Autobiography (n.) self • life • writing
This page is dedicated to our forever expanding collective of unique individual minds, and to be a testament to the fact that our differences are to be celebrated.
I am the first peaks of Appalachia from I-40 and the haunt of Durham's abandoned apartments before they became hotels.
I am my mother’s hands tilling the overgrown garden and my father’s ears tuning you out when a good song comes on.
I am sick of this shit and dying to see you and desperate for space.
I am a paradox of parts, protective and powerless, sprouting up from the sidewalk, from the illusion of concreteness.
I am bat wings and movie reels and slug sex and gasoline and metamorphoses rolling over in its grave.
I am my own cowboy, and I’d be your clown if you’ll have me.
I am the grand slam of messy love,
gratitude in progress.
Born
in the North
eyes
covered
by miniscule
fists clenched
in fear rage,
a love of the unknown
raised
split down
the middle
divine
unsure
hair pulled
back tight
smile pulled
straight
through the
night
alive
dreaming of
insects
dreaming of
being chased
dreaming of falling
dreaming of flying.
My autobiography started when I was born. I could have been an Alicia. In August 1983 in Houston, Texas, Hurricane Alicia was approaching from the gulf. It was about time for me to be born, but maybe not quite yet, if it hadn’t been for that drop in the air pressure. It dropped, and ladies' water broke all across the county. August in Houston– I’m sure some didn’t mind the expedited deliveries. So, I was born and my mom swears I was the only non-Alicia. At least among the baby girls, I’m not sure what the boys were called.
My autobiography is still going. Right now it is in the garden at 12 Baskets. Sometimes I am busy and productive and I bring home the bacon. Sometimes I am tired and waste a day and that is good too. Next week, I hope I’ll be here again, ready to write another bit of myself to life.
“I can’t remember when I was born
And I forgot when it was that I died”
I think Dylan Thomas said that.
I remember show and tell.
I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. . .
Born into sin, but in sin you don’t want to die
Life is a vapor, it’s here and then it flies
Down into the grave,
Almost everyone sighs
Too late for repentance
From too many highs
Too late for repentance
From the lust of the eyes
Too late for repentance
From the world in disguise
Too late for the hope
Of a heavenly rise
Only a dreadful regret
For believing in lies
Today is the day of salvation
Now is the accepted time to repent
Of sin; Dear God, I repent;
Who wants to die?
Shunyu Huang, a community lover & builder, culture inheritor, daughter, neighbor, mother, educator, and dreamer. Born and raised in tropical southern China, she stumbled into the Appalachian mountains in 2016.
Over the past few years, she found home between the pen and the paper at that intersection of State St and Haywood Rd, where she learned what it truly means to listen to someone, and what it looks like to truly culminate community, one word and one person at a time.
Even in her third language, Shunyu finds herself being free in the literal world, where she meets herself the strongest without judgements.
“We are all dying, the problem is not living.”