Skip to main content

I don't know you.

I don't know you. I haven't seen what you have seen, or felt what you have felt. I have never been ostracized based solely on my genetics. My body has never crumpled under someone else's force. My skin has never been bruised by rubber bullets and my lungs have never filled with tear gas. I have never been a suspect in a crime that hasn't been committed. I've never stared someone down, and I've never stood up. I don't know you. My heart has never raced from fear.

But my heart has raced from love. I have embraced compassion and empathy. My body has raised people up through sheer force. My skin has deflected different pains that leave similar scars, and my lungs have filled with the breath to speak the truth. I believe you when you educate me about what needs to change. I am neither complicit, nor appropriating. I am neither passive nor aggressive. I am just here. If you need someone to share what you felt, to marvel at what you have seen, I will. 

I don't know you.

But I could.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Listen to Your Elders

Storytelling has a lot to do with lying  memory. In english classes, they tell you that the first thing to do when writing is to pinpoint your audience. Who would be most interested to hear what you have to say? In english class, however, your peers are more inclined to text with their boyfriend's roommate, or the girl from that freshman party, than listen to what you have to say. As a result, storytelling has to be < insert catchy word here >. Think spunky, or zippy. It has to draw the reader in, no matter who might be reading. Or listening. That means that you may have to leave something out for dramatic appeal, maybe exaggerate the good parts a bit; add some dramatic flair with a well placed pause. So, let's think about this real fast : Storytelling has to be intriguing and dramatically recited for a certain group of people that may or may not actually care. Unfortunately, trying to explain something that happened to you in the past is like trying to reassemble a ...
3 comments
Read more

There is a B in both and an N in neither

Let me tell you a joke. A man says to a woman: Do you have a chicken farm? She responds: Um. No. At this point, woman begins to back away slowly. Escape unlikely. His punch line: Because you sure know how to raise a cock! That’s it. The alarm bells sound so loudly in your head that your ears start ringing and small pink dots float about in front of your eyes. It is time to get out. Get out now. You never think about how that man probably spent hours thinking of the perfect delivery, or at least have sat through lunch with that one awkward guy at his office to get that joke. Honestly, what’s a man to do? You (woman) sit there with your blatantly bisexual girlfriends and sixth shot of Grey Goose Vodka confidence and they have to think of something to say. So, they trust each other, begging advice, even from the guy you remember in college who dressed up as a used tampon for halloween. When it hit me, I felt the hairs on my arms stand up. Funny, for all that it reminds me of w...
3 comments
Read more

September 8, 2017

Each bite of cake tastes better than the last. It has since you made it for me, since we made it for me. Every bite of cake reminds me of what was lost tonight. What has been found. What decisions are stupid. We are not getting married, but I wrote my vows. I keep asking questions, but you keep telling indifference. I know you are afraid. "The night is dark and full of terrors". Winds howl. Just one release. Just one promise fulfilled. Was history too dark? Did the hue match the future too closely? Why must you chime at 9 am? I think our frolic years are past. Passed. I believe it is a time loop. A no way, not this day, never again frame of mind. I think I can't choose to enjoy, but not on my own either. I can't and I can't and limbo beckons because where else can I find what is so terrifyingly ideal? Except that one bit. The scary part. That hydraulic, compressed part that breaks us for its ambivalence. I don't like that part, it is a loss in every cate...
Post a Comment
Read more