What if...

What if a rose really did grow up out of the cement,
like Tupac said.

What if I woke up, and stopped feeling worthless and pointless?

Maybe it’s not worth the energy, all of this self-editing. Just do the things.
(And I don’t mean the things we call “all the things”, I mean the few
new Array importantThings

Maybe as the Internet dies, we can have JavaScripty poetry?)

Rejecting cynicism requires processing one's grief,
And I need energy for that.

I’m so grateful I have (a few) real friends who remind me of that.

Finally I’m healing, though, bit by bit.

It’s sometimes one step forward, then two steps back

But many times it’s really one step forward then

let adhdTax === HOW MANY STEPS BACK?!

I’ve been feeling guilty.

For drinking in the art of Kendrick Lamar.
I also find solace in the work of Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde.

Black people continue to give to the cause of this extremely imperfect, flawed
democracy that’s enslaved them, lynched them, spit on them, ignored them, deplored them

But god forbid if Hillary called those MAGA idiots deplorables.

What if that guilt is part of the misogyny and the oppression?

What if I believed I DESERVE IT ALL, too?

My nieces deserve it all, too.

Your children deserve it all, too.

What if I had the audacity to try to move beyond this sick feeling in my stomach I get when I think about America and what we’ve done in the name of white supremacy.

The complexity of healing racially
makes everyone

Freeze

What if we didn’t wait until we thought we knew we’d gotten it perfect?

What if we decided trying was better than apathy?

What if I stopped feeling guilty about my exes sexual abuses?
They were the abused, and then the abusers. In that order.
No, they don’t get a pass, but it’s more nuanced than that.

Can emojis be included in poetry?
(I know it’s “emoji,” but please.)

What does it really mean to be me, even? Or is there a me?
To exit the existential philosophy, my nasty woman bitchery,
To keep it really real I want to know:

Am allowed to use the phrase “squabble up”?

Because it sums up what we need right now. What I need (to do) right now.

Yesterday, Gavin Newsom said, “wake up”:

“Wake up, America!”

Isaac Bryan of California’s 55th, first

he said square up

then, he took a breath and said,

squabble up

squabble up
squabble up

squabble up

squabble up
squabble up

squabble up

squabble up
squabble up

What if we reject monoliths, AI aggregates, gross capitalist conglomerates?

We need to focus, pay attention, disaggregate shit.

I’m a white woman who has squandered more than her fare share of privilege
on so much dumb shit
[don’t edit yourself before you even get a phrase out, you DUMB BITCH]

So much baggage!
But I have PTSD.
And ADHD and GAD and MDD and maybe even OCD.

What if I really got to know myself, like my therapist said,

What if I address Seven-year-old Nicole and the other cast of Parts
to explain to her/them why I didn’t do better or even get to know her better.

I’ve been watching TikToks upon TikToks learning things,
shielding my brain from
misinformation with my almost-a-masters-degree.

But what about the kids, they need the Department of Education.

How will they be able to tell the real revolution from the algorithm’s amplifications?