The Personal Is Political

I woke up 

With a fire in my belly

A rage that can't be quelled

The world is upside down

And I'm angry

I'm angry at war and needless death

I'm angry at homelessness and starvation

I'm angry at propriety and silence

I'm angry

At our society

And every single one of us that upholds it

I'm angry at how I've been treated my whole life

I'm angry for being silenced

And always pressured to conform

To contort myself in ways that are pleasing to others

To the point of illness

I am angry

Not just for myself

But for every single vulnerable being on the planet

And all the ways that society perpetuates harm

I am angry

About silence

And propriety

I am angry about societal norms

I am angry at blaming individuals

Devoid of contexts and systems

I am angry at over-simplification

Watered down stories

And black and white thinking

I am angry

At the dumbing down of society

And all the ways that people think that how they behave is ok

Your ideas of propriety are not important to me

The ways you think I should be different?

I disagree

Wholeheartedly 

Me, and others like me

We might be the only thing right with humanity

I won't say "the world" because the world is bigger than human beings

And would be better off without us

How fucking sad

That we came here and destroyed so much beauty

Both outside of us, and within

We are only as great as the impact we have on others

And look what we've done

All of us

So when I left my husband

And fought for my daughter

And fought the lawyers and the court

When I allow my daughter to take up space

To express herself and feel seen and understood

That is me, correcting humanity's harm

The humanity that brought patriarchy and silence and exploitation

And abuse

And isolation 

And alienation

The more I fight

The more I am criticized

And it only makes me stronger

So bring it the fuck on

I've lived 39 years of life

Ostracized and imprisoned in a body that rejects injustice

At every turn

From my childhood all the way to apartheid and genocide across the world

Do you not see how it is all connected?

The abuse we experience at home

And the abuse that is enacted globally?

Do we not see?

How the personal is political?

Everywhere we turn?

Everyone is so afraid of looking like a bad person

We can't bear to look at the evil societies we all uphold

If you can't look at it

You can't change it

And that's where I have made use of my courage

I choose to sit with myself

To look deep within

To parse out where I like myself and where I don't

And why

What can I change and what can't I?

What do I support and what don't I?

And the more I deconstruct and put myself back together

The more I stand up for what I truly believe in

Whether it's against a family member

Or an entire society

I know what is right and wrong

Not because someone told me

But because I feel it in my bones

So tell me

Do you still have the capacity to feel?

Or have you still not reclaimed what was stolen from you?

You must reclaim your own Self

In order to reclaim your connection to All

And if we don't

We are no better

Than the ones enacting genocide

Does that make you uncomfortable?

Surely

You don't want to think of yourself as a genocidal maniac

And yet...

What have you done

To stop it?