american government

November 21, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

the morning poetry
still in the morning
still in the morning
as my father waters all his plants
and as the puppy gets into trouble
in the kitchen
the kitchen of my childhood
which only looks half like it did
in my childhood
and i have already scoped through the dozens
perhaps hundreds
of articles of clothing i still have in this house
to see if anything
still slaps

and now my father is done with the plants
and is playing with the puppy
like he had promised her
and i can see into the dining room
as they play
and play and play
and i think it’s
almost
as good as me bringing him
a grandchild
to play with

[maybe
maybe
maybe when our country
isn’t trying to literally kill
anyone who isn’t a
cis
straight
white
upper class
christian
man

maybe then
we’ll bring him one]

October 26, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

we’re getting closer
and closer
and closer
to spooky time
and i cannot help but feel
this halloween season is a little
lackluster—perhaps what with the being busy
perhaps with the fact that the administration is doing
far scarier things than the imaginary haunts and ghouls
ever could [a human monster is always so much worse], but
i wish i could enjoy october in the way i usually do…
but i simply don’t think that’s in the cards right now

and, honestly, that’s ok

October 12, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

another night
of waking up at 1/2/3/4 in the morning
to stress
to discomfort
to the panic at the state of the world
and the state of my mind
and this would all be fine
if i could just
fall back
to sleep
like i so recently used to

but apparently i’m back to
high school
college
teenage
early 20’s hj
where i struggle to fall asleep
and i struggle to stay asleep
and every moment i wish i was asleep
i panic about not getting enough sleep
and everything
always feels
so much
worse
in the nighttime

i considered waking kip up
to talk with them
hold them
have them hold me
to see
if having someone right there with me
would be any help at all
and i think, if i had panicked myself any harder
any more
any longer
i might have

but somehow
i finally
fell back
to sleep

how did i survive damn near a decade
like this???

[i was miserable the whole time
that’s how]

[i don’t want to be that miserable
again]

October 5, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i got
a sudden sad
yesterday

appearing out of
[seemingly]
nowhere, bubbling up to my eyes
hot with unexpected tears
all of a sudden
filling
overflowing
dripping down my
sad sad face
as i searched for something
to take the pain even slightly
away

and my kip was there to hold me
[the only thing that ever truly helps]
and jiggle/wiggle me around
to make me laugh some of the tears away

and the puppy was there to nuzzle into my face
and dry up the dripped tears with her fur

and the cat was there
to confuse my sadness away
when she tried to lick the inside of my
recently emptied coffee mug

but later

kip was on the couch
slowly melting to prone
as the weight of the news
read from the phone
crushed them down
gravity invading their bones
until they couldn’t move anymore

and i had used up all my personal stock of
any sort of ‘light at the end of the
fascist
tunnel’ feeling to wipe my eyes
and continue the laundry that needed
to be done,
so i couldn’t be there for my kip
as they had just been there for me
experiencing the same sadness
i had just
felt

this is a horrible timeline

why can’t people
[in power]
just
be
kind?

September 28, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i’ve ignored the outside
for too long
for not long enough

it’s still impacting me
it’s still making its way inside

what’s wrong with living a life
pretending
all of humanity
is actually
kind?

[can “fake it till you make it”
apply to expectations
of others?]

August 14, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i think my lot in life
is to fight fascism with
art
humanity
and softness

i don’t know how much of an impact i can make

but i can make you think about the fact that i don’t consider
fascists
humans

and perhaps that’s enough to get our brains working on critical thinking once more

August 7, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

contemplating civil unrest
and violence
and propaganda
and slippery slopes
and all the things that my mind is stuck on
daily
alongside the silly things
i have anxiety about
as well

if only my brain could give an indication of
what it actually is anxious about
because, if it’s the very real dangers
that are closer than people would like to admit
[though i will be fair here and give credence to the
systems in place to stop a war from happening, but
the state-sponsored violence is scary enough
already]
then maybe i have a mind that is
realistic
and preparing me
for potential trauma,
but
if it’s just freaked out about the menial
mundane
teeny tiny things
[and i’d actually do ok
in even more “unprecedented times”]
then maybe a medical intervention
to my anxiety is what is needed
at this time

but no, my distress
and obsession
bounce back and forth between
what are very real, but probably far away, fears
and overreacting to daily issues
most folks seem to deal with
mindlessly

i don’t want to lose my ability to be prepared for any eventuality

but, damn, this preparedness is killing me…

July 27, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

why isn’t it more acceptable
to protest with
citizenship?

[i mean, i know why
logistically
but wouldn’t that be an interesting world to live in
if it was actually feasible to do so?]

May 18, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

hiding
or fighting
a fascist dictatorship

a takeover of/from
what once called itself
the paradigm of democracy

and we the people
somehow
voted this power-monger in

[though, with wealth, it’s easy enough
to turn the tides of an election
with tactics on either side
of the line of
voter fraud]

but what do we do
when our numbers mean so little
against media takeovers and social distractions
and virtue signaling and in-fighting?

a revolution is at hand
but the powerful seem to have control
over literally everything

[we’ve been here before —
we, as a species —
perhaps the technology is new,
but i’m certain
i’m certain
the despair and feeling of powerlessness
has all happened
and will all happen
again
and again
and again and again and again
because humans hunger for power
almost as much as they hunger for community

it’s just
will we learn
from our past

or not?]