This year signifies transformation,
as if we could molt away
old skins and transform them
into expensive clutches,
into cold-blooded.
Closed off streets are, to
pedestrians, open streets.
Every inclusion another’s exclusion.
A student, plaintive: “I’m a Black male
who voted for Trump. Is that the colonizer
mentality in me?”
I can't use three letters: D, E, or I.
Will my research be shut down
or embrace Chinese
netizens’ euphemisms—
“youth in Asia” equals euthanasia.
Damn, you crazy, every time
I mean democracy.
Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn.
Also gather?
Deer are not evil.
They attack when hurt.
These long winter nights.
Let’s write shorter lines.
This poem was co-published and supported by the journalism non-profit the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.
Celina Su’s academic and creative work focuses on everyday struggles for collective governance. Her last book of poetry was the collection Landia; her latest nonfiction book project centering radical democracy, Budget Justice: On Building Grassroots Politics and Solidarities, is out now from Princeton University Press.
