I open my mouth. I lift the lens. I move in frame. I am marked.

By accent. By rhythm. By angle, by light. By what does and doesn’t belong.

It’s faster than thought. Faster than framing. Faster than translation.

So I work there. With the moment of marking. With the flicker. With the sound of being placed.

How am I? Marked. But not quiet. Still here. Still sounding. Still sharing. Still with. goes here

I don’t want to soften it.

I don’t want to flatten it.

I don’t want to make it easy.

I won’t be cleaned up. I won’t be flattened. I won’t be explained.

This voice was never neutral. This image was never still. This method was never extractive.

I refuse the voice-over. I refuse the translation. I refuse the universal tone that pretends not to feel.

Repetition, deliberate. Blur, deliberate. Fragment, deliberate.

How am I? Resisting. Still here. Still trembling. Still marked.

This is not an add-on. This is not creative dissemination. This is the work that works.

Sound is knowledge. Light is citation. Stillness is method. Repetition is refusal.

How am I? Making. Not as proof. But as holding.

Every return to the breath, Every flicker of the frame, Every sound that doesn’t resolve- is method.

This is how I stay-with. Cracked. Blurred. Resonant.

I don’t fix. I fold. I friction.

How am I? Cutting and holding. Refusing and remaking.

This is not exposure. This is curation. This is care.

To tremble. To hesitate. To be seen, but not captured. To sound, but not corrected.

This is inclusion that doesn’t require translation. This is praxis that breathes.

How am I? Sounding I. Seeing I. Staying-with.

This isn’t a case for sound. This isn’t a defence of image. This is a mesh.

Where form is method. Where method is refusal. Where refusal is care.

I make with breath, with blur, with vibration, with grain. And I offer it not as clarity. But as invitation.

How are ya? Not just a question. A method. A manifesto.

I voice with bell hooks (1989),

Breathe with Audre Lorde (1984), and

Border-walk with Gloria Anzaldúa (1987).

I stay-with Maria Puig de la Bellacasa (2017): care is friction.

I refuse with Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang (2014).

I mark with Sara Ahmed (2017) and Kalwant Bhopal (2018).

These are not references. These are relations.

These are breath-held traces.

These are voices that live with the making of refusal.

They are not proof. They are pulse. They are with. They remain.

And I stay-with them.