This Is a Raised, Closed Fist

I wonder what it would be like to feel the roughness of your bandaged fists bound in the cloth ripped from your clothes and peppered with the power attacking your lungs.

I wonder what it would be like to hold a grenade in your hand and feel its heat eating through fabric while its burning smog tears your eyes.

I wonder what it would be like to be dragged from the safety of your car and tazed to the ground where the broken shards of your window knicks your face under armored shoes.

I wonder what it would be like to be blamed for planted evidence, hypocritical evidence, unjust and unvalid evidence, and for freedom of speech to be met with force.

I wonder what it would be like to extend kindness and be told it can't be accepted or met with any sympathy because it violates some order from a mysterious chain of command.

I wonder what it would be like to have your protection deliberately pulled off of your face, your arms, your legs, and compromised with weapons meant to harm you.

I wonder what it would be like to be told the technology used to control you is not meant to kill you, yet see it be done twenty feet from you.

I wonder what it would be like to have your eyes and ears overwhelmed in order for handcuffs, batons, and boots to gain advantage over you.

I wonder what it would be like to hold your hand and hear the names of your community's victims chanted from memory because you could never forget everything that you were told to ignore and excuse and accept. I could wonder what it's like to do the right thing and demand what you're entitled to, or I could listen.

I could listen to the stories of these events. I could watch the recordings of it. I could, in fact, experience part of it with you. I could, in fact, do it.

I could wonder and wonder and wonder while the news is pouring in at my fingertips, while my friends invite me in their car and in their homes to join, while I am on the websites and platforms that make it easy for me to support, but I can't say that I'll never know or understand. I have, more than ever, every opportunity to find out what I've been wondering, and if I sit and stay in silence, I will never hold your hand.