Joy is like pain, always here, sleeping

beneath the bedsheets, curled on the floor. I mean

when they arrest me, the zipties gnaw

my wrists, numb my fingers, and I have never been

more myself. It isn’t so bad: DC cops know protestors,

know how to walk the line. At the precinct they crack

jokes, ask what my parents think. On the news

we are “petulant, destructive children” ²

and don’t you hear the hurt seeping

raw within those words? The fear so deep

that defiance seems like destruction, like theft,

like lock them up and look away. Amazing

how far people will walk to the sweet water

of absolution, through the scorching sands.

Amazing how easy it is to hate and name it

wisdom. Alice Walker once said activism

“pays the rent on being alive” ³

and oh god I try to believe her. Believe

I will tell my someday-children of the silly men

who thought their blood was oil and history

a fever-dream of human conquest

while in the jail, we meditate, shake the aching

from our bodies, tie our hunger up

and speak ourselves outward from this

cinderblock cell. Somewhere the world

strives, burns, rebuilds, rejoices, and

marches on towards being whole. Isn’t it enough

to break you open, if you let it? To shred you with rage

and grief? Amazing how easy it is

to turn away, step aside, surrender ourselves

and forget all we pledge allegiance to. When cops

say get up and put your hands behind your back,

when they call us “pretentious, preaching,” ⁴

as a single hurricane slaughters 232 people ⁵

and drowns cities in mud, as we lose

and lose and lose. Nikki Giovanni once wrote

“Let me be a part / Of this needed change” ⁶

and I cleave to her words like a prayer. I can only

bear my own imperfect privileged witness, try

to pay my rent for being here, try to be part

of this world, part of the joy

of this unspeakable moment,

this radical blockade, this pain and exultation,

this needed, needed change.