You Will Not Be Punished For Your Desire

Wild, Wild Sunflower Child I Got You

Flying in the field 
in the greening of the morning.
Anna drifts,
Anna glides,
Anna's arms open wide 
for the sun rolling 
sky falling.
It doesn't. Anna does.
Dizzy, tizzy Anna.

My earliest memory was the sound. The whip would come much later. The whip and the sound, a mix of high and low vibrations. Caught eyes in the promenade of a HBCU down south and here I am. Trying to remember Desire, that nine year old girl who was never spoiled because the rod was never spared. I’m trying to remember her. What was she like before the whip? Did she like poetry? Did she allow herself to cry at the sight of a butterfly? What stories was she writing in her mind without fear of sharing them? What was her favorite color before blue? 

I’m going to try to trace all the way to the beginning for her and her only.

Who else will? 

Her earliest memory is the sound. It looked down on her and sang sweetly. It sang her name again and again in a living room with white furniture, pink carpet and low light. Was this heaven or home? She was drifting to sleep as if this act of love was a ritual invented for this exact reason. She allowed herself to drift from time to time in the arms of the sound. When possible, she would learn to rest there and was grateful it never abandoned her. There is so much mercy to be found in these contours. 

Digging in the garden 
kneeling on her knees, 
leaning on her elbows 
whispering to the seeds.
Anna sifts the soil 
lightly through her fingers.
Anna talking, Anna walking
sunshine.
Grow, grow
grow in the garden Anna.

Now the whip was more complicated. More scientific. And I couldn’t understand why it wanted to hurt me so. Just so. I tried to run but the room was so small. There was nowhere to go. I was always naked but never caught by surprise. My hyper-vigilance stayed on top of the movements of the whip. Where leather met flesh, where cattle met clay. Where there was nowhere to go so she began scaling the walls looking for a way out. Stretched across the ceiling is where she lived most days. Keeping watch of the whip’s every move. 

Her body became an afterthought. A thought she would frequently leave behind. She would watch herself float away at dinner tables and skating rinks and playgrounds and dance recitals and recess and sleepovers and cookouts and bus rides and field trips and classrooms and grocery stores and hair salons and road trips during long car rides up north and everywhere. She wouldn’t go far, just far enough to get a better view. Scanning every landscape for every possible threat. There will be no surprises. 

I played it safe until 2020, that’s when I learned my childhood trauma was keeping me away from her. Away from Desire. Her data corrupted in the memory of my body. What was she like before the whip? Did she like poetry? Did she allow herself to cry at the sight of a butterfly? What stories was she writing in her mind without fear of sharing them? What was her favorite color before blue? The trauma obfuscated certain parts of the story but it couldn’t erase the fact of her. An inextinguishable fire. A figment that found form. This little girl was real and I became determined to gather her up in my arms and sing her name.

Anna climbs the hill 
and keeps on climbing.
Up, up, up a tree 
that turns into a ship.
Captain Anna stands on deck 
sailing to a new world.
Brave, bold Anna.
High in the air, 
tall please don't fall Anna.

Whether you’ve had the want whipped out of you — by caregivers, by schools, by jobs, by lovers, by the state, by the church, by the death, my god, there’s so much death — it’s never too late to trace a map back to your childhood and try to remember your Desire. That furry little kid in the haze of your memory, that wild, wild sunflower child¹ determined to live. You go back looking for them. Their name is Desire and you say it again and again until you finally locate her. You remind her, “you will not be punished for who you are, Desire”, “you will not be punished for being Desire”, “you will not be punished for being you”.  

You gather her up and whisper ever so gently, in the calmest, kindest voice you can invent, again and again, as many times as she needs to hear it: i got you, i got you, i got you, i got you, i got, got, got, you, you, you.

Swaying trees 
blowing breeze
whistle kissing Anna.
Humming skies 
closing eyes
golden flower lullabies.
Anna warm
Anna cradled 
in the glowing 
of the morning.

---

🌱 Seeda School News

🎙️ The podcast For the Worldbuilders returns next week on Thursday and I couldn’t be more excited to embark on this new episodic journey with you! Over the course of 9 episodes we’re going to cover reclaiming our power, disrupting perfectionism, interdependence as a source of creative permission, what to do when there’s nothing left to do but the work, channeling audacity into iterative action and so much more…

🌳 In the meantime, tomorrow inside the Treehouse we will gather for a Creative Dispatch Open Studio where we will share our newsletters, podcasts, videos, posts, sketches, maps, experiments, research, etc. We will reflect on the ways our creative dispatches can expand our capacity to feel, express vulnerably, face our fear and call in our desires for our practice, our life, our world. Open to current Treehouse members! See you tomorrow at 12pm EST.

1. All of the poetry blocks and book spread scans in this love letter are pulled from Wild Wild Sunflower Child Anna, the first book I can remember reading (or being read to me) and loving as a child. Originally published in 1987, the book was written by Nancy White Carlstrom and illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. You can find a story time reading of Wild Wild Sunflower Child Anna with Miss Valadez here and book scans from the Internet Archive here.