for ben

on finding voice

when you said you wanted to talk about activism and how you felt like it was hard for you to
speak up
sometimes

i completely changed the subject.

i talked about how hard activism is at college with the turn over and the coalition issues and the power play and i talked about how i dealt with that
and what it means to share
and what it means to compromise and

blah blah

and i completely never let you really say what you were feeling about how violent and hard it is to speak sometimes. and the truth is that i have felt that so hard and so often and my ability to say that i am comfortable speaking sometimes makes it harder for me to speak... because sometimes i even have the words and feel supported or at least like i could go home to support and i still can't speak.
why is it so hard to speak sometimes?
all the time? what do we think is going to happen?
i have so much respect for you and so much joy in knowing that you want to speak because you will.
and because
you you you
inspire other people to speak and
when you speak
people sometimes have to catch their breath.