What Moves Us

Some moments
history comes to us and says:
What do you truly want?

We tremble. Often we run.
From the terrifying possibility
that we could choose
movement.

That we could begin
exactly where we are
in all our screwed-up
imperfection.

Some days we stand
before our world
and the question
vibrates the air around us:
What do you choose?

This day?
This moment?
This
heart
stopping
glorious
adventure?

There's strong like patriarchy
strong like institutions
strong like two-billion dollars a day
military occupations
spiked with genocide
anchored in neoliberal greed
buttressed by terror
designed to deliver 200-volt shocks
on contact.
Then there’s the strength
of what flows.
Tears, grief, memory.
Blood, energy, breath.
Collective action.

The strength of what moves us
opens our throats
ignites our hips
unleashes our voices
puts the move back into movement
yanks the motion out of emotion.

Movement
strong as a river,
current of joyful resilience
wave and curl
crash and swirl
patterns that constantly change.

Movers who channel each day
the courage of divers
to plunge again
into this churning water.

Thankful
for what yields results
curious
about what does not.

Building lung capacity
to finally embrace
the wholeness of our struggles
exactly as they are.

Some moments, life asks of us:
What do you hope?

There's hope like a battleground
hope that's all soundbites
hope that rehashes a thousand manifestos.
What we intend, believe, imagine
what we propose and plan and dream
what we say, expect, pretend, how we think
things should look.

Then there's the truth on the ground.
What we show up for
each day
with our fearful, angry,tired, clumsy selves.
With our complex, precious,
wounded, brilliant selves.
And we grapple with the chasms
of all that’s gone before.
Negotiate the heartbreak
of decades of betrayal.
We push ourselves to replace “but” with “and”, “no” with “yes”,
steel ourselves to listento those who enrage us the most.
We stretch our brains and wills
until we feel it,
to real hard analysis
until we get it
unpack systems, structures
models ‘til we know
what works and what does not.
What truly moves us.

Some days history asks of us:
What are you making?
We draw the map.

Something that expands
the definition of beauty.
Something that loves by remembering.
Something like mehndi that flows into
a fist
Something like justice that frolics
through our dreams
Something like skin that tells its
own story.

Some years, life comes to us and says:
What do you know?
Why we kept at it, for forty, fifty years.
Why we have never regretted it.

That this movement
Still moves us
In our guts, our hips, our hearts

That this laughter
this trust
this earned and tried and tested respect
is a house we have built,brick by brick
and it will hold.

Some mornings life wakes us up
sets our hearts beating
sets our nerves thrumming
warns us
we’'re about to leap
into our iciest fearour largest growth
our most piercing joy.
Some mornings,
We take a huge breath, say
Yes
to it all.

Some evenings, life wraps us round
in the softness of twilight,
asks:
What are you waiting for?
Truth. Justice. Reparation. Healing.
In our lifetimes. In our lifetimes. In
Our
Lifetimes.

Each day, love comes to us and says:
What will you show up for?
What, in the end, is the truth of
your heart?
We answer with our bodies.
We show up
for the struggle.
We show up
for each other.
We show up
just as we are.
Precious, flawed
limited, magnificent
Human.

We show up
for power.
We choose
movement.
We love
by showing up.

For the Women of Project Pride

Once upon a time there was a voice.
She wore blue jeans shaped lovingly
to the fine fat curves
of her ass,
the bold strong swell
of her thighs.

She loved red.
And Motown.
And silver hoop earrings,
and anything lemon-flavored.
But most of all she loved
the milky peanut butter smell
of her son’s small body.

She roamed the asphalt of West Oakland
calling for her mother,
trying to remember
what her mother looked like.
Her right hand pressed deep into the hollow
just under her left breast
where she kept an ache
she could not name.

You say: do you see me?
Look – and tell me what you see.

I’m looking at you now.
The lovely tired contours of your bodies.
The heaviness of your bellies,
bellies that have ripened children,
done the work of building life.
Bellies that pack enough power to lift this landmass
from Richmond to Hayward
flip it over like a pancake
dump it into the Bay.

And if I know one thing on this scarred and terrible earth it is this.

Your bellies have one more life to birth.
Your own.

If I trust one thing on this scarred and merciful earth,
it is this.
All love begins with seeing.

As I learn to write, I learn to love.
Because to write anything,
first I have to see it.
In its wholeness,
without resistance.
In its detail,
without judgment.
And I’m looking at you now,
as you look at yourselves:

well enough,
deep enough,
true enough,
hard enough

to write yourselves,
well, and deep and true and hard

to love yourselves,
well, deep, true, hard

to be the wellness deepness trueness hardness
that will rock the world.

Once upon a time, there was a voice.
She wore big baggy white t-shirts
to hide the folds of her stretchmarked belly.
She twisted her hair constantly, to quiet her fingers’ craving
for just
one
cigarette.

She loved hot dogs. And pepperoni pizza.
And tap dancing and ocean spray in her face,
and rosemary-scented shower gel,
but most of all she loved the taste
of sobriety in her mouth.

She stood outside a bathroom door,
calling for her mother,
poking her fear through the keyhole
with a fingernail bitten raw,
her other hand over her ear
to shut out a scream she could not name.

You say: Do you hear me? Does anybody hear me?

I’m listening to you now.
The place where you catch your breath as you read
clutch it in your chest as if CPS were coming to take it away.

I am listening to your hearts break
over and over on the page
listening to you re-make
your lives from shattered glass.

Listening to the music
that still chuckles in your hips
that nothing has ever quenched.

Listening to your hunger
that howls at the junction
of 27th and San Pablo
for lives that rise to meet
your largeness.

And if I believe one thing on this scarred and silenced earth
it is the fire in your throats just waiting
for a match.

If I believe one thing on this scarred and singing earth
it is the hosanna of your hands.
Diaper stained, exhausted,hands that heft
babies and strollers and cribs and parole hearings
and 16 months more and god my back hurts
and who’s he with now and what if I never…

Hands that reach again and again for one
word and lay it down on the page,
reach
for a second
word, and lay it beside the first, and sometimes
like a benediction
the third is given to you, and you write –
the dangerous
sacred irreplaceable
truths of your hearts.

Once upon a time, there was a voice.
Her eyes were radiant with hope and flamed with
intelligence, her body was a living question mark.
She breathed in the world around her, turned it
over in her brain, asked: Why?
And for whose benefit?

Who makes money from this?
And how do I
fit into this
shit’s-so-wacked-it-ain’t-even-funny picture?

She loved blues.
And drums.
And every question her daughter asked, and soft cotton on her skin,
but most of all she loved
the muscles of her mind.

She had strong feet which had to party
when the beats began.
She shook her booty up and down
the corridors of Project Pride, relearning
what her mother felt like; re-defining
what a mother feels like,
re-integrating
what it is to be mothered.

Her stomach was round and soft with a contentment that she knew.
Intimately.
She named it
recovery.

You say: Do you feel me?
Can you begin to feel – what I must live?

I’m feeling you now.
The stab in your knees
at the top of the staircase,
the rise of hairs on your arms
in exact configuration of your baby’s body.
The canyon in your pelvis
when you open your notebook,
step to the stage
and begin.

I’m feeling the yearning on your tongue,
the chill in your toes,
each day you choose, and choose, and choose again,
to live from joy, not fear.

I’m feeling the sadness in your spine for all the lost years,
the warrior cry in your chest: never again!
The hum in your very cells of coming home.
To yourself.

And if I know one thing,
on this luminous, fragile earth it is this.
You are all
so
beautiful.
So fuc-king beautiful.
You are the soil beneath the asphalt, rich dark loam
where all life rises.
You are the largeness you seek.
And if I have one prayer on this naked turning earth,
it is this.
That you meet yourselves
in the mirror.
Name yourselves holy.
Name yourselves power.
Name yourselves true and terrified, blessed and bloodied,
torn and reknitted,
shattered and sanctified.
That you rise into your voices,
voices that have waited for you, like your children,
like your hearts, voices that have always known,
voices that have never doubted
you
would
return for them.

SCREAMING

I.

there are too many battles
and too many wounds
and I
I can’t take it

I don’t want to know
that Inez Garcia was sentenced
to life imprisonment
for killing the man
who held her down
while two other men raped her

I want to cover my ears and scream
to block out the voices that chant
that Piah Njoki had her eyes
gouged out by her husband
because she did not bear him a son

I want to be free of the murder
that pounds in my brain
because six hundred women a year in Delhi alone
are doused in paraffin and burned
burned to death for the crime
of too small a dowry

I want to pretend it won’t happen to me

did you know that a student at Sussex university was raped on her
first night in residence
by a man who just walked
just walked
into her room

I am not a part of this bleeding
this scream
I don’t want to challenge argue fight
construct confront negotiate
beg for change

do you hear me

I want to retreat
to a room filled with humans
shut out the night
the fear and pain
hear myself stop
screaming inside
unravel my breathing ask
in a very
low
voice

dare I
claim the right
to a voice
that does not
scream?

II.

so it wasn’t until I learned to fight
I could be sexy
the swing of my hip developed
in pace with my elbow strike

I grew out my hair
as my flesh grew harder
began to wear lipstick
bare my shoulders
as I learned to judge
how fast to strike
and where

groin
eyes
jugular

It wasn’t until
I could walk down a street
knowing I could turn rage into action
that I could strut
down the same street
say with my stride
yes I think I look good too
yes I revel in my body
yes I love the sun on my skin
this body is mine
the better I learn to defend it
the better I flaunt it
from sheer joy

III.

for the truth of experience
Is in the body
when I am a fighter
my body is weapon
when I am a lover
my body is food
now my body
is paintbrush
story
truth
illusion
sing through my limbs
like the shock of cold water

breathe me clear
breathe me free
breathe me home