II - State of Insurgency
The poem below captures a journey of becoming, exploring the transformative power of art and the reclamation of self through masking. It delves into themes of resistance, rebirth, and identity through the traditional mas character, the Soumayree—inspired by Durga atop her horse as the bringer of war. In embodying Susilla Soumayree, I channeled an archetype of strength, transformation, and defiance.
Performed as part of the Jus’ So Jus’ So showcase at Big Black Box in September 2023, the piece was featured alongside the personal stories of eight participants who explored Carnival archetypes. Directed by Abeo Jackson and shaped by Tony Hall’s Jouvay Popular Theatre Process, the experience allowed me to see this portrayal as an extension of my own becoming.
In a self-imposed prison, I built my own world with art—painting on anything I could find, becoming many versions of myself, and learning my shadow as I worked atop black mirrors repurposed from discarded television screens. I transformed that prison into a pollinator’s paradise, alchemizing grief into growth through the sweet truth of sacrifice. Surrendering to becoming and playing the mas I once created in my reflections on mirrored canvas, this piece marks the beginning of me reclaiming my voice, commemorating five years of waiting for a criminal case in my name to reach trial. It is a declaration of reclaiming my life beyond the confines of my self-imposed prison and limits of the judicial system—confronting the challenges that remain and may always exist, while taking accountability for what I have done and what I am yet to do.
Being As An Act of Resistance
My life has been a series of almosts. Reaching, but never arriving. Striving, and only deriving there’s much much more left to do. Sometimes I find my way to flowering, still I find the floor before ever knowing what it felt like to bear fruit. My life has been a series of almosts, gradually accepting, that even when I do it all, I will fail at most. Still I fall higher and fly depper. The odds are the same. What have I got to loose?
But of the failures that only decided where I wouldn’t be, policies that prevented me, no regard for what I've done, no wonder for what I could do. And the futures decided for me, by the actions of others who didn't know their ass from their elbow, never realizing the potential of what I could really do. Still, all of them my own. My burdens to carry, but baggage I tried to leave alone. Some too heavy, rooted, retreating to rebirth. Some things I didn't have to take with me. Some, it was my responsibility to dispose.
My life has been a series of almost until I learnt to discern, not everybody chooses to return, but who would I be, if I forgot this place was once my home. My life has been a series of almosts until now:
Five Five Five in the morning.
5. The STage I was when I first felt fear for the police.
5. The number of stages there are in grief.
5. Amount of years I’ve spent revisiting the police station every week
Perhaps there are places and phases we are destined to revisit.Places that determine where we are but not who we will be. And maybe, there is another dimension of destiny to be ruled in the now. A tomorrow where our wildest dreams become a reality.
Five five five in the morning, it is dawn and I choose death. Death to the person I thought I was. Death to the person they wanted me to become. Death to all the things that must fuel this flame, a celebration of life though unlived, my wrath did not build this beauty in vain.
5. With five fingers on each hand and
5. Five senses to interpret a dream
I’ve burrowed, buried and built from the five elements of nature, to make it a reality. Inanimate but alive, if only just for now and just to me.
My life has been a series of almosts until I awakened into this nightmarish ordeal, to retrieve to believe, to learn how to grieve. Retrieve the dead me’s, and return their ashes to the sea. retrieve the me’s I would have become if I didn’t let somebody else choose for me. This morning I take it back, I claim my chance to be.
