jealousy is a watering can

reframing the mindset of wanting to water your own grass

A dear friend has been hosting her own shows titled “Lauren Adams is a Jealous bitch” and it’s a beautiful collaboration of having all these talented, impressive friends on stage to do what they do best and then she tells them why she’s jealous of them. It’s heartwarming, funny, engaging and beautifully human. She also goes into list of other random things she’s jealous of. I love that she shows up so honestly in her humanness on stage, instead of ignoring it, scoffing it off or pretending it doesn’t exist, she owns it and she owns it like a badass.

I have left both shows feeling equally inspired and seen, even this last one in which she asked me to perform to which I nervously said yes to. Standing there while someone tells you why they’re jealous of you is the equivalent of standing there while someone compliments you, I get nervous every-time and always immediately want to back away and or quickly return the favor instead of just sitting in the love (it’s that humility/make yourself small conditioning but I’m working on it).

Often times when people ask me to perform for themed like events, I tend to play around with the topic, phrase or theme in my head so long it starts to slow cook a poem. Each day I’ll get a new phrase or line and that’s how I spill poems more often than not. I of course couldn’t resist writing a poem of all the things I’m jealous of as one of my pieces to perform.

I’m going to end this piece with the poem, so I’ll preface with saying how therapeutic it was to write it. Almost as if I was able to water my own garden with the tears of all the things I thought I didn’t have, only for it to be fertilized by all that I DO have. There’s something about sharing all the list of things I was jealous of only to bring it back to gratitude somehow. After the show, someone shared that they really loved how I was able to take a list of things I was jealous of but somehow find this positive silver lining by the end of it.

That has always been an unknown thread like tactic of my writing, I want to share the messy, the hard, the not so beautiful but I always want to find the threads of hope, encouragement and beautiful inklings and nuggets in it all too. It’s not that I want to stay naive or avoidant of truth either because there’s always going to be an element of that but I also want to give people something to cling to, some gentle reminder that there is good in all of it too.

Feel free to use this as writing prompt if you find yourself inspired by it and make sure to find yourself watering your own grass with your words by the end of it.

I’m jealous of people with jobs that pay them consistently and love it 

I’m jealous of people who aren’t lactose intolerant 

People who can heat spicy food without heartburn 

I’m jealous of people who know how to do taxes like really know how 

I’m jealous of Issa Rae and every extra in the Barbie movie 

Im jealous of people who don’t know what purity culture or veggie tales is

I’m jealous of women who just know in their hearts of hearts that they want to have kids while I wait for my body to tell me she wants them or something 

I’m jealous of those who not only rock the boat - whatever that boat is that needs rocking but have the audacity to flip it all the way over 

I’m jealous of the way the moon is not afraid to share her light in the day time

How the sun always knows when it’s her time to bow and make room for someone else to shine 

I’m jealous of older women who say whatever they want, who walk like they owe the world nothing

I’m jealous of the way people say bitch without flinching or wondering if that time then was their five word passcode into hell

I’m jealous of people who can say no without wanting to take it back

I’m jealous of girls who learned to own their tits and not shame them

I’m jealous of rude people at nude beaches who don’t even think about being nude

I’m jealous of those very few people who say, “oh I don’t even use social media” so pretentious and free from doom scrolling, unnecessary add to carts and comparison spirals

I’m jealous of people who were smart enough not to attend a private christian college

I’m jealous of Black people who were smart enough not to attend a private christian college

I’m jealous of Amanda Gorman, so jealous I almost sent a long drastically typed email to the board of no one from nowhere with this poets resignation because there simply cannot be enough room for both us black girls spilling words now can there?

I’m jealous of pastors kids who did the opposite of what their parents taught them

I am jealous of my niece, yeah I’m jealous of my niece who went up to a little girl at the Zoo, introduced herself and asked confidently if she wanted to be her friend- said girl shied away quietly and my niece, three years wise looks up at me and says “welp I guess she doesn’t like me” shrugged and went to wake a sleeping lion 

Somedays, somedays I am jealous of 

People who say they believe in something bigger than themselves without the boxes and conditioning

I am jealous of the woman I’ve become and how long it took me to get here 

I’m jealous of the future me and how free and audacious I know she’s worked so damn hard to become 

I’m jealous of this moment right here

This one that we’re all breathing in

And laughing in and right here