Is Grief Enough?
*I’ve been following the news. Many states are making lists of trans citizens, for what purpose is unclear. The FBI is knocking on trans activists’ doors. I’m so full of grief I don’t know what to do but write. So please, let me share my grief in the face of all this animosity and targeted violence. I invite you to grieve with me, and tomorrow maybe will be better.
My heart has been cracked open. Geode teeth and water pouring over my hands, onto my feet and into a puddle in which I see my downturned face. Mirrors hang all around: circles, rectangles, hexagons. I turn my eyes to the black sky because all around me I see grief.
Malice broke my heart open. Malice creeping through my backyard, malice screaming out from lit up screens, malice curled around my feet like a python.
I keep my eyes up.
Is this enough? To hold this?
Water cooling my underarms, water lapping at my chin, water moving from every breath out my nose. And yet I hold still and hold my heart from which the water pours and pours. I’ll drown like this: pale with blue lips reflected back a hundred times.
As the water swallows my head I breathe deep and find I can breathe underwater.
This piece was inspired by a Creative Neighbors prompt.
Standing with you, grieving with you, Korbin.