Robbie Williford

I don’t know

Don’t need to know. Don’t need to be so consumed with information that I forget to tell you I love you. Life is short, they say, and they’re right. In the grand scheme of things, our time here is brief. Time here is made up of passing days thinking about what we should have doneContinue reading “I don’t know”

inspired by a tweet

Like most people who have Twitter, I find myself scrolling quite aimlessly sometimes, thumbs moving from the bottom of my screen to the top and back to the bottom again, only diverting this rhythm to tap the heart or cycle icon. Most of the time (at least this year), there’s a(n) (un)healthy amount of doomContinue reading “inspired by a tweet”

Love, Robbie

A short letter to every relationship, romantic or otherwise, that ended as I was trying to forgive myself. To you: This house we built with all of its gardens and cobwebs we no longer knew how to tend to is haunted. The shutters we painted are dry and cracking under the incessant sun. The flowersContinue reading “Love, Robbie”

Four years later

To Yia Yia, I keep a small jar, once strawberry preserves and now keepsake container full of lost buttons, on my desk that sat in your sewing machine drawer for years. If you were still around, I’m sure you wouldn’t even have noticed that they were gone. You’d find them one day amidst my messContinue reading “Four years later”

Thirty.

I’ve been thinking about the last decade of my life. On the verge of thirty and I don’t fully know who I am or where I’m supposed to be going or what I’m supposed to be doing. When I was on the verge of my twenties, I was filled to the brim with ideas ofContinue reading “Thirty.”

Here and Now

Sometimes a moment changes everything. At the end of March when so much of this ever-spinning world felt unknown and out of order, before the disruption of everything we used to know, I put together a virtual poetry night. There was a note posted about when and where, and if people wanted to come listenContinue reading “Here and Now”

On friendship (p. ii)

There are some things that I inevitably have to learn the hard way. Friendship is a tired door always moving and I am the hinges which is to say I am always at a point opening and closing. Too prideful to move, too stubborn to accept anything less than extraordinary, transformative, move-me-to-tears kind of friendship.Continue reading “On friendship (p. ii)”

To (me &) my white colleagues and friends

The words shared here reflect the thoughts, values, emotions, and opinions of me and only me. A year ago, I began sifting through feedback on a class I was teaching called Stories of the Oppressed: Narratives of Marginalized Humans in Higher Education. I wanted to get real, honest, critical feedback so I could make itContinue reading “To (me &) my white colleagues and friends”

Show up

“You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place. Like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be this way ever again.” -Azar Nafisi, “Reading Lolita in Tehran” Today feels like hot coffee andContinue reading “Show up”

In other words

It’s been almost a year, and I have not been myself since. The things I didn’t say to him. The things I’ll never get to say to him. Things I’ll never get to do with him, like spend a meal across from each other, somewhere in between where our lives are, sharing stories and photographsContinue reading “In other words”