i confess

i confess: i can't take news on a daily basis, certainly not in the relentless push-notification stream that seems like it's the default now. so when i feel especially stable & ok, i hit my news sources & scroll back for as long as i can stand it. lately it's...well, you know what it's like. 

i confess: it has felt like hubris sometimes to say that i should continue to make sure my work gets out into the world no matter what, because people need it, because especially trans people need it, because of the principle of the thing (the idea that one fights censorship & fascism by continuing to write & publish, however that happens). in earlier years, i convinced myself that this was all i had to give--all that i was capable of giving, that is--& so it was something like desperation, a panicked dash to feel relevant & helpful. now i have other resources to share, & over the last few years i have come to question the idea that my work could or should ever make much of a difference. i had heard very occasionally from people to whom it had, but although i responded with real gratitude for the feedback, i actually resisted letting it sink in. i resisted letting it change my sense of my reach as an artist, my sense of the power of my work to give to others, to be of assistance. i have been frightened of investing too much in that; i have feared making it into an ego thing. i have never wanted to treat others badly because i felt myself to be a big fucking deal. to be entitled. but there's a long way between letting honors sink in & being a toxic poet.

i confess: i've fled the power of my work for too long, & it's hurt my ability to bring my own agency to bear in the world where that work is concerned. it's hurt my sense that my poetry in particular could ever be anything more than some kind of safety valve that saved my own life. (that alone, & my own life, i thought to have very little value.) but after the last few days, processing the shock of new information given to me at & after the "free stuff" event marking my return to doing in-person readings, i think...i think i'm done resisting the reality of my own agency, my own power, the power of my work, & how these all relate in the world. 

i confess: reading the news makes me wonder how we can get out of this without a direct action against the tyrant's regime & the organization, the structure he has put in place. i mean the kind of direct action i can't participate in. i wonder what the role of poetry--of my poetry in particular--might be as an alternative to the sorts of things i cannot do. i fear that the tyrant's actions have already put me into the kind of position where the only way i might survive is to do violence in self-defense, & thereby do violence to myself, my vows, my own healing. i wonder whether it is really inescapable, & whether i really would be of greater service alive. i wonder if anyone will understand that this question is not about self-sacrifice at all, but about a broader sense of possibility than i might imagine at first, now, in speculating about a future i fear.

i confess: i thought before that i was letting myself off too easily, positing my poetry as my contribution to the revolution. but the kind of revolution i can help with is slow, slow. the kind of future i work to bring about does not demand that anyone sacrifice their lives in the present, or that anyone's life is forfeit because of their choices. i use everything i have, now, but i need to stop disqualifying my poetic efforts as part of that "everything" just because it's art & i was afraid to grant it too much value. i need to stop underestimating myself & my work. it's time, it's long past time. i think, what would happen if i just, you know, took the gloves off & really freed up, really started learning what i can do? like, what if i started accepting that there's no such thing as "only poetry," nothing minor or small about poetry, nothing that can be discarded like an old sock?

i confess: i have no idea what will happen. wanna find out with me?