anticapitalist

December 4, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

how
can i constantly feel
like a novice
in all i do?

i’ve performed all my life,
but i still feel second/
third/
fourth/fifth/sixth/
end of the line
when it comes to opportunities
for the stage/screen arts.

i’ve had six plus years in the air,
but i’m a perpetual student
here.

i’ve written
every
single
morning
poetry
for over a year and a half,
but i’m still too scared to submit,
to hear the possibility
that i’ll forever be
amateur;
living only for the love of words,
never ‘going anywhere’ with it.

and what’s so bad about that?

capitalism/colonialism/white supremacy
forces our minds to find some meaning
out of what we can produce/expert the field
in a way that makes money—
churn out content/
content/
you need to create more content…

where is the place for creating for the sake of creativity?

and why can’t i find my own balance?

i think
it’s because
i just want to feel
like i know
something.
i want to feel adept/
professional/
expert/
master/
ace/
like i don’t have to second guess every choice i make—

that’s what i want out of my crafts.

August 4, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

success
isn’t always fleeting
sometimes it’s delayed
or avoided
or even unknown

sometimes
success
means something different
from the outside than from the in

sometimes
success
shouldn’t be measured
anyway
because accomplishment
and competition
stem from that same capitalism
that’s ruining
everything

July 22, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i felt so motivated yesterday
(and the day before that)
and i know i did some of the things
on the to-do list,
but i did much less than
i originally
expected

and i need to be ok with that
i need to be ok with that
i need to remind myself that
i need to be ok with that

because otherwise
i’m just capitalism’s
newest victim

and fuck capitalism

~~~

fly
spy
in the sky

i wonder why
you need to fly
around our home and spy
on us

~~~

this
cotton
candy
coffee
is the silliest thing i’ve ever tasted
and it just makes me
smile
smile
smile

~~~

how do i absorb
the lessons i’ve learned
in trying to help others?

i.e. the advice i’ve given,
can i/will i ever
take it myself?

is there ever
a magical wand for
turning kindness inward?

~~~

the poems today
aren’t turning out great,
but they’re not bad, either,
they’re just there
and that’s all they need to be
at this moment
in
time

~~~

do you ever feel
so tired
and yet so hyped up
that you feel like
if you followed your energy
you’d vibrate until
your skin just kind of
shucked itself off of your bones?

…nah, me neither

July 4, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

welcome,
those of you who have decided
against
celebrating the us’s birthday,
glad you’ve arrived!

not to say i’ve been here that long;
i always kind of half-heartedly enjoyed
the fireworks
the cookouts
the bonfires
because
they were fun
but i never felt that loved by this country
(even after ‘marriage equality’ was bestowed upon me);
my last ‘official’ july 4th was
2019.

in 2020 i listened as
people who don’t look like me
confronted july 4th
and taught me what
holding a country accountable
could look like

in 2021 i had a quiet day;
bettering myself in an acting class
run by a
trans
woman
of color
immigrent
who let me let my
witchy poet side
rise

and this year…
this year it’ll be another quiet one.
our plans are simple:
my spouse is creating their own company
with the intention to make life better
for those who have to deal with this
capitalistic hellscape;
and i will be making art for protest–
embroidery,
and writing,
rehearsing for queer shows,
and reading more words by more folks
who don’t look like me/
who weren’t raised in the privileges i was raised/
but we still have so much in common.
and the two of us, my spouse and i,
we won’t spend any money
(except in donation
to those who need
more than we),
we’ll make our own food
and cut our own hair,
mend our own clothes,
and give each other care,
and maybe some seeds will sprout today
(both literally and figuratively)
that will give future us even more reason
to stop giving to this country
until this country gives back
to those it’s taken from.

(it’s a small protest, we know
but maybe, if you can do a little bit, too,
we might be able to dismantle
systems of oppression
bit
by bit
by bit)

so, welcome,
those of you who have decided
against
celebrating this day today,
we’re so glad you’re here.

June 25, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

constitutional protections
to life
liberty
and the pursuit of happiness
are being stripped away to reveal
all we ever had
was the right to make money
for others

~~~

i’m all for corpse rights
but
when a dead person has more
bodily autonomy
than 50% of living citizens
something seems
off

~~~

although
with gun rights the way
they are
we might be dead soon anyway
so…
…yay upcoming rights?

June 1, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

the last few Junes
i’ve been filled more
with Gay Wrath
than Gay Pride;
seeing into the system
that kills our
Black and Brown comrades
and lulls us white queers
into a false sense of security,
complicity
with a system that wants our cash
but never wants our voices
or change for our liberation,
viewing the systems:
the patriarchy,
the white supremacy,
the capitalistic [lack of] integrity,
and learning that
though i’m part of the system
i can do very, very little about it
individually.

this morning
June 1
the first day of pride
in the crazy year of
2022
i simply feel
tired

perhaps this is my
Gay Sloth month?

no, that doesn’t sound right.

Sloth implies a desired laziness
naps for pleasure
on-purpose leisure
(though i did read
somewhere
once
that sloth might have meant
not laziness
but depression–
the dread that goes into that
catatonic inability to get up in the morning–
that is the sloth i am all too familiar with…)
so perhaps this year
is the year
of Gay Sloth
of Gay Existential Crisis
Gay Over-It-All

i am still out and proud
and will give everything to help
others
feel that way too;
my rainbow hair can be your beacon
if you need one,
but rainbow capitalism has stopped
luring me
has stopped
infuriating me
and i guess i’m at the point where
my only reaction
is a big roll of my eyes
and a reminder
to actually research
Why
the first Pride was a Riot
Why
there should be no pigs at Pride
Why
marriage equality isn’t what we thought
(i’ll give you a hint:
it starts with disability rights
and ends at capitalism)
and Why
Why
Why
we do still need Pride

i know
why
we still need Pride.

May 3, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

it is
very
hard to concentrate this morning

and i don’t know if it’s from
the stress of last night
or
the vividness of the dreams
or
the sadness of this morning
or
the lack of coffee in my bloodstream
or what

but

it is
very
extremely
extraordinarily
bizarrely
quite
hard to concentrate this morning.

~~~

i feel like i’m getting a better handle
on what makes my poetry
my poetry

(but i really have
absolutely
no idea
still
about what makes any poetry
‘good poetry’)

~~~

i would like to write
another
slam poem;
start a flow
and just go,
balance out the rhythm and rhyme
with internal structure,
alliteration,
and find
the transitions,
the cues,
from one section
to anther,
playing with words
and meaning
and framing
the repeating
as metaphor
as a tool
as a lock to turn the key
and find out something new
about me,
about life,
about our home planet earth,
and our collective strife
to stay alive
when all we want
is eternal sleep
(not necessarily because
death is the answer we’re looking for,
but because all these
isms
and power structures
and so-ingrained made up concepts
keep us so wide awake
that sleep seems a necessity
we never get to get
[when was the last time you had
an actual
honest to goodness
no stress
very good
night’s sleep?]

so i guess
that’s what this poem’s about:
the collective trauma
that is
white supremacy/capitalism/america
and how the one thing
that could give us
the fight
we need
to dismantle it
is the the thing
it keeps us
from doing
every
single
night.

(and are my daytime naps
my making up
for this lack,
or is that just a symptom
of the depression
my awareness
of these systems
gives me?)
((or is that a subject
for another poem
for another day?))

February 20, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

pondering
but not writing
thinking
but not prose-ing
mulling
but not having anything to show for it

(but isn’t that the point of meditating on a subject?
you get a better idea of your own relationship to it
without having the capitalist urge to prove it?)
(maybe?)

(i do a lot that stems from capitalism,
though i abhor the entire philosophy,
or at least the way it’s influenced us societally;
i feel the need to constantly be productive
and have something useful grow from that productivity…
but sometimes humans just need to human,
sit around,
enjoy company,
enjoy having a body–
but i’ve been taught that my body is lesser,
and therefore i should change it to redeem its worth,
and the idea of simply enjoying my body
as is,
natural,
and naturally,
is revolutionary…
and boy do i love breaking rules
and being contrary,
so why do i still feed into this capitalist myth
by feeling it necessary to not feed this body?
…different parts of me feel so at odds
all the time)

i could be resistant to capitalism
in so many better
more revolutionary ways:
revolutionary love
revolutionary joy
revolutionary rest,
but i choose to stress
and strike
against my body’s needs
and worry about all who can’t be
anti-capitalist revolutionaries
and worry about those who buy into capitalism
and patriarchy
and white supremacy
and worry about pretty much everyone
and everything
(because, i’ll bet, if i’m worrying
i can’t be bringing revolution)

but also,
revolutionarily,
an entire change in structure/mindset/philosophy
is not solely mine to bring,
this is just another capitalist myth
clouding my mind
once more;
humans are social creatures
and we can depend on one another.
no one pulls themselves entirely up by their bootstraps,
there will always be someone willing to give them a chance,
or an account full of parents’ cash for the ‘just in case’ fall,
so why
why
why
do i buy
into this story
that i need to be
solo
for
ever
to have
any
worth?

capitalism;
coming to a brain-washing station
near you.

August 22, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i [will i ever?] never do anything with my
‘Big Poems’
and i have so dubbed them because
they are (for lack of a better word)
Big™

there are many words,
the concepts are huge,
the concepts are also, often, risky
(as in, i’m leading with an opinion
or a statement
that has the potential
to anger
a whole group of
[already very angry]
people.
and as a bit of a pacifist,
that concept is terrifying
(both from a my-own-safety
and from a my-own-philosophy
kind of way)
but as a bit of a radical
anti-capitalist
anti-patriarchal
and 100% anti white supremacy
-ist
i should feel comfortable
confident
to speak my own truth
knowing
that to uphold life
above profit
in all things
is righteous
not wrongteous

it’s just that…
the other side is so loud
and my ears already hurt
from closing them to my own personal truths for so long
(but that’s another subject
for another poem
for another day)

today we are wondering
if i’ll ever bring those Big Poems out from my document
share them with the ten or so readers that ever traverse past this page

and even if i get up the gumption
what then?
they are saved and stuck for another reason,
and that reason:
they still feel unfinished.
but, as i think i’ve written before,
i’m bad at finishing things
i’m bad at conceptualizing endings
i’m bad at wrapping things up…

(but maybe that’s what the Big Poems need…
big ideas don’t necessarily have a nice ending
wrapped up in a beautiful bow,
so…
)