Pulse
Here is my attempt to both channel and connect to the lives lost or forever changed. Some of it makes perfect sense and some of it makes no sense at all. I’m not sharing because it’s publishable. I’m sharing because it’s ready. It’s my grief, in the right now, in word form reaching out to others who are crying.
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I woke up because I couldn’t sleep
Because I needed to cry
Had moments of sadness since learning about the loss
People in many ways like and unlike me
Only wanting to be
To get lost in a place
Where the superficial is drowned out by the beat
Where every stranger is a friend
And every expression of self is one of choosing
Not dictated by society
Or masked by an attempt
To leverage capital that was never within reach
Been dealing with the onslaught of misunderstandings, invisibility, and erasure because of the intersections of me
Some lanes in which I can name
Others in which I cannot
Not because they are without words
But, because they are without conviction
All colliding together
Rendering me silent
Unworthy of voice
Since walking in the me of me
Have lost so many close relationships
Close based on a standard in which I never subscribed
For so long I was ignorant of that which I tried to accommodate
Now in my awaking, I try to resist that which I do not want to ingest
But my resistance is not welcomed
Yet my accommodation is no longer tolerable
Having no outlet to figure it out.
No resource to check in as I find my way out
Trying to develop a vocabulary to express that which I wrestle
The words are too much
They reflect a way of thinking that is unfamiliar
Unwelcomed
So I take my new words and sit in frustration
Can’t talk with them
Can’t talk without them
I am reminded of all of this at 4 in the morning
Usually a time in which I wake to start my day
Except there was no slumber
Yet a whole lot of noise
Of that which is not and that which pretends to be
So I am up
Feeling my pulse
Yet, trying to slow down the pace
The pace of an unknown chase for love, self, and community
Because in the amplified loss of life
Lives that were only seeking a reprieve from a daily currency of no
I need to tell someone that I ache
Of why I ache
And I need them to care
Or at least, to get it
But my life is full of people who have mastered the art
The art of a masquerade
Comfortable with the numbness
Of the way things have been
And uncomfortable with the way things could be
All the while distancing themselves from a pursuit for wholeness
From an inability to perform the act
Not understanding how hard I have tried
Giving myself over to the failure
Free falling into a space hated yet desired
All the while hating that desire
To love where there is no love
I want to release them from which they cannot be
Want to give them the freedom to be
That in which they are
Even though it is toxic for me
No judgment
No explanation
No litigation
Just acceptance
So I repress what I can
Find a different stage to act out my distraction
Metaphorically making my way to the dance floor
Head, arms, and hips
Swaying to an energy available only for a moment
My reprieve
A place to release and restore
Laughing and singing through my soul
Only living out among strangers
Until the fireworks explode
And we realize there is no celebration in the sky
My sanctuary becomes that of my world
And I’m no longer safe
I run my way out to only crawl my way back in
Suppressing all that I do know and all that I do not understand
Until the pressure is so great that it needs to be released
And I find myself up in the wee hours in the morning
I cry
Finally.
It’s the one thing that’s mine and they cannot take it away.
My humanity
My pulse
