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LOVE LETTER TO SELF

LOVE LETTER TO SELF

DAVE BRIDGEFORTH

I have come to the stern understanding that I am more gifted than this society has allowed me to believe and because of this, I must push myself in directions I fear. I must advance myself with courage for the systematic confines of this world are strict, and if I am not quick and gallant, I will arrive at ideas foreign to my authentic truth that will cause me to self destruct. For there has always been poison in the food, they have fed us.

Beyond the influence of this world, is my own shadow following me, urging me in opposite directions. The darkest part of me has been deemed my enemy, it appears in my way, always, and has plans to turn me against myself so that no one has to kill me because I've been taught how to do so on my own. And so I write this letter, a statement of my love for you, that you might be whole and free.

HOW TO HAVE YOUR CAKE & EAT IT TOO

HOW TO HAVE YOUR CAKE & EAT IT TOO

DAVE BRIDGEFORTH

On being naked. 

It’s liberating. I’ve waited a long time to get naked in front of the camera, spent the better part of my life afraid of being naked. Sheltered behind closed church doors, inundated with conservative ideology —ashamed of my bare brown skin to be exposed, I never featured my body growing up, I hid it. I’ve experienced enough judgement and shade from the holy to ever let someone catch me with my pants down. 

What began as my saved and sanctified mother putting her hands over my eyes lids every time nudity appeared on the movie or television screen or her confiscating my Playboy magazines hidden carefully under my mattress, ended up creating a negative, shameful, and unaffirming connotation about nudity, sexuality, and sex. The religious dogma stirred into my psyche most of my life caused me to hate myself, my body, and sexual urges and fantasies.