afternoon dreams

Share this post
#69 - rooftop view
himabatavia.substack.com

#69 - rooftop view

a little poem

Hima Batavia
May 27
Share this post
#69 - rooftop view
himabatavia.substack.com
the top of the hill / Oaxaca City

If you value what you read and would like to support my work, consider Buying Me A Coffee, leaving a heart/comment on this post below, or sharing this journal with another human. If you’re not a subscriber yet, join us!

THANK YOU, LOVE YOU.


at the top of the hill 
sat a smooth cement hotel
it had large looking-glass windows
made flush against the concrete
and lined with amber wooden beams
                  the doors were discrete like the faces that entered 
at the bottom of the hill were metal 
roofs held up by mismatched
wooden beams and windows that
formed between the cracks of concrete blocks
                   the children hid between the damp laundry on the clothesline
i lived between these two places in a 
cement casita painted bright yellow 
that had a metal gate, 
meditation room and 
a rooftop that overlooked both sides 
of the hill and towards 
a city of nearly a million people
by 7:00pm most days, 
my senses were sweltered. 
drained and dehydrated,
i carried my body to 
the rooftop as the sun
clocked out and the wind 
clocked in and we all
relieved and relived
one another 
up there, 
bikinis and techno beats 
donkeys being herded, 
BMWs and roosters cocking the time
— filled a single frame 
an accompanying chord
a muddled thought 
on wednesday mornings, 
a truck would ring its bell 
at dawn to pick up the week's trash 
all across the hill
we would emerge from our caves
calling the day, buenos dias, and 
catching each other's close and 
far off gazes while waiting to rid
our pile 
neighbours by proximity 
and strangers by proximity, 
we shared that slope
the night sky and
the lament of catty dogs at 3 am
but stayed inside our 
cement dens
one day, i ventured to the top of the
hill to see if a kingdom lay behind
the grey sheen; to see if I could
find the door 
the air was cleaner up there, 
distilled and priced, 
but as hard as the cement 
and it sent me right 
back down the slope,
shifty and wobbly 
down to the bottom 
where the air was thicker
but softer against the 
skin and cement 

#ThisWeekinTweets

Twitter avatar for @deenoonandrawsDee Noonan Draws @deenoonandraws
So, I’ve been trying to decide if I should post or not. I’m from Uvalde, I currently live in Uvalde. I’m a few blocks away from Robb Elementary. I use to pick up my siblings from the school. It’s a poor neighborhood where wild chickens have run of the place. But regardless,

May 26th 2022

34,129 Retweets140,253 Likes
Twitter avatar for @Monstrous_FestChaos Bride Kyelaag @Monstrous_Fest
Folks are talking about police a bunch, and that's something I might actually be able to provide context for. Police are never, and will never be, required to endanger themselves in any way for any reason. This has been litigated thoroughly.

May 26th 2022

12,896 Retweets64,563 Likes
Twitter avatar for @alwaystheselfCrystal Fleming is here but not here @alwaystheself
You watched a cop lynch a Black man in broad daylight on camera. Now you’ve seen cops allow the murder of young children while they arrest the parents. You’ve seen enough to become an abolitionist. You’ve seen enough.

May 27th 2022

7,121 Retweets34,837 Likes
Twitter avatar for @maimonides_nutzmaimonides nutz @maimonides_nutz
recently I read the story of a man who was being super self-deprecating and his rabbi said something like "you are not so grand as to think so low of yourself" and that's really sticking with me

May 25th 2022

188 Retweets1,620 Likes
Twitter avatar for @LaurenBohnLauren Bohn @LaurenBohn
Not sure who else needs this Mary Oliver gospel on a full moon Friday the 13th. ✨
Image

September 13th 2019

588 Retweets1,665 Likes
Twitter avatar for @alexispaulinealexispauline @alexispauline
“I started to write in order to breathe and that still happens now.” -Audre Lorde in an interview with Deborah Wood April 23 1976

May 26th 2022

12 Retweets48 Likes
Twitter avatar for @adalimonAda Limón @adalimon
Wow, this poem by @CAMONGHNE! Beautiful.
“Why I Loved Him”“I can’t tell you / Why I loved him or / What it meant.”newyorker.com

May 23rd 2022

9 Retweets78 Likes
Twitter avatar for @AnandWritesAnand Giridharadas @ The.Ink @AnandWrites
The essence of Davos. They are trying to turn climate change into a personal responsibility issue. Pull the temperatures down by your bootstraps.

Andrew Lawton @AndrewLawton

Alibaba Group president J. Michael Evans boasts at the World Economic Forum about the development of an "individual carbon footprint tracker" to monitor what you buy, what you eat, and where/how you travel. https://t.co/sisSrUngDI

May 25th 2022

376 Retweets1,390 Likes
Twitter avatar for @but_im_kim_tranKim Tran @but_im_kim_tran
You can homeschool your kids, but will you: Keep your grandparents home from the grocery store? Keep your parents from church? Keep your siblings from a concert? Keep your friends from a garlic festival? This is the limit of individual action

May 27th 2022

9 Retweets71 Likes
Twitter avatar for @benegotheritHoney @benegotherit
Worked at a ‘guest is always right’ restaurant - no contradictions allowed. Guy rejects his coffee, “this isnt a macchiato”. Led to 3 servers hiding behind the bar trying to guess what he thinks a macchiato is based only on his looks, like ancient shamans interpreting animal bone

May 25th 2022

4,800 Retweets101,240 Likes
Twitter avatar for @AutisticCallum_Callum Stephen (He/Him) @AutisticCallum_
The best thing my autism diagnosis gave me was an explanation. It explained: why I find most social interactions unfulfilling, why I find everyday things tiring, why I don’t enjoy the same things as everyone else, why I see life differently and why people are fascinated by me.

May 26th 2022

682 Retweets5,810 Likes
Twitter avatar for @ADHDdesignerADHD Designer @ADHDdesigner
The paradox of managing your ADHD is that you have to accept yourself fully as you are before anything really changes.

May 26th 2022

399 Retweets3,286 Likes
Twitter avatar for @ehimeoraiya ehime ora @ehimeora
I am ready to let go of all the things I thought I’d hold onto forever.

May 26th 2022

2,566 Retweets8,539 Likes
Twitter avatar for @who_let_mum_outClaire @who_let_mum_out
Why do people look down on cleaners? I'm a cleaner, I rarely volunteer that information as I think I'll be looked down on. But it's a job that pays more than minimum wage and allows me to work around the kids so I don't have childcare bills - win win. So why do I feel shame?

May 25th 2022

8,183 Retweets144,762 Likes
Twitter avatar for @freshhelhelena @freshhel
Breathtaking
Image

May 25th 2022

1,888 Retweets73,837 Likes
Twitter avatar for @marty@marty @marty
literally nobody in the world knows what salesforce do

May 25th 2022

301 Retweets7,141 Likes
Twitter avatar for @Caramel_LimaBaker in Ibadan 👩🏽‍🍳 @Caramel_Lima
My niece asked me to unlock my phone so she could watch cartoon on my phone, I didn’t answer her, next thing she took my phone out of the room and I was looking for her. Just guess where I found this babe? In front of our family portrait, trying to unlock my phone with my picture

May 26th 2022

19,262 Retweets253,825 Likes
Twitter avatar for @rachsymerachel syme @rachsyme
what's a book you read recently that was so good that you didn't need to look up for a few hours

May 27th 2022

383 Retweets8,727 Likes
Twitter avatar for @JohnFugelsangJohn Fugelsang @JohnFugelsang
This really is the best thing you'll read all month, by @PantheaLee

John Fugelsang @JohnFugelsang

The must read piece of the month: Sex, Death, and Empire: The Roots of Violence Against Asian Women https://t.co/liSoV2CVXt

May 27th 2022

11 Retweets41 Likes
Twitter avatar for @sabrinaesaquinoSabrina @sabrinaesaquino
If someone offered you $1,000,000 to finish an Udemy course... could you?

May 26th 2022

248 Retweets4,009 Likes
Share this post
#69 - rooftop view
himabatavia.substack.com
Comments

Create your profile

0 subscriptions will be displayed on your profile (edit)

Skip for now

Only paid subscribers can comment on this post

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in

Check your email

For your security, we need to re-authenticate you.

Click the link we sent to , or click here to sign in.

TopNewCommunity

No posts

Ready for more?

© 2022 Hima Batavia
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Publish on Substack Get the app
Substack is the home for great writing