Me.

You. I. The voice in my head, or the voice in your head, the one that screams in terror when you see someone get shot. On the street. On tv. Within arms reach, and maybe you should have done something about it, but mama always told you that other people are not your priority. It’s just you and your sister growing up -- in poverty. How can you sustain yourself, contain yourself, constrain yourself, when every day you must evade yourself wading just above these emotions that threaten to swallow you in your entirety? This poverty, it’s financial, but it’s also circumstantial, it’s everything your parents never could afford to present you. It’s more like circus acts where the actors are spineless and shoulderless. Malleable with nothing to cry on. Only after they were down to their last dollar did they sell their souls and move in circles around the US. In spite of everything, they learned acrobatics and to shimmy and shake their way through the matrix. The spotlight has shifted and it’s up to us to show we’re gifted, but maybe to do that we need to exit through the back flap of the tent we invented, turn to our friend and tell them to put down the gun. Surviving doesn’t mean you’ve won.