Like Noise Tonight

I feel like noise tonight.
Useless and grating.
A white scratching hum,
invisible and senseless,
yet flashing between static
and
a
void.


The only thing that brings me to this blank page, and the timeless battle with words, is my faith that they will somehow set me free.


I feel like I have had the wind knocked out of me. A surprise cheap sucker punch from a bully, I should have known better than to turn my back on. I am not sure if this low whisper, this whimpering, this noise I am producing will be helpful to any one, but I need it's slow release.


I have bee reading various accounts laying blame, promising resistance, analyzing and re-analyzing how we got here. I can’t bring myself to watch any live footage of his face. I can’t bare the thought of four years of watching him “lead.”


There is no direction to this confusion. I am bundle of chaos assaulted by every emotion- rage, fear, dread, hate, shame. Everyone but hope.


I wanted to write a letter to my kids or my students, but I didn’t know what to write.
I wanted to write an analysis piece about how liberals don’t understand rural America.
I wanted to write about how the death of the American left has been a long time coming, and how the capitulation to global corporartism forced us to have faith in a false process.
I wanted to write about how America is not better than this. This is a nation built on genocide and slavery. Imperialism and Jim Crowe.
I wanted to write about how we need to fight and read our Zinn and have faith in the ongoing struggle for justice.


But I feel like noise tonight. I want to be hopeful, but I need to grieve. I want to inspire, but I need to process.


I just can’t. I just can’t.
Not tonight.