September Twenty First, 2011

Dear Troy,

I know these words
will never reach you,
that my
empathy cannot cross
space, time,
prison walls.

In less than a day they will
extinguish
the flame that was your life
with the word
"justice"
dripping from the syringe.

I thought we had agreed
to stop lynching people.

they say we live in a
"post-racial" society,
but you and I both know that it's all
bullshit.

today my white guilt is
suffocating.
i call and call and call
the Chatham County DA
and sign countless online petitions
and wail and sing and cry
for your clemency
hoping my little white girl voice can talk a little
sense
to their blood-thirsty ears
but all that will come from my
"activism"
are unanswered phone messages and
email spam and
noise.

they want blood, Troy,
but you know that.
their rage places you
square
in the line of fire.

"collateral damage"
they call it.

I wonder when we,
the colonizers,
the oppressors,
the privileged
will have to answer for
our crimes.

when will the nightmare end?

I'm sorry, Troy,
deeply sorry, Troy,

for everything.

collateral damage

i walk cautiously, tentatively,
pepper spray in hand
ready
to combat violence with violence.
i have been conditioned as such-- i
am a product of conflict, though
i've never experienced
napalm,
armed militias,
revolution.

i wonder
if my imagined attackers
could question themselves:
if the burn of chemical weaponry would cause them
to lose their sense of
entitlement
or if they would just hit the next bitch they saw
harder,
rape more brutally

or if they would pick up a gun
and travel farther
to foreign lands
to live, kill, and maybe die
"for me."

all i can do is
keep my doors locked;
check the peephole at every knock,
suspect everyone and
weather the long night
curled up like cats
with the people i trust today.

Things that make me nervous

horses.
revolving doors (HELL SPINNERS).
dreadlocks on white people (95% of the time).
unnatural fibers.
serial killers.
pro lifers.
big dogs (horse-sized).
staplers.
going clubbing.
too many GIF's on a page.
math.
really big spiders.
sea monsters.
those grates in sidewalks over empty holes (well, there's often generators and stuff in them, but there's a significant drop).


as i think of things, i'll update this.

conversations with a prisoner

Silence tells me
            “I’ve been buried alive for six years now”
behind bars, hundreds of miles away
he writes
to purge
and I open my arms, ready
for whatever words rush into them.

I want to tell him that I’m buried too--
I have covered by true essences in lies
and distractions; have made mazes
out of cornfields.

It is not the same, of course.
He, locked behind bars, “a danger to society”
ie: a young black male.
me, a young white girl, locked
in self-imposed silence,
self-induced brain damage.

I want to speak my secrets.
They claw at my throat like cats at a door.
I write them, erase them, scribble over words,
edit words, edit time,
edit memory.

This is why I cannot journal in the traditional sense.

We’re both just groping in the dark, Silence and I.
Looking for comfort, freedom
solace
to give wings to silent stories
too terrible to be told.

.

fem theory of the day

"Witches did dance in the moors and they hid there too.  The wilderness was for the most destitute women the only place of survival that society allowed them.  The witch, the queen of the forest, is like the domesticated wife who is queen of the home.  Queen of one domain because excluded from all others.  Mystery, night, forest, it all resembles the clandestineness of pariahs and heretics.  The underground where one may indeed fight is nonetheless equivalent to freedom."

Marks and de Courtivron, 1986: 220

gahhbage

last month i got my monroe, and have also put some color in my life.  i need a new tattoo, that is certain.  i just need to design it first.  oh, and save myself some money.  ha!

\

also, i found out what happens to cupcakes if you forget the eggs.

they're really crumbly and you have to eat them with a spoon.

i've been painting and working out lately as well.  more of that some other time.