Where do you belong? With whom do you belong?
Noah is my anchor. What does that mean? That means his irritation affects me in an outsized way.
I’m feeling all over the place but I know I shouldn’t. I should feel calm. What is my place? Where do I belong?
Thanks, y’all, for doing the equivalent of a morning nod. Y’all acknowledge that I’m part of your world.
Where does Noah belong? In Texas? God forbid.
Where do we belong?
Who are we?
Nothing.
White supremacy says we are something. That’s shit. We’re nothing. But what does nothing mean?
It means I’m connected to you and you are connected to me and we are all better if we work together. I should probably not be the boss–I have personality issues.
Today I saw one of my beloved students post something that basically said we will be something even if those white pieces of shit try to beat us down. I’m sure not arguing with the sentiment.
Who am I in this dynamic, though?
Should I be shot? The only good white person is a dead white person?
I dinno.
I would be lying if I said I wanted nothing from you. I want your acknowledgment. I want you to look at me. I want to see me in your reflection.
I love you.
I sure wish I was worthy of you loving me. I know I am not and I despair.
I am unworthy.
I know.
That does not stop me from wanting, from looking, from waiting.
I yearn and quest and I stamp out the seeds of wanting. I want.
How that word taunts me. Wanting. I want wanting.
That thing it is you want. What is it? Does it exist? Is it ephemera? Is it real? Is it tangible?
I don’t know.
But I am.
Are you?
Oh man. I am sitting here prematurely greiving another limb and in a lot of pain and feeling similarly i think?
I saw your friend who wants to leave the place i am so homesick for and i cried and cried. I feel like a monster for falling in love with it there. Was the city i was in a blue oasis or was i just blind to a whole lot of injustice? Was i complicit? Did i participate? Would i be making a terrible mistake if I moved back and does anyone even want me there? I dont know.
I know when i went to NY i asked advice of so many brown faces who softened when i said i was disabled and on food stamps but i felt real fucking dirty, like a disease, a poison
Sometimes i feel like my calling in this house is to toe the line between silence/survival and defiant visibility and education. But then i feel like an ingracious lazy pit of need, like a parasite, and i avoid mirrors those days.
How do i live, how do i thrive without hurting people? Where do i fit? How egotistical is it to want to be left alone and also want community? Is that just NIMBY packaged up in introverted whiteness?
I don’t know, I dont have answers but i have this gnawing pit of loneliness and wanting
I love you. I hear your pain. I don’t know your answers any more than I know mine. But I am your friend and I think you are deeply valuable.
I love you too.