By CM Green
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Reference to a fatal car crash, and deals with student encampments from the spring, including a reference to police disruption of peaceful protest.
Kid at the encampment hands over two arizona iced teas
and says I know it’s not much but it’s what I have,
then walks away again.
I’ve been listening to Victor Tsoi lately,
our hearts demand change, our eyes demand change,
and thinking about when it is easiest to speak against,
And when is it easier to sing about the girl you don’t love
watering flowers in her window
and about how strange it is to be alone.
Kid at the encampment hands over two arizona iced teas
before walking back to study for exams. Or not. What do I know?
All I know is that nothing feels like enough.
All I can do is write and write and write and sit
in an Adirondack chair surrounded by students both
younger and braver than me. With more to lose.
We give what we can and it doesn’t feel like enough.
We withhold our votes and we call people who listen
to no one but glimmering rings.
Kid at the encampment hands over two arizona iced teas,
all sweating and flowered pink, and they go into the center
where other kids protect a mountain of food.
I write a poem, then another, then a story about compromise.
It’s always political, especially if you think it isn’t, and attention
is all I have to give today. I leave the encampment to swallow
two pills and go to sleep and while I sleep, catastrophe.
I wake up and write another poem and try not to despair
because they are so young, and so brave.
Kid at the encampment hands over two arizona iced teas,
and Victor Tsoi died in a car crash, but not before he wrote
and wrote and wrote. And sang.
C.M. Green (they/them) is a Boston-based writer with a focus on history, memory, gender, and religion. Their work has appeared in beestung, Full House Literary, and elsewhere, and their debut chapbook, I Am Never Leaving Williamsburg, is forthcoming with fifth wheel press in 2025. They support a free Palestine and encourage you to find tangible ways to do the same. You can find their work at cmgreenwrites.com.
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