speak 2 make it out

 So I am… well… dealing with Microsoft CoPilot for the first time… and I hate it.  I’ll see if I can disable it.   That aside, I’ve been trying to figure out how to write this without sounding like an extraordinarily privileged cis white person. Here it goes: I have been wanting to talk about the overwhelm, the shock and awe that has been going on in the last few weeks, how we’ve been inundated with scary, infuriating things ro make us get overwhelmed and confused, and docile.  Small fires all over the place- which should we put out? I talked to my mother about it last night.  Only she doesn’t want to talk about it, and I should have stayed quiet.  But I really don’t have anyone to talk about it with.  And talking with her became an argument over how I’m trying to deal with what is happening right now instead of taking it to a horrible, devastating, and deathly end. And apparently I was wrong about that. Last I wrote, I was galvanized, and ready to tak...

I have been wanting to get back to free writing with a time limit.  Getting a prompt, write for 15 minutes, leave it as is.   I might edit later ones for spelling and sentence structure, but this is the first I've done in ages.  Just cracked open a book and pointed at a word (sort of bibliomancy), and began writing. SO, here it is:   Skill and Habit The velvety fuzzy ground is what I think of.  The empty auditorium, soon to be filled with folks.  I am on my back, stretching out my legs, loosening my voice with exercises.  I am lying in one of the emergency exit alcoves, dark, with velvety curtains hung over a too bright glowing exit sign. I sit up as others arrive, the actors coming from downstairs in their undershirts and corsets- all of the underthings before we put on our costumes and get fully readu.  Oh, and makeup too.  We are all doing a cacophony of waking up voice sounds, dancing around, stretching out before we go down and the ...

Here is something to remember, deep down in your bones:  Trump is not Hitler. Musk is not Hitler. There are no Nazis, even those who purport to be.   There used to be. Now there’s something else. ‘Hitler’ and ‘nazi’ are boogeyman words- concepts and theories that cut through any disaffected consciousness.  But instead of galvanizing us, it triggers us- reminds us of a time in history when things seemed to be inevitable, so atrocious as to never happen again, and expose every country to the cheating that happens with international relations. The truth is there has been some obvious reading and following the playbook of that regime.  On top of that, they know that the trigger of the nazi words and concepts can make us dysregulate and be distracted by a past fear instead of a present one. We are not in Germany in the 1940s.  We are not in Vietnam.  We are not in Guyana.  We are not in Russia. We have our own time and place, and we have the tool of fo...

  We are not the children of Atlas We will not carry Your weight Your world On our shoulders. We are not the children of Atlas We will not feel shame When we cannot bear Your weight Your world On our shoulders  We are not the children of Atlas  We will not stay silent  When you try to put Your weight Your world On our shoulders We are not the children of Atlas We refuse to listen  When you point fingers To blame anyone Other than you And say ‘Fear each other For it is them And not us who put Their weight Their world On your shoulders’ You are not the children of Atlas But you told us You would put  Our weight Our world On your shoulders. We are not the children of Atlas  But we believed in you Until that belief  Broke the bones Of our shoulders We looked up at your shoulders Unbroken And that’s when We knew We are not the children of Atlas.