August 2020, Wisconsin/ Michigan
On the Road
I don’t know how to put into words what I’m feeling as I see everything happening around the city and around the country. But I’ll try as being silent is far worse.
It is infuriating that it is 2020 and people are still being targeted and murdered for the crime of being black.
That we live in a country where the government has sat by complacent as it continues to happen.
A country where we pour money into our police and military and deny our communities of color the basic tools they require to thrive.
A country where we are more outraged by a black man kneeling in peaceful protest than a white man decked out in full military regalia screeching about his right to not wear a mask for the safety of others.
We live in a country that protects its second amendment right to bear arms better than its children dying at the hands of “misunderstood” shooters.
I understand that it is hard to watch destruction at the hands of rioters, but there comes a time where enough is enough. Where injustices need to be brought to attention through force and the collective cries of outrage from people who have decided no more.
There will be no more dead sons or dead daughters, at the hands of those who are meant to “serve and protect.”
SERVE.
AND.
PROTECT.
Not abuse their power and authority.
There will be no more men and women harassed and followed and threatened because their skin is black.
I do not condone mindless destruction and unnecessary looting. It makes me sad that we’ve reached this point.
But I stand in solidarity with my black brothers and sisters and I believe that at a certain point things need to be destroyed in order to be rebuilt.
NPM 2: Thirteen
Super rough draft
You’re stuck in-between childish freedom and suddenly being too cool.
Why is it so hard to be yourself?
Why is it is so easy to tear others down?
All emotions bubble to the top and nothing seems to calm them down.
It won’t always be that way.
Listen to me, baby bunny, because hindsight is always 20/20, and presently you’re blind to all you have to offer.
Thirteen is just another year, and they only get better from here.
NPM 1: Isolation
Rough draft
It is strange to be alone with your thoughts for so long.
There is no one to interrupt.
Just you and the sound of a dog snoring softly in the corner.
This is your life now.
This is what it means to save lives.
The Earth is slowly being reborn, and I wait.
Thoughts in Spanish
I want to write about Mexico.
About what it was like to return somewhere after 22 years and feel like you’d always been there.
I want to write about Mexico, but my thoughts are scattered among mountains, and cactus. They are running rampant with stray dogs along winding roads lined with palm trees and pop up food stands.
How do I make sense of everything that happened in the two weeks that stretched out like an eternity.
Things run slower in the motherland. There is an urgency, and need for immediate gratification that doesn’t exist there. Time has slowed down. Or maybe it’s that time is just running along at the right pace and we’re running too fast in the States?
Either way I came home tired.
And that title is misleading.
My thoughts have always been a jumble that predominantly exists in English. A place where Spanish shows up like a fond friend who’s mostly traveling and cannot be tied down.
No pos guau.
When I close my eyes and think of Mexico all I see is color.
Mexico is the brightest blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds.
It is dark green mountains rising up towards it.
Red dusty earth.
The golden tan skin of people who rarely have the sun hidden from them.
When I close my eyes and think of Mexico, all I can think of are ghost stories, bygone times, and memories that don’t belong to me.
I think of blood that is a stranger to me and a longing to know who they were.
The family gathered, their aunt had come home. The baby of the family, who’d been away for so long had come back for a visit.
Naturally a pig was slaughtered and there was feasting and drinking and singing.
I watched my cousins clasp her hands and ask her one by one if she remembered them, if she knew their names. She nodded until she was overwhelmed by the amount of people, and questions.
I watched a cousin break down and cry as he tried to reconcile his memory of my mother– strong, vibrant, full of life, with the fragile, quiet, woman that stood in front of him.
I sat with her, holding her hand as the tears slid down her cheeks, for reasons I don’t think she understood.
When I think of this trip, I think of a loved one saying, “goodbye.”
The Secret Life of Pandas 