What to do with all this unspeakable sadness?
Here’s a metaphor:
Do we bury it underground, like festering trash slowly souring our soils?
Or should we carry it in our bodies?
The way that women have learned to carry trauma, when they were only meant to carry life.
Do we disregard it like black bodies battered in the streets,
Valuing our ownership of comfort too much to recognize the sharp wounds of reality,
Or do we drink it like poison,
Like sea waves striped with oil slicks, animal limbs contorted in plastic handcuffs,
Burnt trees lit like incense, smoke blocking out the sun
Rivers running dry, thirsty for salvation,
Tell me, which is it?
And I will tell you, they are one in the same – the destruction of each other, and the destruction of our planet, the hatred we allow ourselves to carry projects itself on the reality we’ve created.