Speak this because I exist.
There is an exercise I practice, or try to. It begins, what is the most useful thing I can be doing right now? It continues, to whom can I be useful (because there is always someone else doing this work)? It does not end.
I find myself asking those questions with increasing frequency; more urgently, louder. They inform and are informed by everything. Everything is too much.
I am reminded of this sign, spotted in the thick of Occupy Wall Street and then resurfacing as the title of a book by Malcolm Harris.
The venture capitalists are writing essays because it is time to build but it is not apparently time to figure out how to stop kids from dying.
Attribution:
I am not a metaphor or symbol.
This you hear is not the wind in the trees,
Nor a cat being maimed in the street.
I am being maimed in the street.
It is I who weep, laugh, feel pain or joy,
Speak this because I exist.
This is my voice.
These words are my words,
My mouth speaks them,
My hand writes–
I am a poet.
It is my fist you hear
Beating against your ear.