#thisismynarrative

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"So that the revolution does not completely rot I leave you with a message I am old And your utopia is for future generations There are so many children who will be born With a little broken wing And I want them to fly, comrade I want your revolution To drop them a piece of red heaven So that they fly." - Pedro Lemebel from A Last Supper of Queer Apostles

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"Since, anyway, it will end one day, why not try it — life — one more time?" - James Baldwin, from "Nothing Personal"

[thisismynarrative]

on keeping the light on

My personal grief does not exist outside of the world's grief. I forget sometimes. Sometimes my own yearning for a lost loved one overshadows the weight of the world around me. And I think this is okay. To be flattened by your own and sometimes another's sadness. A loop of grief sustained by you and everyone around you. I'm also learning how to hold that grief alongside everything else that is good but often forgotten. I don't want to lose love. I don't want to preemptively mourn our world into death.

In his essay, "Nothing Personal," James Baldwin intertwines the self with the whole. They (the self & the whole) are their own, and they are connected. We are selves, each of us, living in the world, but we are not suddenly separated from our history. We are not disconnected from one another even if capitalism wants us to think we are.

I think that's why I was really struck by this essay. We need to pay attention to each other, to our history, to our selves. More specifically how it all informs our lives, our futures. Or else, we'll float away.

As Baldwin writes, "For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out."

Let's keep the light on, friends.

[thisismynarrative]

“A Thousand Eulogies Are Exported to the Comma.” Of Syntax and Genocide

This essay was originally given as a speech given at “A People’s Cinema & Night of Poetry & Song for Palestine” in Brooklyn, New York on Jan

“Palestinian life (comma) love (comma) and freedom (period)”

words by Nicki Kattoura from, “A Thousand Eulogies Are Exported to the Comma” Of Syntax and Genocide.

You can read the full piece linked in this post.

i don’t have anything new to say. my words flatten themselves in front such immense grief. and still, i ask them to keep on. to remember, to rage, to witness. i ask myself to do the same. i hope you are finding ways to continue. to fight.

Danez Smith tweeted yesterday, “How must I disrupt my own life to counter the disruptive violence of the world?” I ask myself the same question.

how do we disrupt this life (this very american, very capitalistic, individualistic life) to counter the violence (often one funded by this country) of the world?

how do we take our dreams of a better world & our writings of more equitable life to this reality?

[thisismynarrative]

"Be a child again. Teach me poetry. Teach me the rhythm of the sea. Return to words their initial innocence. Give birth to me from a grain of wheat, not from a wound. Give birth to me and take me back to a world before meaning, so I can embrace you on the grass. Do you hear me? A world before meaning. The tall trees walked with us as trees, not as meaning. The naked moon crawled with us. A moon, not a silver platter for meaning. Be a child again. Teach me poetry. Teach me the rhythm of the sea. Take my hand, so we can cross this threshold between night and day together. Together we will learn the first words, and will build a secret nest for the sparrow, our third sibling. Be a child again, so I see my face in your mirror. Are you I? Am I you? Teach me poetry, so I can elegize you now, now, now. Just as you elegize me!"

-Mahmoud Darwish, from In the Presence of Absence

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i think of you & i see a future where love is possible. a future that includes romance with all of its tangents. like our walks to coffee shops & our evening conversations in your apartment. i think of you & i feel the softness of your hand in mine. i feel your cheek gently resting against my palm, my thumb close to your bottom lip. your eyes closed in relief. i think of you & i remember our thighs pressing against each other, sitting too close on such a big bed. i think of you still & i know i am capable of loving this way.

i love you differently now. less body and more distance. i love you quietly. i have yet to make meaning out of this. all i know is that i think of you. still, i think of you. and i hope you think of me too.

[thisismynarrative]

fragments for friendship: one

do you love your friends as much as you pretend to love yourself? what do you know of friendship? how devastating it feels to be held by a friend, hold hands as friends, and meet up virtually to write because i don’t know what the fuck I’m doing with my life sounds the best followed by me too. i keep a journal with everyone’s home address, so I can mail you a letter i say when really it’s to build my map of home. home is not a place. this i know. and yet, when a friend moves too many states away for a car ride visit, i mark their new place on my ever-changing map with a dotted x, because i believe love moves & people are worth looking for. 

[thisismynarrative]

Sandra Sanchez — What If | Tomorrow

hello!! while i mostly write about the shape of my sadness & grief & & &. i’m happy to share this more hopeful piece written for a beautiful project all about tomorrow. hope (feeling so much of it these days!!) you can give it a read. click on the link if you'd like to read about libraries & community-making & childhood!!

small excerpt: "Childhood isn’t easy. Nothing seems to be. But I think it was a time when community meant something beyond the page. We tasked ourselves, with every game we played, and every fight we had, to read one another carefully. How are you feeling? Should we fight pirates today? Your dad is looking for you. My mom asked your mom if I can stay over while she goes to the market. I’ll see you later. Let’s play mañana."

here’s to finding how to best continue forever & ever !! may tomorrow be gentle & if it’s not, may we organize with our communities & find ways in our daily lives to bring about that tmr.

with care,

sandra <3