intifada

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED / GENOCIDE TO STOP, begins June Jordan’s poem, Intifada Incantation Poem 38 for B.B.L.

the revered Alexis Pauline Gumbs introduced me to this poem.

another time, a loved one read it, anew, in a moment of great heartache.

this moment of great heartache. i hear the lines again:

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

GENOCIDE TO STOP

they reverberate. on friday, i listened to adrienne maree brown lead a centering practice. it was originally posted on January 6, 2021.1 the viral rage, the unmitigated fury laced with entitlement withstands. at the beginning of the practice she said “we can center and be scared, we can center and be angry, we can center and be disappointed, we can center and be critical,” we don’t center to feel better, many teachers in the lineage repeat. we center to feel more. i had forgotten. with the reminder amb offered, i immediately began crying.

given that i still need permission to feel my hurt i am grateful that people are offering it. we can ground ourselves while feeling hurt. i had forgotten. the goal is not to disappear the hurt.

Mereba’s song, Rider:

World feels like a war
Tell me what living's for

i am learning, yet, how to give such permission to myself. i do feel scared and i do feel disappointed. i have begun to wonder if enthusiasm (en / in, theo / god, seismo / earthquake) is just whatever kind of emotion that wants to break through breaking through. maybe wonder, yes. maybe awe, yes. and maybe disappointment, maybe defeat. if you feel it speak up.

i watch what happens when i, and people around the world, refuse to attend to our own pain. i passed a woman holding spikey orange flowers like the ones i laid on my uncle’s grave two summers ago. i passed a parent running after their children racing forward on scooters through the dusk. would i be able to look those children in the eye?

Mereba sings

call me if you’re on the run

and call me if you want to stop running. T said grace is never earned.