for the community
accountability, laughter, cucumbers on the table. ballroom business, mid-afternoon.
accountability, laughter, cucumbers on the table. ballroom business, mid-afternoon.
stood there teaching, not to perform, but to remember. to speak of what refuses extraction. to name what pulses under erasure. black keffiyeh against the chest, kiki futures on the screen. the room knew. not everything had to be said. some things shimmered between us.
#kjipuktuk #drift #blackness #queerness #refusals #fragments #holdings
the conference ended. or maybe it didn’t. people lingered like the performance was still going. hallway laughter. cups half-full. a woman nodding too hard at nothing.
i had asked my question. black faces in every slide, but no data that spoke to us. just placement. just image.
the speaker deflected. clean. soft. the room let it happen.
i stepped outside. cold air, wet pavement, nothing sticking.
then he said it. ben énervé, hein? like anger was the problem. like clarity was a disruption. like i wasn’t still there.
i found him. calm. exact. you don’t get to narrate my presence.
he laughed. i didn’t.
i walked home with the cold in my hands. still here. still mine.
theory. metaphor. refusal.
how we stayed alive.
the murals watched. we didn’t march fast. our orange shirts carried what couldn’t be said.
palestine in the frame. ballroom at the centre. blackness, unshaken.
#tiohtiàke #refusals #blackness #queerness #fragments #holdings
pink sky, mesh shirt, keffiyeh on the straps. joy is not the absence of struggle. it’s what we carry through it.