All About Me

I wasn’t saved so much as I was found in a destruction I didn’t ask for and given a new identity to learn. You can call me Karen or Kae.
These days I’m 25 years old and more prodigal son than destined daughter. I'm from an orphanage in Kenya but that isn’t where I started. I began in the womb of an other who I never got the chance to call Mother. I was adopted. I am adopted. I think I mean to say I’m a bastard. Hell, I’m making a mess out of the life I still have.

I’m an artist by determination. I’m an athlete by craft. I’m a writer because I’m still trying to do right by infant me. The me, four pounds alone in a hospital. The me in the orphanage. The me who realised crying was futile in the face of pre-verbal abandonment when all you need is all you can’t have. I demand a witness.

I’ve been building an archive. I’m leaving a lineage.

I spent my first 4 years in Kenya. Then 7 in the USA. Then 7 in Kenya. And the last 7 moving 16 times. I think. I lose track sometimes. In fact, I lose a lot of things… ADHD, ya know? Late diagnosis and I’m still figuring it all out alongside the OCD, PTSD, and physical disability I gave myself in a self harm injury.

This is 25. And some months. I’m a fighter. I had to be. I’m not always proud of the ways I hit back in life but forgiveness is a prayer I’m practicing over myself. Love is a value I’m attempting to live out. And I follow the path of Black women before. I expand into my queerness and declare it as sacred.

I’m still in my sorrow. And yet I am also joy. Filled with belly laughs with friends, gentle conversations over matchas, cuddles with my dog, soft homes to land in, food on my table when I was empty, stolen kisses, check-in texts, books, community that sees me and decides on love.
This is me in all that I’m willing to give.
Thank you for being.