Our Voices, Our Faces, Our stories.

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.”