this is a tribute to my dear friend Kirsten Brydum
brutally murdered in New Orleans in the fall of 2008
while touring the country building a network of counter-institutions

dear living
in the face of the violance inherit in poverty struck slums
in the bursts of tears
between terrorizing silence
is the chance of triggering
hidden dangers in forgotten dark corners in one’s mind
still easier to externalize
rather than to try and overcome

some
visualize threatening thoughts emanating
from outlined caricatures of homeless bums
assuming that the hands that loot
are the same ones that hold guns
and easily imagine, that it probably WAS some ‘nigger’
and it probably WAS, another random mugging or drug related crime

for others
those hands that mindlessly salute
pull a much more premeditated trigger
which, they figure
is swift, absolute and perfectly timed
to the national election and the economic decline

and between them is an abandoned street in a notoriously bad part of a notoriously bad town
and a small young activist girl is riding her bike in the dark
didnt she realize?
her grace might woo her idealist friends
but it isnt enough to undo the scum of a whole society
why cant she be innocent and cutesy and dumb
why cant she stay tucked in at home
filling her mind with anxiety
or better yet, totally numb

get a clue
little girl
get a clue!
dont you know
you might wake up the evil
that lurks in the shadows
it will swallow you whole
and when its done with you
it will come get the rest of us all

and your life could have flurished
but now youv’e been tacked
to the endless death toll
in this flooded city
and this bottomed out country
and this whole god damned fucked up world
what good is that?
it means nothing now
nothing at all!

except
that we all know
that statistics are false
in the way that they paint this world boring and dull
until all life drains
all meanings lost
in the way that they disguise themselves as objective
to prove their superiority at all cost
to things that by nature are not competitive
things that are luscious and fertile and beautiful

so I beg you
dear living
dear breathing
THINK!
before you choose to indulge in a world
that is obviously dark rotten and cold
that is swirling around
to the very bottom
of this toilet bowl of time
where the shit that has gone down
will join the shit that hit the fan
and we can all have a big ol’ rotten time
swimming in the sewage lines that flow down to the bitter fuckin end

cause if she was here with us
to type it in herself
I am sure
she would have pointed out the irony here
because in the very essence of this ‘thing’
this ‘thing’ that is a life
her life
was the existing plethora of such awesome alternatives
and she wasnt riding her bike in a bad part of town
she was riding her bike connecting the dots
she was crisscrossing this country
pulling the lines
tying the knots
between delicate autonomous grassroots projects
that always seem to be under attack by some sinister ploy
that are always feeling at risk of being raped and left dead in the dark
but still, seem to regenerate faster than any system can pretend to destroy

so when youre ready to stop delving in the scum and the shit and the toxic rot
you can bite on that innocent looking autonomous bait
and hopefully there would still be a chance there
for you to get cought
on the collective social safety net
that im sure you too
once thought
was important
to maintain
at whatever cost
but maybe
you just forgot?