It is almost time to go

I miss the sun. I miss light in my skin. I miss being out in it. Sometimes I take walks with my father’s bow. But I must have poor aim. Because I always seem to miss the things I’ve seen. The places I’ve been. The stress that saw my character compressed into this exact form. Callused fingers. Stuffy nose. Holes missing from all my favorite clothes. And now that I am more settled than I have ever been before. It is almost time to go. Back out into that summer light. The inescapable weight and heat of a whole season and a half spent leaned toward our closest star. Which is still pretty damn far. Enough that in a few months we’ll be missing it and more. Like I’m avoiding it now. Less than four feet to my right through a window. Less than eight feet and out through a door. I could hit it with an arrow with my eyes closed, but set one foot there, and they won’t pay me for it. Just take it and thank me as if I had handed it over of my own accord. Of course, I didn’t.

In short, I won’t miss the sun anymore. Or light in my skin. Or being out in it.
I have a better shot now than I ever had before. I’ve been target practicing,
launching my eyes through windows at work. And I’m getting good.
Soon, there will be a few arrows sticking out from the sun.

An Ironically Open Letter to the Alt-Right

Isn’t it control alt delete? Wasn’t sure if you were freezing up on an old screen, I have to do that as well when what I’m looking at fails to update how I want it to.

Moving on, you really like paper work don’t you? Bureaucracy seems to have become more a philosophy in your movement. I mean it might be hard for you to see a person as a person without checking their driver’s license first, am I right? Something about their image and name and height and weight and birth date all on a little laminated card between fingers. That has to be an intriguing experience for someone who believes identity lives in skin.

But as far as race, that is not skin color, correct? I sometimes burn old magazines and newspapers to start fires, and every now and again this really interesting thing happens, where a book on fire will actually turn its pages as it burns. If you get a chance in the next few years, take a look at a science book or two as it gives you its dying attempt at seeding information anywhere other than solely on paper. We are all all races. You, white man, are an African. This is not climate change. This is not human ownership of such a process. This is not environmentalism. That is not disputed science. We have read our genetic code like it were some special form of government identification, and it read we all come up one continent. We have genetic codes for every color skin all wrapped up in ours. Look at it this way, the way you look is more about the doorway you passed through coming into the world, than the room you were in before you took a step forward. Those last few generations of skin color and nose shape and eye color and hair type, the tip of an iceberg of genetic information stored just beneath the surface. So you’re going to have to claim and build this identitarian ethic all on your own. It has no foundation in truth.

And gender. That is half your fucking species man. That is your mother. Your daughter. Your sister. Hopefully your friend. They don’t have to whoop you in an arm wrestling competition to convince you you don’t exist without them. We are equal by necessity you bozo. We represent that fact in pay, protections, access and respect, not because its right or a nice thing to do or a special gift for your lady. You do that because it is reality. Women are not an ingredient in the stew, they’re the fucking water you start with. They’re half the equation. You strengthen and improve their way of life, their self-esteem, the respect offered them by their society, you enhance the entire system in one fell swoop. You support half of all of our foundation when you right this equation. You might feel good when you buy her flowers. But give her your eyes as an equal, and you will see the superhero you’ve been keeping in the kitchen. She walks city streets having lived through your worst fears head high, shoes sharp, face painted. She has heard words, and felt pressures, and experienced pain you don’t know exist. Learn them. Gain a friend. An equal. Make our species whole. Keep the flowers. Make the world ours. Because it will die if it stays mine.

That being said, a little advice for your ethic. I would love to be hated for the color of my skin. For being a man. For some externally perceived categorical assessment of my identity. Puts me in the perfect place to practice powers you won’t believe exist in my category. Allows me access to so much more subversive development of ideas and plans. Get to know me, talk to me, even feign friendliness just to access some better, more nuanced understanding of the answers to who, and how, and why, and what for and what all I am, and more importantly, all I intend. To put it simply, empathy and consideration are keys to greater hate. Just saying. Try it. Even if the sole motivation is ‘how the hell can we hate these people just a little more effectively?’ But I get the feeling that’s not going to happen. Not while this nice neat little laminated card stock photo identification stays cradled between those peachy white well callused fingers. You don’t want to know me. You want the me that can be erased from the world by a pair of scissors. Which is why my movement will always be stronger than yours. You have numbers.

But we, the people.