pink sky, mesh shirt, keffiyeh on the straps. joy is not the absence of struggle. it’s what we carry through it.

#tiohtiàke #queerness #holdings #refusals #surfaces #traces

we lay down because they can’t.

this was a die-in. healthcare workers, gathered in the middle of the city, bodies on the ground for gaza. we were there not just as clinicians, not just as queers, not just as people trained to care— but as witnesses to a system that pretends to be neutral while choosing a side. we already knew that silence wasn’t an accident. we’ve seen it before—in the wards, in the media, in the funding reports. but still, there’s something about laying your body down on cold ground that makes the grief feel sharper. and makes the refusal feel real.

my keffiyeh wasn’t a symbol. it was a practice. a reminder. a commitment to name genocide where others equivocate. to be present when presence costs something.

the pink triangle on my chest traced a line back to act up, to queer resistance in the face of state abandonment. but this wasn’t about metaphor. this was about gaza. about children buried under rubble. about medics killed in white coats. about naming what we know, and what our institutions refuse to say.

i didn’t speak. i didn’t need to. sometimes protest is not what you say but what you don’t move to stop.

#tiohtiàke #refusals #holdings #blackness #queerness #traces #surfaces

we stood still when the sun disappeared. a crowd without urgency. no one tried to name it.

the air changed first— cold, metallic, like something was watching. then the sky, folding into dusk as if the day had given up early.

i didn’t feel awe. not exactly. more like a shared breath held too long.

some people clapped when the light came back.

but most just stood there. under bare trees. on stolen land. watching a hole in the sky remind us how small we are.

#tiohtiàke #walks #holdings #surfaces #fragments

sometimes being above it all isn’t about distance. it’s about breath.

the snow kept everything quiet. even the city below. as if the cold had pressed pause.

i wasn’t looking for anything. just letting the light reflect off the ice and the railing hold my weight for a minute longer than usual.

#tiohtiàke #holdings #surfaces #fragments #drift

a counter. a cortado. a book that doesn’t let you look away.

the sugar on the pastry barely held. like the light outside—thin, unsure.

i wasn’t reading to learn. not exactly. more like remembering with someone who already knew.

there are days when survival is this: coffee warm, pages open, grief in the margins.

#tiohtiàke #holdings #surfaces #fragments #blackness #drift

the sun was generous. the grass didn’t mind. but the quiet felt too practiced.

i spoke because not speaking would have been a kind of surrender. not to correct. not to clarify. but to stay present, even when presence felt like exposure.

#tiohtiàke #refusals #holdings #fragments #blackness #drift

no sirens. no slogans. just fabric, thread, and a sentence that refuses.

it didn’t need to shout. it just held its place. between shadow and sunlight, between the kids and the street.

not everything needs to escalate. sometimes you hang the banner and let it breathe.

#tiohtiàke #refusals #fragments #blackness #surfaces #drift

the crowd was gone.   the chants had faded.   but the sign was still in my hands.

i sat down for a moment   while i waited for the métro.

travailleur de la santé contre le racisme systémique not a slogan. just a fact i live with and sometimes fight through.

justice pour joyce   because grief doesn't end   when the protest does.

#tiohtiàke #drift #refusals #blackness #fragments #holdings

summer 2020.   a balcony,   a clothesline,   and the masks we wore like breath.

orange. black. floral.   each one a gesture,   a compromise,   a signal.

there was nothing romantic about it—   but still,   they dried in the sun   like any other laundry.

a new kind of intimacy:   fabric, filtered air,   what we held between us   and what we didn’t.

#tiohtiàke #drift #fragments #holdings #surfaces

this is not a blog. not a portfolio. not an archive.

drift is a public trace of movement—across cities, across thoughts, across grief, care, and refusal. it began in #tiohtiàke and #kjipuktuk, carried through #glasgow and #lisboa, and continues anywhere i find myself slipping between presence and escape.

its geography is not linear. like all things fugitive, it follows other logics.

what appears here are fragments. notes. pauses. what I carry. what I notice. what resists resolution.

some entries may ripple into fugitives, my postdoctoral research on Black queer drift and the dérive as method. but this is not a workspace.

this is a rhythm. no updates. no announcements. no arguments. only movement.