Most Days, Some Days, and Today

By: Alicia Crosby
A poem on the power of community to sustain us in these difficult times.

Photo courtesy of Chasing the Promise blog.

Most days I speak about love and community

Highlighting pathways in the in-between spaces

Bridging concepts and people and showing the interconnectedness of all things

Most days I listen

Holding words entering the world for the first time as their originators birth them into being

Breaking new ground in themselves

For themselves

For us

Most days I am gentle spiritual midwife

Patient justice educator

Affirming Pastoral Presence

And then there are days like today

Some days

I want to drink myself numb so I stop feeling the blows of a world that loathes me

I wish for chemistry that would actually allow me to get high enough to rise above the hate that my body knows on the most cellular levels because of how trauma has etched itself into my DNA

Some days

I can’t leave my house because my rage at the KKK forcing my friend to be trapped in their house makes me volatile and the core of who I am bids me to speak life

So I bind my tongue and watch Black children dance for joy on a loop for hours

Some days

I take a nap after stress eating cake that I can’t afford but put on my credit card because I need something pleasurable to push the storm in me to dissipate

Some days

I want to say fuck you

Fuck this

Call everyone holding the mantle of whiteness – this thing crushing me – everything BUT a child of God

But then I have to hold the tension that lies in knowing that one of the only people who can hold me in the depths of this despair is my sister who is white

and despite her being half a country away, she will answer when I call

She helps me remember that some days aren’t most days

That my pain and what I go through and what Black folks endure aren’t invisible to everyone

She helps me see that the labor I commit to most days and the rage too big for me to handle on some days are seen and these are things that should be honored

So as my body hums in anger

I will work to block out the noise of the active forces of white supremacy that act against me and those I love

And choose to focus on the quiet strength in her voice that reminds me that I am not alone

That I am loved

That she’s standing with me

So I can get past this moment and remember that the love and empathy and community we share is part of what helps me show up in the world as I do most days
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It’s what helps me fight so doggedly to co-create spaces where people can be known in the some days they call today

Alicia Crosby

is a faith-engaged community organizer, activist, and co-founder of Center for Inclusivity, a non-profit that works to foster inclusive communities through public forums for thoughtful dialogue where people of all faiths, genders, and sexual identities can learn and seek to be fully known. This poem was originally posted on her blog, Chasing the Promise.