“Because you love one human being, you see everyone else very differently than you saw them before—perhaps I only mean to say that you begin to see—and you are both stronger and more vulnerable, both free and bound. Free, paradoxically, because now, you have a home—your lover’s arms. And bound: to that mystery, precisely, a bondage which liberates you into something of the glory and suffering of the world.”
No Name In The Street
‘Take Me To The Water’ p. 23
James Baldwin
Why I became a pacifist
and then
How I became a warrior again:
Because nothing I could do or say
turned out okay
I figured I should just sit
still and chill
except to maybe mumble
“Baby, Baby:
Stop!”
AND
Because turning that other cheek
holding my tongue
refusing to retaliate when the deal
got ugly
And because not throwing whoever calls me bitch
out the goddamn window
And because swallowing my pride
saying I’m sorry when whoever don’t like
one single thing
about me and don’t never take a break from
counting up the 65,899 ways I talk wrong
I act wrong
And because sitting on my fist
neglecting to enumerate every incoherent
rigid/raggedy-ass/disrespectful/killer cold
and self-infatuated crime against love
committed by some loudmouth don’t know
nothing about it takes 2 to fuck and
it takes 2 to fuck things up
And because making apologies that nobody give a shit
about
and because failing to sing my song
finally
finally
got on my absolute last nerve
I pick up my sword
I lift up my shield
And I stay ready for war
Because now I live ready for a whole lot more
than that
June Jordan
”Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan”
pp. 477-478
