When You Plant Your Riot-Geared Feet

By Brooke Petersen

when you plant your riot-geared feet and say, we will brook no resistance, we say, listen to your own words. listen to this. listen: the Anglo-Saxon root brūcen means not to endure or tolerate, not to put up with, but to partake in. means, to need or require. to make use of as a right. to delight in. to brook resistance is to fist-up-fight-back because we have a need and a right and a joy—to hand-hold and arms-lock and shout. to brook resistance is to love resistance, to cling to it like rescue-rope, to heave and tug and drag yourself up from the water on its strength. listen to this, listen: when you say we will brook no resistance, you deny yourself joy.

when you say, we will brook no resistance, we say: then we will.

Brooke Petersen is a nonbinary poet who lives, teaches, and resists in San Diego, where they are pursuing an MFA. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Versal and on Blog this Rock (a Split This Rock affiliate).

Photo credit: K-B Gressitt.