The prompt "write everyday"
is like a wire around my heart
that keeps it all from
spilling and splitting apart.
Spilling and splitting apart
like when I think of Sandra Bland
why did she have to die?
(she did not have to die)
she did not have to die
she
did
not
have
to
die.
Another guttural symbol of gross misunderstanding and humanity gone awry. And when I write guttural I mean it pulls at my guts - at my sacral chakra, at my place of home in being human. When I say symbol, I also mean everything above that, and around it - a sister, a black woman, a human being, a life full of energy, deserving as we all are of her piece of happiness.
How many more will it take? My heart aches. I could research to rationalize, make me feel more scientific. Though I'd still feel numb.
The teacher in me says we need to construct emotional literacy courses and cultural sensitivity classes. I remember once a fellow Mills woman sharing with me, stating with quite natural conviction "I am not a cultural relativist." I had no idea what the term meant. Now I know. Some stuff is just violent and wrong and fucked up, and we can sense that on a universal level, beyond the confusion of the main's game of tricky political mind-fuckery (main - I mean mainframe, akin to a computer's motherboard - the mainstream machine that make us feel less than if we have less superfluous, material junk). We will always be too sensitive to be inorganic, though they're trying very successfully to dehumanize the humans - think about that - do not lose your nature - fight for it!
Sometimes I look around at my people - those who are brothers and sisters in spirit, and those whose spirits found mine - destined, and beyond earthly scientific definitions of blood - and I think - we are revolutionary, we are extraordinary, we are different. We are here together now in this time because we are chosen. Intelligent enough to dismiss mythical and divisive claims of ethnic groups being born more or less capable of learning, growing and being great. Compassionate enough to disallow propaganda, and all together anti-humanness, to keeps us apart. We are clever. We know that while this is all "an illusion" lucid dreams do feel very real, don't they? I mean, we are here, existing in space, and at the same time, we are beyond it [space]. The consequences of our actions are here, whether this shared reality is "real" as we know it, or imagined. The consequences of our actions are here. And unavoidable.
I remember my grandfather saying to me on the phone while my former wife (yes, I wrote wife, digest it, you'll be okay) was driving home on the 75 South freeway once, that he did not believe we ever reached the moon. He also reasoned, "we have enough issues here on earth - let's deal with our problems on this planet first, then talk to me about heading to Mars!" Makes sense for his generation, and his mind. Today, I read a zine on Amerikkka's obsession with blackness and anti-blackness, the speaker being interviewed said that as people of color, we are often concerned with the usefulness of discussing, or commencing - anything. He offered an example of a political figure (a woman - I think it was the great humanitarian + dope ass human being Alice Walker) being asked whether she believed we lived in a fascist country. I thought to myself that I needed to re-learn what fascism really meant in our contemporary context, but I digress.
When asked the question, she immediately went into analysis - "if it is true that we live in a fascist state, what will we do about it? What is a workable solution?" And I thought to myself about how we, as humans, and particularly, as leaders connected to our roots, want to know and understand how to fix everything. For us, and people like us, it's a natural reaction. How can we make this better? People are hurting, people are becoming despondent and apathetic (and apathy is the real poison). People are becoming desensitized to the chaos, and utter hierarchy of disregard. I think it starts with stepping in, trusting, and stepping out. It starts with trusting that we are not alone. It starts with recognizing the ways we all have contributions to make.
It starts with knowing ourselves, taking care of ourselves for who we are, and the destiny we are becoming. It starts with monitoring who we are, digging inside, knowing and making peace with our differences. Being still enough and crazy enough to sense our gifts. And using them without asking for permission. It starts with our own form of prayer - writing, drawing, loving, painting. It starts with all those actions that seem so innocent - and they are - all those petite actions that, in many adult hoods, are so easily suppressed and undervalued on a day to day basis. These forms of artistic prayer, these practices that connect us with our source, are profoundly powerful because they release our subconscious selves - our soulful, pit-of-the-stomach desires - those textured, pesky waves of truth inside our hearts that linger always, and especially, when the aggravation and the pain go away.
We are what we have. Pure in form. Wide in action. Vast in spirit.
It starts with dismantling this anti-life way of conducting ourselves in this terrain, in this dimension, in this corner of the world on "U.S territory." It starts with correcting the imbalanced equation of human life as less important - as laughable and eradicable - when compared to capital/currency. To the main, human lives only matter in so much as we are programmable enough - just able enough - (yes, please really digest and re-read that, because that part is deep) to support the structure of capitalism. I'm not sure that there are no progressive, practical uses for capitalism, but if I define that word as being, in its very etymology, capital-driven (and if capital means currency/the systematic capitalizing of one thing over another, implying superiority) then a capitalistic centered way of living will always - in its very veins - value human life as minimally as it can in order to produce, proliferate and manufacture.
This means very few of your children will be able to really live out their gifts. This means most of us, and future generations, will die without ever knowing who we are. I mean truly knowing in heart, on the tips of our tongues, and at a moment's notice, how to glow like dancing flames, orange and pink, and be who we were always meant to be. How to share our souls with our communities in meaningful ways. In ways that honor our intuitive ancestral knowledge and futuristic outlook. Something has got to give. Discussing is one part. Truth is a really big part of change. Remembering is another.
Caring is the bottom line, because no matter what, compassion heals all things - even when anger and hatred are justified.
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