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I AM LIVID AT THE OUTDATED WAYS IN WHICH I HAVE TO BE OUTRAGED ABOUT THIS.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

Things I heard for the first time today

Waiting outside of Glenn Memorial on the campus of Emory University to hear Cornel West speaking on Race in America I heard,

"I just don't get where there are NON EMORY students taking OUR seats."

As part of Cornel West's lecture on America's racial history he talked about,

"Mustering the courage to cry."

He reminded us that this is not an easy task but that people have been doing it for centuries and without it we wouldn't have JAZZ and HIP-HOP and PAINTING and LOVE.

RE RE RE RE listening to The Messengers as done by J.Period and K'naan and I heard Bob Dylan say,

"Nothing in this story has been changed, except for the words."

Always trying to get better at listening. Don't you always remember those people that listened SO well the first time you met them?