We are here because of lies and God as my witness I want to learn how to tell the truth
Reflections on getting unafraid, because “free” has been made too costly to have value as a slogan alone.
We are here because of lies and God as my witness I want to learn how to tell the truth.
I love the weapon in the palm of my hand
in the way that love is synonymous with reliance.
All of the compromise it demands,
all the codependency it threatens–
my screen time can testify to this.
I began hiding because we are all being watched
The ones who spoke early,
The ones who spoke loudly to make up for being late,
The ones not speaking at all–
All of us are responding to being gazed at
By one another
The powers that be
And God themselves.
What a weight to bear
and how inequivalent it persists,
carried from the periphery.
Who am I to chide anyone’s contradictions from blood stained sand I still find beauty in?
Two weeks ago I looked out from my balcony on Lake Kivu unto Congo across the way, my skin speckled gold from the soil I made ritual with, hungry for its blessing. I am guilty of being spellbound, for all that I did and did not ask for first. I stopped the car on the way there because I had never seen a roadside so opulent and a crowd gathered around me when I put my palms on the hill to pray. I made a spectacle of myself on accident–to everyone else there was nothing spectacular to stop for. Everything that brought me there is the same everything put in place to make sure they did not leave. If you are not permitted to leave home, you can not see for yourself how what’s familiar to you is exceptional, for better or worse. The ones who run the mines and the ones who deny the visas know this.
We are subjects to nosy governments who’ve lost their sense of smell. You can look in every direction for the root cause of what’s rotting but if every sample you touch is corrupted then there is nothing to diagnose. Everyone is sick.
I have been sick for more than two weeks now–too much water from too many places and too much stress to slow down for long enough to get better. The barrage shows no signs of slowing down and it seems like most everyone I know is running too. Running to the right way to feel about so many things being wrong and all of us being complicit. The right thing to do is to find a way to make it stop but how do you stop a fire that’s become a part of you? To me, that’s why self-immolation cuts to the core, it’s the least abstract possible expression of the heart of the matter: the call is coming from inside the house.
I read Huey Newton’s Revolutionary Suicide years ago in the way that people read the first few chapters of something and claim to understand it. I don’t think I ever finished the book but the gist that stuck with me is that the systems controlling us are killing us slowly so we might as well commit to struggle, and die trying.
I know I don’t want anyone who I see love in to burst into flames. I myself want to live and I do not want to be ashamed–the two can feel so contradictory. There is an exasperation that kills slowly and all I know is that I wish more wellness for everyone, but when the livestreams are of death and dirty water it’s hard to tell the difference between an excuse and a commitment to trying to stay alive. Each of us weigh compromise on different scales.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about that one Nina Simone quote: “I’ll tell you what freedom is to me: No fear.” When I’m alone–like, really alone–I can’t escape the fact that I am afraid. Afraid in a way that makes my left temple twitch when I open myself up to it. And when it gets there, I try to remember that getting unafraid is a marathon, not a sprint. Marathons take commitment, not just running. It feels more useful for me to think of getting unafraid for Congo, and getting unafraid for Gaza, getting unafraid for Black people everywhere & for everyone threatened with imprisonment for their love because “free” has been made too costly to have value as a slogan alone.
I for one wanna live to know the kind of freedom Miss Simone was talking about. A friend sent me this song a few days ago, and it’s been taking me to a place that feels close to what I imagine that freedom is–a place where you cry without trying to, for as long as you need, and be held throughout. I hope it takes you there too.
With Radical Love – Ramadan Kareem,
Neema 🖤
How necessary how needed. Thank you
I am so grateful for this