Doomscrolling isn’t solidarity
By Maxochitl Cortez
I too doomscroll
scroll a screen of California fires
Texas floods
protests for black and brown kin
the news it flows too easy on the screen
I see
police brutality
LA resisting protecting people
picked up
piece
by
piece
off
the
streets
our streets
stories seep out of me
my language is documentation
not the kind of documents they want
to see
how do you document a people
carved from this land
back when my tiabuela’s cheekbones spoke
of revolution
she reveals to me the stories
in banned books
banned // barred // black // brown // bars
our stories must be told
written down carved even
into our skin
like they have been carved
into our DNA
our people are not trends
hash tagging their #names
is not enough
what is the liberation they
yearned for
burned for
SAY THEIR NAME
repeat
#repeat
REPEAT
repeat
#repeat
#LONGLIVETORTUGUITA
say her name
your abuela, your tiabuela, your vis abuela. . .
what stories do they have stored
frozen
cold
old
will the pages sit
in your freezer too?
preserved to serve
or lay severed in the scorching sun
that demands our salty sweat
Maxochitl Cortez is Chichimekah and Coahuiltecan from the lands of Aridoamerica. They are a two spirit Indigenous Resistance Artist, Educator, and Community Organizer—using storytelling as a pathway for collective liberation. They are a host with every.Word poetry, a Black and Indigenous led spoken word organization in so called Austin, Texas. The seeds of their storytelling ask what liberation means, what we will do to get there for all people, and what narratives we honor during our path to healing. Find them on instagram @raya.maxochitl.
Photo credit: Felton Davis via a Creative Commons license.
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