servers. It was not at me at the time. He’s dead now. What I remember about my dead ex-coworkers is that they were nothing short of hilarious.

2026

What changed? I'll tell you. I changed. I got smarter and faster this year. The first day of the year is today and I'm at work, serving the restaurant by myself. I'm pretty sure I was waitressing when you were born. I've never been more concerned with numbers, letters or words. I've never been more focused on myself and my career and my side-hustles and my businesses. The business of my body. Making it work for me.