cripchick's blog

“ROAD WEARY TROUBADOUR / MAYBE I’M AN AMBASSADOR/ NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH SOME SPOOK OR BASTARD BY THE DOOR” -CHUCK D, Tear Down That Wall

i want to find a way to say:

friend,

i understand that your actions are rooted in strategies for survival and self-preservation. i know that you are in a place where that need is more than legimate. i am proud that you are a fighter. i admire you for surviving isolation, exclusion, and all that comes with living in a world where you can not be your beautiful whole self.

but, because i love what we have built together,

i also have to say that your survival strategies are perpendicular to the work you, i and others have done to build beloved community. every day you are laying your loyalties down with institutions that have (historically) (and in the present) hurt us collectively and individually. though you may win merit with them, your survival comes from siding with people who will never be accountable to us as a people. these are people who hurt us and instead of being outraged or crying out in pain, you are washing your own blood off their hands.

to be frank, i/we are learning to love ourselves too much to allow ourselves to be expendable casualties caught in the way of your surivival. i can’t imagine a life without you but i also know we can’t keep on like this.

i/we love us. so i/we will not let you hurt us. please let me/us love you too.

-cripchick.

i recently came home from a whirlwind 12 day trip to portland and san francisco.

my time in portland felt much like a “tour” in that it was not a conference or gathering, it was about seeing me (think “come see cripchick speak here!” x 5 times… and people actually showing up). i kind of fell in love with the gratification of facilitating successful workshops, breaking ableism down and having ppl get it, and getting the respect of people i respect. there was a time where i was looking around the room in portland and was surprised that i could say i hadn’t met one straight person all day — i was completely immersed in queer crip community. (sad thing is i could also say that i hadn’t met one person of color, portland is WHITE yall).

and then i went to san francisco, right?

it was even more mind-blowing. here i was in community with artists, poets, organizers. the sins crew. azolla story fam.

carved out a routine rooted in crip interdependence.
slept in late and started my mornings writing poems under the shade of a lemon tree.
spent the days engaged in conversations with queer crips of color.
stayed in the home of the most generous person i’ve ever met.
spontaneously met up with two queer koreans, only to hear that there were more of us.
explored an accessible city.
ate delicious food.
got deliriously lost in a crush.

no matter where i travel to, every trip home always begins with a deep sigh of recognition. i love the south. can’t imagine living anywhere else. at the same time, coming home was really hard this time. although this is where i belong, it is also the place where my reality is one rooted in military chain of command culture, heteronormativity/hypermasculinity, and the fact that there is not much room for non-black folks in people of color organizing (very much a black/white dichotomy). i kind of don’t know what to do with my sadness. the “right” answer seems to be to move (whether that is another town/city in the south, like durham or atlanta, or another region) but this… is my home.

a friend/fellow organizer once said that this is the question every southern queer faces: “stay in your home of origin or [if even possible,] move to a place where you have more resources?”

wish i had an answer.

look at little ms. social butterfly
wings carrying her between movements
that girl finds commonality
everywhere

look at little ms. social butterfly
holding your hand & greeting you with a kiss, a hug
she will come
to read poetry
with you
to organize
with you
to walk, talk, and overanalyze
with you

but somewhere between hello
and how are you
she is gone

always pollinating
look at the way she has brought us all together!
no can’t you see
she flies between us all
never calling one place home

could you love little ms. social butterfly
knowing she will be fully present
but only for a little while?

could you love little ms. social butterfly
knowing this, this fluttering between communities,
is the only way
she has figured out
how to survive?

maybe she is all of us:
a breadth of experiences and identities reflected in the patterns of our wings
let’s fly to new heights
and find somewhere to return

weaving together bridges
and relying on no one’s backs

look at little ms. social butterfly

detroit was really powerful to me because it meant that there were always 20-30 people in a half mile radius that i could trust with ANYTHING. still, after the conference, every single person i have talked to has said something along the lines of “it was great to see you! i wish we had time to hang.” i am seeing so many pictures and jokes of moments i missed with people because i was somewhere else. where was i? how many communities am i flying between? if you are having conversations with multiple groups of people, do you ever get to go deep with any of them?