She grew up privy to the people navigating the day as a hustle. She saw outlines of dead people on 171st and would lay in the chalk lines to see how her body compared to those passed. She ate cashews stuffed in her pocket as to afford her more time watching the way people got lost in their own vanity. She’d sit on curbs and take notes on how many ways people compromised themselves. She was given 20 dollars bills to turn the other way and always knew the comearound came in the form of her wielding some authority on the way things were. There was no compromise to her being able to see the bigger picture. She got called mumbles because she never articulated her thoughts but fortunately she was good with knitting, violin, acryllics, skipping stones into water, making obscure mix tapes, dancing, runnning fast in monthly 50k races designed so that girls would lose and be put in their place. She’d always win. She’d cry and then punch you in the face when you tried to coddle her. She was the ideal baseline to measure feminism. She was built from feathers and shale.

She’s geek love, she’s indie rock, she’s street ball, she’s ink and nape piercings in corporate settings, she’s mismatched clothes and her limitations are bound only by the lies of others. As a little girl she learned how to glance out at the windowsill in order to afford her more time to think through what the moral stance was. She went coast to coast and read paperbacks, moved to New York to inquire into a few old daydreams, screamed on cliffs facing the paciifc ocean, whispered sweet vignettes to old men in Belgium, wrote notes on post-its in Chicago and tucked them into little crevices at subway entrances. She sat in meetings with others who decided people’s fates and always sided with the individual opposed to administration. The argument from those who decide what is right and wrong is always skewed because there is nothing at stake for those sitting with the piles of conches. She was always one to sneak into the office and steal all the shells, wrapping them in gift boxes and leaving them on the front stoops of those who had no decision making power. She’s the movement that is humble enough to know that people of flesh and bone have no right to play god. She’s stockpiling broken down churches and making them safe havens for the eventual tumble from those chasing mass appeal.