my dear pod mariana, léo love, sherwood, eugenia, emma. these words would have remained silent without you. thank you.

for those of us who live at the shoreline standing upon the constant edges of decision crucial and alone for those of us who were imprinted with fear for generations
when we are loved we are afraid love will vanish when we are alone we are afraid love will never return and when we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed but when we are silent we are still afraid still petrified
and the only movement left in our bodies is speaking and writing remembering
we were never meant to survive.
this tale begins with a team of three people: two of them afab, two of them trans, two of them folks of color. and as fate—or rather stats—would have it, one of them is the bridge: the trans afab of color. that person learned that they were worth less than most, and therefore often believe themselves to be simply worthless, so when they are finally invited to speak at a public event they remain sure that they are not expected nor welcomed to stand up in front of the world and have something worth hearing. especially since they suffer from anxiety and depression. they know that those two conditions are partly (or even predominantly) consequences of the heterosexist racist capitalist system they grew up in and still currently live in. and, while they are wishing for a bad enough accident that could prevent them from attending, they are acutely aware that their presence is needed. that opting out is not an option. because the afab of color, the trans afab of color, the trans afab of color with psychological vulnerability, cannot be, yet again, the one to be erased from the story. because this event is exactly what they are working for, fighting for, together with their two world-making teammates.
they struggle, suffocating and drowning in the responsibility of the role they think they have to endorse, with invisible walls no one else seems to see. because walls are not always doors shut in your face. because walls are sometimes long known demons that won’t stand there quietly. demons can be noisy, hungry, can eat you alive. demons are eating them alive. so they are screaming, but nobody hears. people see them fighting. people think they are fighting back, strong. so people help, give support, so that they will be able to fight some more. but it is not a fair fight, and they are hardly fighting back. they are barely standing up. they have been screaming for a long time now, but nobody seems to hear.
we plead to each other: we all come from the same rock, ignoring the fact that we bend at different temperatures, that each of us is malleable up to a point.
at some point, they’ll end up giving up. anyone would. because there is only so much you can do, and there is even less when you do it alone. when you are the only one to see, feel and hit the wall. your punches hurt only you. you’re bleeding faster and faster. at some point your exhausted body will stop pumping the adrenaline that is temporarily keeping you on your feet, allowing you to fake it until you make it. but you know. you know you won’t make it. once that happens, the chemistry of your blood will let everything loose and you will simply collapse. then it will be possible to see the extent of your injuries. people will finally have to accept that there is nothing more anybody can do. you tried to ask for help and people tried to listen to you, and to help you. sometimes we try as much as we can and we don’t manage to communicate.
they have a responsibility, a duty, they have to do it for the cause, no matter the cost it seems, even if they become the very price to pay. they will have to disregard themselves to make a statement that things should be different, to give hope, to take place, to give voice. they will have to do all of that and they will have to accept ignoring themselves and their own needs, accept once again to be ignored, because the stakes are bigger than they are. because the cause matters more than they do ?
to stand up against discrimination, to prove that things can be different, to make visible, audible, strong and clear the work of a queer feminist of color, how can they avoid turning themselves into a token? they don’t want to go there but they understand they have to. as a mean, as a tool. the rainbows and fake smiles of the diversity posters they and their colleagues are actually criticizing. how did that happen? when and how did this racist gaze upon the situation creep in? when did they forget that they do not represent people of color as an abstract concept? that their voice is only their own, that their body is not a copy or template of any other? when did they begin to believe that they had to be there because of the color of their skin, because of the sex assignment they received at birth? when did they forget that they were not an empty shell, an object, an abject concept?
once again feeling used, choking on their invisible blood, waiting for the collapsing point, tangled in threads way too close and way too tight for them to distinguish, decipher and understand, they wonder, for whom is the emancipation that they are fighting for? not for themselves, apparently.
sometimes, for the politically correct stance we let color, class, and gender separate us from our kindred spirits. walls grow higher, the gulfs between us wider, the silences more profound.
there is an enormous contradiction in being a bridge.
endless excruciating time passes bringing them closer to the dreaded moment still petrified the only movement left in their body is hearing
aren’t you forgetting something? you’re not on your own, you’re part of a team. yes, it would be more powerful and rich if the three of us showed up. but no, you do not hold the responsibility alone, neither in thoughts nor words nor in body.
acute anxiety becomes shared, manageable stress.
they arrive at the time and place, the appointment they had been dreading all along. they participate. with their steady voice but shaking body, with their fears and doubts, with excitement and joy, with their whole being, with their supportive partners. yes, they made it to that point. but this is not about a supposedly happy ending. this is not the story here. this is not the point.

they are sick with a nameless but very real disease. the walls and demons in and around them are undoubtedly tangible. they are not making it up. yet, neither doctors nor psychologists recognize it.
once again the utmost necessity of naming what is going on beyond our individual experience—to show the environment in which and with which this experience is happening—becomes obvious, because no such experience exists within itself. it belongs to a complex combination of dynamics and relationships that have been at work long before said experience is felt. to name that context and how it works allows us to know and claim that we are not the problem.
can ableism be that name? neither able nor disabled, you are just unable to do what is asked of you. the misunderstandings and unfair expectations are strong, and rely on ignorance of and obliviousness to alternative experiences in and of the world. the way some of us interact with our surroundings and our surroundings with us. the fact that some of us struggle on a daily basis, that some of us are constantly feeling unsafe, meaning: feeling terror about everything and nothing in particular. how sometimes surviving from one second to the next is the greatest ambition we can attempt, all the while knowing that productivity is the most valued quality expected from us, and that having a job is the most reliable sign that we can pass in the world as normal, of worth, accepted.
when things have not been made for you, you can only adapt so much. and you care about recognition as much as you care about your own self-regard, in large part because you don’t trust your self-evaluation. so you try, again and again, you do the work, you bend and fold and tear, cut and edit yourself as much as you can, to adapt. you fucking do it all the time. yes, but you are reaching a limit.
people think you are able. they believe in you. that’s great, amazing even, to be trusted in your potential, to not be restrained by the usual un-abling stories you used to hear. and here’s the trap. how can you complain about how people finally have faith in you? the thing is, they believe in you, but they do so while looking at you with the only lenses at their disposal, lenses that do not let them see the walls blocking you. so they cannot realize what they are truly asking of you, which is to grow gills by yourself and breathe in unbreathable seas.
so how can we learn to really listen before those of us who seem to be talking, or even screaming inaudible words and cries, collapse from exhaustion or give up? could we learn to stop, to pause, to take the time it requires to become acquainted with an unfamiliar experience that is shared with us? to let it sink in. to see with another set of eyes. to feel with our neighbor’s skin. gift each other with all the forms of intimacy that teach us what our skin is not and what our armor never was. find together the sacredness of rest, expansive sprawling rest, uninterrupted. love the part of us that is emerging under everything. deepen our patience to give each other enough time to let go of whatever needs to go.
can we, can i, learn to put my skin right next to yours? to let you know that even when you seem alone, i am with you. and i will wait here by your side until you feel ready to dive again.
can i, can we, acknowledge and accept that sometimes, even if we really listen, we still cannot understand? and that’s okay. we can believe without understanding. we can trust and be there for each other without knowing.
i want to learn to hold your hand in the dark and tell you: i love you deep, right where you are, i love you as Black, dark and unknowable as the universe, i love the wonder of you.
i believe we can practice love for each other and love for ourselves because you are my other me, and i am yours. yes, we can practice radical tenderness. embrace fragility. transit in spaces we do not understand. share dreams, wildness. tune in with, not just empathize with. feel the possibility in every doubt. allow ourselves to be pierced by the unknown.
we can practice love as radical tenderness and we can practice fire as collective heat.
remembering that we must act in the everyday world. because words are not enough, we must perform visible and public acts that may render us more vulnerable to the oppressions we are fighting against. but our vulnerability can be the source of our power, if we use it. by letting it be what it is: fragile, imperfect, broken. if we don’t hide it. being vulnerable, and being vulnerable in front of people, openly, can take many shapes and forms. but it will never, should never, obey to any norms. we need to throw away abstraction and the academic learning, the rules, the map and compass. feel our way without blinders. to touch more people, the personal realities cannot be separate from the social and political debate, all must be evoked—not through rhetoric but through blood and pus and sweat. being strong enough to say we are vulnerable and to create ways of surviving in this world is how using vulnerability becomes a source of power, a source of collective power. because by doing that, by exposing ourselves, we are letting you know it’s okay to do the same.
sometimes if you love the coast long and deep enough you become shoreline you move so steady on the floor algae grows on you sometimes the way you live and the way you love is perfectly on time and very slow is fast enough
you are welcome and you are loved with all your quirks and oddities in all the depth of your weirdness in the infinite abyss of your weaknesses
find the muse within you the voice that lies buried under you dig it up
do not fake it do not try to sell it for a handclap or your name in print.
change requires a lot of heat.
it requires both the alchemist and the welder, the magician and the laborer, the witch and the warrior, the myth-smasher and the myth-maker.
hand in hand
we brew and forge a revolution.

Quotes’ references

in order of appearance in the text
these quotes were used as raw matter and transformed, rather than given as faithful quotations, hence the uniformed typo; my own queer use of quoting. i thank each author for the inspiration they are, the strength and volume their words give to this text.
if you too wish to quote some parts of this text, please give the full references for the quotes they contain.

***

Your pod is made up of the people that you would call on if violence, harm or abuse happened to you; or the people that you would call on if you wanted support in taking accountability for violence, harm or abuse that you’ve done; or if you witnessed violence or if someone you care about was being violent or being abused.

Mia Mingus, “Pods and Pod Mapping Worksheet”, written for the BATJC, 2016, https://batjc.wordpress.com/resources/pods-and-pod-mapping-worksheet/

***
‍
A LITANY FOR SURVIVAL

For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children’s mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours;

For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.

And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.

Audre Lorde, “A Litany for Survival”, in The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde, Norton & Company, 2000, pp.255-256
***

THE WELDER

I am a welder.
Not an alchemist.
I am interested in the blend
of common elements to make
a common thing.

No magic here.
Only the heat of my desire to fuse
what I already know
exists. Is possible.
We plead to each other,
we all come from the same rock
we all come from the same rock
ignoring the fact that we bend
at different temperatures
that each of us is malleable
up to a point.

Yes, fusion is possible
but only if things get hot enough –
all else is temporary adhesion,
patching up.

It is the intimacy of steel melting
into steel, the fire of your individual
passion to take hold of ourselves
that makes sculpture of your lives,
builds buildings.

And I am not talking about skyscrapers,
merely structures that can support us
of trembling.

For too long a time
the heat of my heavy hands
has been smoldering
in the pockets of other
people’s business –
they need oxygen to make fire.

I am now
coming up for air.
Yes, I am
picking up the torch.

I am the welder.
I understand the capacity of heat
to change the shape of things.
I am suited to work
within the realm of sparks
out of control.

I am the welder.
I am taking the power
into my own hands.

Cherríe Moraga, “The Welder”, in This Bridge Called My Back. Writings by Radical Women of Color, SUNY Press, 2015 (4th ed.), pp.219-220
***

For the politically correct stance we let color, class, and gender separate us from those who would be kindred spirits. So the walls grow higher, the gulfs between us wider, the silences more profound. There is an enormous contradiction in being a bridge.

Gloria Anzaldúa, “La Prieta”, in This Bridge Called My Back. Writings by Radical Women of Color, SUNY Press, 2015 (4th ed.), p.206
***

“I said that I was feeling unsafe.” But “feeling unsafe” – as in, feeling terror about everything and nothing in particular – was an unfortunate phrase for me to use during the intake. “Unsafe” is a psychiatric code word for “suicidal,” which I was not, although I was many other things.

Esmé Weijun Wang, “On the Ward”, in The Collected Schizophrenias, Penguin Books, 2019, p.99
***

With chronic illness, life persists astride illness unless the illness spikes to acuity; at that point, surviving from one second to the next is the greatest ambition I can attempt.

Esmé Weijun Wang, “L’Appel du Vide”, in The Collected Schizophrenias, Penguin Books, 2019, p.165
***

Most recently, [Elyn R.] Saks has spearheaded one of the largest extant studies about the nature of high-functioning schizophrenia. In it, employment remains the primary marker of someone who is high-functioning, as having a job is the most reliable sign that you can pass in the world as normal. Most critically, a capitalist society values productivity in its citizens above all else, and those with mental illness are much less likely to be productive in ways considered valuable: by adding to the cycle of production and profit.

Esmé Weijun Wang, “High-Functioning”, in The Collected Schizophrenias, Penguin Books, 2019, p.51
***

I care about recognition as much as I care about my own self-regard, in large part because I don’t trust my self-evaluation.

Esmé Weijun Wang, “L’Appel du Vide”, in The Collected Schizophrenias, Penguin Books, 2019, p.163
***

Thank you for all the forms of intimacy that teach me what my skin is not and what my armor never was. I wish for you the sacredness of rest, expansive sprawling rest uninterrupted. I love the part of you that is emerging under everything. You deserve to rest long enough to let whatever go. I put my skin right next to yours to let you know that even when you seem alone, I’m with you. And I will wait to see the silver next of you, before you dive again.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs, “Rest”, in Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals, AK Press, 2020, pp.149-150
***

I love you deep right where you are. And not because I know. This love is bigger than all that. I love you because you are as Black and unknowable as the universe myself. I love you most of all because I wonder.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs, “Refuse”, in Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals, AK Press, 2020, p.120
***

RADICAL TENDERNESS IS ...
A living manifesto written by Dani d’Emilia and Daniel B. Chávez

radical tenderness is to be critical and loving, at the same time
(...)
radical tenderness is to know to say “no”
is to carry the weight of another body as if it were your own
...is to share sweat with a stranger
(...)
because you are my other me
and vice versa.
radical tenderness is to not be afraid of fear
radical tenderness is to live ephemeral love
is to invent other temporalities
radical tenderness is to embrace fragility
(…)
radical tenderness is to lend your guts to others
is to wear your lover’s pussy as a beard
is to risk loving against the grain
(…)
is to believe in the political effect of internal movements
(...)
...to transit in spaces you do not understand
(...)
radical tenderness is to share dreams, wildness
to tune in with, not just empathize with
(...)
radical tenderness is to channel irresistible energies and convert them into untaimable embodiments
is to activate sensorial memory
is to recognize the other by their scent
radical tenderness is to feel the possibility in every doubt
is to allow yourself to be pierced by the unknown
(...)
radical tenderness is to embrace thorns
radical tenderness is to coexist with lack
is to face things head on by looking at them from the love of wanting to see
(...)
radical tenderness is a concept that is appropriable and ever-changing
radical tenderness is something
that is not necessary
to define

Dani d’Emilia and Daniel B. Chávez, The Radical Tenderness Manifesto (2015), translated from Spanish by Dani d’Emilia and Daniel B. Chávez, https://danidemilia.com/radical-tenderness/
***

We must act in the everyday world. Words are not enough. We must perform visible and public acts that may make us more vulnerable to the oppressions we are fighting against. But our vulnerability can be the source of our power – if we use it.

Gloria Anzaldúa, “El Mundo Zurdo”, in This Bridge Called My Back. Writings by Radical Women of Color, SUNY Press, 2015 (4th ed.), p.195
***

Throw away abstraction and the academic learning, the rules, the map and compass. Feel your way without blinders. To touch more people, the personal realities and the social must be evoked – not through rhetoric but through blood and pus and sweat.

Gloria Anzaldúa, “Speaking In Tongues”, in This Bridge Called My Back. Writings by Radical Women of Color, SUNY Press, 2015 (4th ed.), p.171
***

Sometimes when you love the coast enough you become shoreline. Move so steady on the floor algae grows on you. Sometimes the way you love is perfectly on time and very slow is fast enough. So keep on breathing.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs, “Slow down”, in Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals, AK Press, 2020, p.145
***

Find the muse within you. The voice that lies buried under you, dig it up. Do not fake it, try to sell it for a handclap or your name in print.

Gloria Anzaldúa, “Speaking In Tongues”, in This Bridge Called My Back. Writings by Radical Women of Color, SUNY Press, 2015 (4th ed.), p.171
***

Change requires a lot of heat. it requires both the alchemist and the welder, the magician and the laborer, the witch and the warrior, the myth-smasher and the myth-maker.
Hand in Hand, we brew and forge a revolution.

Gloria Anzaldúa, “El Mundo Zurdo”, in This Bridge Called My Back. Writings by Radical Women of Color, SUNY Press, 2015 (4th ed.), p.196
***

and across the whole text, resonate Sara Ahmed’s words and thoughts on doors and walls and queer usage of citation, and her powerful emancipating killjoy energy.

• Sara Ahmed, The Feminist Killjoy Handbook, Penguin Books, 2023; Sara Ahmed, What’s the Use? On The Uses of Use, Duke University Press, 2019; and Sarah, Ahmed, “Queer Use”, feministkilljoys.com, 2018