Working on using this voice (wish it was more poignant, sorry)

I need to be writing but I just keep crying in private.



Like tiny panic attack crying that no one could ever possibly see because I pull myself together as quickly as, well, as quickly as an earthquake catches you off guard.




But writing has never been easy, writing has never been easy, writing has never been easy. Speaking has been easy but yelling has never been easy (don't tell anyone I don't yell, no one knows I don't yell)

Like when I’m sitting in class and this man is talking about the benevolent colonizer and my professor is encouraging him yes YES YES YES YES YES YES YES keep going! dig deeper! and I make eye contact across the room with the only other person who seems outraged and I'm thinking dig DEEPer?

How much deeper can we go than suffering and slavery?

How much deeper can we goooooo?

oh!

You're not teaching this class for me are you?

oh,

this is starting to make sense.

Thankfully, the person I make eye contact with WRITES A POEM, much better than this one and reads it.. at a slam.

And so,

thankfully,

I don’t have to say anything. I don't ever have to yell.

But I think if ever there was a time it's time to yell. (why is is so hard to yell?)

I AM LIVID. I AM LIVID.

I AM LIVID AT THE WAY THAT POWER DYNAMICS AND RACISM CREATED THIS DISASTER

AND

I AM LIVID AT THE OUTDATED WAYS IN WHICH I HAVE TO BE OUTRAGED ABOUT THIS.



I AM LIVID.



(finally trying to yell out loud) (but i can't seem to figure out how to do it best)

tips?

haiti we remember you

here is a poem from stacie, on this inspiring blog skinned knees.wings.blueprints.:


Haiti, I remember you.

They call this an earthquake

But I remember you.

How we paralyzed your rebellions

Forced you to pay twenty-one billion dollars to France

For reclaiming your own freedom.

Haiti, how many ways you have paid for us.

And now, when your buildings crumble as the earth beneath you ruptures

Violently once again

Our reporters talk of your construction standards

Your dire poverty

Your “proclivity” for rebellion

Removes us from your history.

But I remember you Haiti.

I remember the Arawak people

The sugar cane fields

The Code Noir

Touissant in prison.

How it took 22 years and several failed attempts at re-enslavement

For France to recognize your independence

How it took the U.S. thirty-seven more, and later

with it’s own turn to master you, a nineteen year occupation

to control your people and pillage your resources

How, unsatiated, we backed Trujillo as he massacred your peasants

Helped install Papa Doc Duvalier and trained his notorious army

Overthrew Aristide not once, but twice. And now,

We will offer you “Aid”

Benevolently and bereft of history.

But I remember you, Haiti.

I remember the fault line

where the Spanish, French, and U.S. plates collide

For your bodies, your sugar, your coffee, your submission.

And I know this is no more natural than Katrina

because I live here on the San Andreas

and they say the big one is coming.

But Haiti, you are the Maldives, and I

Am the Netherlands.

And you are still paying debt to my banks

While I harbor your war criminals.

It is not much Haiti, but I remember.

-Stacie Szmonko