Raveena Aurora is the whimsical goddess of love and the fairy godmother of queer brown girls. Her new album Asha’s Awakening, released on February 11th, 2022, proves just that.
And I love that you love drawing stars on your wrists and smiley faces on your hands.
That you love when the light hits the side of a building, preferably when it’s a skyscraper.
I remain hopeful. Hopeful for a future where pointé shoes come in rich shades of espresso, mahogany, cognac and everything in between. A future where black and brown dancers are celebrated, not tolerated.
I don’t believe in alternate realities or universes. I don’t believe in fixing broken relationships. And I don’t believe in getting back together. But what if we were given a third chance?
I can’t help but feel as though I take everything for granted. Even love. Don’t we all to some extent?
It took me years to arrive at this feeling of acceptance and patience, especially as a queer, non-binary Asian person in an overarching community that operates through the lens of whiteness.
Decolonizing love in ourselves is a practice that inevitably heralds rebellion. To become ungovernable by the promise of codependence may be the single most terrifying and powerful first act we can commit against the forces killing us and our planet.
You never think about how you navigate love until it becomes clear to you and everyone around you that you have no idea what you’re doing.
These poems are a collection of words that have been weighing on my heart, holding uncertainty and loss, navigating through spaces to learn how to become a better person. Embracing my reserved self with love and patience has helped me find my voice and what I aspire to share with the world: the need for liberation, light, and felicity.
The theme of "Golden" and the song itself led to a self-reflection on how powerful perception can be. Our perception has the ability to shape how we feel, think, and act. These poems are reminders that while we may go through darkness, we can still find a safe harbour to be.
From a former high achiever time chaser, this collection puts the development of my journey into words. Instead of solely preparing to live, it is high time that we learn to live.
"New Soul" embraces the pain of loss and transformation while searching for connections that transcend the mundane material world, whether through god's sensorium in the universe’s expanse, the quiet, lingering echoes of past souls, or silent tears of contemplations.
Kristine Gerolaga is a Filipina American actor and filmmaker from Vallejo, CA currently based in Los Angeles.