I’m still incapable of seeing anyone whose politics I’m not fully aware of. They came in from NY, en route to Nairobi. I adore M (the bright light two people behind me) and so very much wanted to spend time with her, but worried about who else might be there. I asked G + J (the two gorgeous ones at the front) to be ready to buffer for me. Just in case.

Luckily, no buffering was necessary. But the support and willingness to buffer took the weight of my world off of my shoulders for a very little while. And while I’m usually not able to spend more than about 90 minutes with any one person at any given time, I spent nearly three hours here and sent a note to momma telling her how – for the first time since October – I felt safe in the company of so many people.

There is a heaviness settled into the hearts of most I love. We, with families on the inside waiting to be killed, we are not alive, though living. I dated someone for a minute; he is lovely, but he was never going to be among my love stories. He took life too seriously and there is nothing to take seriously but the cumulative monstrosity of human choices in service of fantastical profit, imperialism, and religious insanity. Nothing.

I dated someone for a minute. I tried to engage love despite everything, because “It’s not possible to constantly hold onto crises. You have to have the love and you have to have the magic. That’s also life” said Toni Morrison.

I dated someone for a minute. And learned something which I had previously suspected about myself – I am not in relationships for the heaviness of them. Which is not to say I want to clown shoe the relationship, rather it is to say if I cannot laugh, I will walk. Which is precisely what happened.

I laughed at something which he was taking far more seriously than I could ever wrap my mind around, and so he became upset with me. I did not have the energy or bandwidth for an emotional conversation. My emotional reserve is stoking the rage against a world which continues to watch high definition videos of a gen0c!de and sit back asking for the next season.

Everything outside of this gen0c!de is a fu(king joke. Those of us with family on the inside are barely existing do not come to us with your bullsh!t sadness about I can’t even imagine WHAT but let me tell you it was absolutely not what he was taking so seriously.

I wished him a gentle goodbye, with a clear explanation as to why I would no longer remain in this space with him, and then left.

He was not gentle enough with the part of me that is presently hardest to hold. I remembered Audre Lorde. I am obsessed with Justice, always have been. I will step into any situation if anyone is being bullied, at the risk of my own health and safety. Nothing – nothing – gets my blood rolling like injustice. From the smallest iota of it to the greatest, most devastating, globally shifting political machinations.

So imagine me at present. I have my finger on a metaphorical trigger at all times. Everything has become heightened. Every single issue amplified, from the personal to the political (more personal). As the weight of this situation becomes heavier with every body murdered, the amplification grows.

And the only tenderness I have is for those who will be in my life for a very extended period of time.

It is for them alone that the reserve of love I have now sits in place. Softness remains my natural resting place (once the upheaval is complete, and for the upheaval I will never apologize). If you’re not a part of this circle, I wish you well. End.

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