Lighght
I have this idea to always begin from the beginning. It is unintuitive to start from the middle or the end , or even near the beginning. Because you cant forget where it all started from, nor who was there when it did.
Sometimes I have awful thoughts about what I'll become in 10 years. How I will act, where ill be working, what I'll be doing in light of change. Of how everyone else will be when theyre 10 years older. How I will see them and how they will see me. Will I have a child? Will women still be being paid less to the dollar? What will I have said and done to change anything?
Not much.
I am one point on a grid , a grain of sand in an ocean, a singular leaf blowing in the wind.
And then I look outwards, to my peers. And how they were edgy clothes, and pierce their tongues and get the most regretful tattoos. And how they holler and yelp! Like a bunch of boastful dogs screeching out something that doesnt make sense, nor matters for the most part.
Maybe thats the problem. I dont give their bullshit the credibility that this time, the right here and now, deserves. Maybe they are saying something that is warranted. After all, someone has always been saying something stupid. Maybe Rosa Parks protest for a equal seating was seen as stupid.
Maybe the Native Americans pleas for their right to their own religion and way of life was seen as stupid. Maybe I need to read more about history, and find truer examples of what I mean.
And just possibly, those hipsters who are drunkenly yelling out about some stupid form of discrimination against feminists, or the patriarchal government that is oh so oppressive to them, is our current voice, or at least a part of it. Maybe it is stupid.
But when isnt what I say stupid or useless, or out of bounds or not credible or extreme, to those whom wish to keep us quiet?
When is it right to speak out, or to stay shut?
And here I was, doing to them what they so often did to me. Silently, killing them. Disowning their thoughts. Clandestinely disapproving their right to speak, and executing their opportunity, the one and only they will ever have in their lifetimes to speak out and be relevant.
And now. I can only, wish only ever, to see the sun pass me by in blistering colors, searing my face in the utmost truth that exerts out of such a beautiful, legendary artifact of our world. How I only wish to see the world more beautiful. I think back to when I was younger, 7 to 15. When lights were brighter, and words held more weight, when the skies warm blue clouds swept down to me, and caressed my body. When the newness of the world inspired me, when contraptions where fascinating and unknown. Where even the cruelty of the world still required some interest of me.
It'll never be that way again. But maybe it can be better. Maybe I can muster up the courage one day, while im still young and hispanic and short and shy and eager and smart and masculine and disruptive and questionable, and walk outside and be myself. Speaking loudly, outwardly to the world, and allow them to enter my life. Oh I believe I will do it, maybe not tomorrow, but maybe next week when I go out to New York. Or to Paterson, or Rutherford, or Mercer, wherever I go, Ill have another chance to make it happen.
