Today is the anniversary of Dyscalculia’s pub date. Exactly one year ago today, I set out into the world this thing that had only ever belonged to me.
I wrote Dyscalculia because I was going through a breakup that destabilized my entire world and I felt like there was no book out there, written by a Black woman, that would candidly and genuinely approach the conversation of bipolar disorder, the quest for accountability, and heartbreak. It was not meant to be diaristic or even cathartic. It was meant to be a craft-driven exploration of what it means to be heartbroken when you live outside of the ‘rational’ world that everyone else seems to be living in. I wanted to read that book. I wanted to be part of that story. So I had to write it.
Dyscalculia began as a short poem in my notes app on an old iPhone, likely written through tears on my hour-long commute to work. It was first a sad & lachrymose poem (an excerpt of this poem was published in Palette Magazine) that slowly became a collection of short prose blocks about big heartbreak -- not only the romantic kind, but the existential kind.
Even when it gets me into trouble, I am a poet. That is who my self is. My nonfiction education was informed by my poetic education and that’s what I came to the page with when I sat down to write. I was reading Renee Gladman, Maggie Nelson, Sister Souljah and looking for innovative form and structure. I had an ambition and I reached to approach it. But as its release day approached, after reading it over and over again in these different iterations, I suddenly felt that it had been overworked. I felt that I had accidentally done too much.
When it came out, I felt unmoored and uncomfortable. I worried that I had “overshared” (a criticism I had received all my life) or that I had not validated the premise enough to sustain the arguments I was making. I knew that in some ways I had failed the project, because inevitably we always fail the project. Even through five drafts and ten revisions, it could never fully become the thing I envisioned, because ambition is a destination of which we never arrive.
So I had to find a way to love it again. Therapy helped. I had to remember why I wrote it, what I was trying to achieve, and I had to learn that this story is a lifelong project that will take many forms. With each project, I will get closer and closer to that grand ambition, closer and closer until I die. Whether I achieve it in the end is irrelevant, simply because I got closer.
Writing it empowered me, helped me to discover versions of myself I hadn’t realized existed, and helped me to take accountability of myself, my health, and my life -- a process that healed me. This work is my bildungsroman; it is a time capsule, a liminal object that will help shape and contour the works of my future self. I feel so grateful to have made a thing that is unapologetically mine. Remembering this helps me come back into my body when I feel the grief of my ego taking over.
I am amazed that the thing I wrote on a subway ride became this book. Through twelve (10!) revisions, Dyscalculia went from being a sad poem to a generous mirror of myself. So I offer you excerpts of the very first draft of Dyscalculia as a thank you for reading this book, for loving on me, for being part of this online community with me. I offer it as a reminder that ambition is not material. What you have made from the threat of it is enough.
From 2017: