tender, tough

i feel too tender to be tough.

too raw to be hard,

too sore to charge

and too scared to dream.

there’s been a series of cop violence in seattle leaving many killed and more fearful and less willing to fight back. i could go on about the political timidity of the resistance, and lack thereof, but to boil it down, it is the institutionalization of liberal politics, identity based political dementedness and conservativeness. this monopoly feels very hard to challenge cos it works like fine clockwork. tweaking away into my life. into our lives.

a montage of thoughts that leave me skin torn, vessels exposed, bleeding, too raw to conceal

we have tried to make ends meet for way too long, says francis in her piece

i feel that.

the FBI attacks on palestine solidarity activists,

the incessant rounds of cop violence permeating

i feel that.

the ways that friendships betrayed drill into my heart

sinking me

i feel that.

the imagination of how tumultous, how emotionally draining organization building is, my life scratched open and having to insistently move forth, questions are not about me, but about a future beyond me, for a shot at winning against what keeps us down.

i feel that,

and fear that.

and today i just feel tender

and i wanna remember i can be tough in these moments

what seems big and exasperating, vulnerable and painoozing

can, in the larger scheme

be just a blister and why

stop a body pulsating

for a sore, small, sorry

blister?

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