Bees Knees

We love the gradient transition

I discussed it with my neighbour

Hood, it’s hard not to want a real one

So bad I might have to steal ideas from everything around

Including my own dysfunction

Revelling in drug habits so close

Quarters and I walk by with my stealthily sly eyes

Smile eyed bride

Of weed

And my Ukulele, right now in bed uku-laying beside me

Toking long into the night, I cough and analyze my smoking technique

Maybe if I was quicker on my feet, I wouldn’t be so fast to admit defeat

At that old planting seeds gig

Planting trees, an ecstasy so deep with relief when I see no more in front of me

And yet without the constant toiling suffering nothing means much more of anything

Try breathing wide I tell my poor belly

An aching food bag I played this sag play once before now I’m sore

But happy like weird bees knees I’ll take two with honey please

Fuzzy legged buzzing furs sure I’ll let them land

Stillness is the secret sickle weapon i hold in the palm of my hand

Daddy gave me wifi once more in a hard camp

ALKALI

There are always boys around. Every night, a new one, To feed from. They always stay over, fully clothed.

They smoke the night away, in dusty hallways and empty skulls. We pour our hearts out onto the floor. Blood everywhere we love the mess we stare. I have to live alone, i cannot be judged anymore. i am addicted to lying to myself addicted to being surrounded by liars addicted to falseness, to a sense of purpose that i know doesn’t exist.

He flips me over running his tongue down my crooked spine. and neither of us are alive. but like a light flickering inside the VAM we are connected through the constellations

and he reads my mind aloud, like a manuscript. i can feel his voice inside my head, pricking at old discomforts, delusional. There are little sparks i can remember. Neurons that used to be explosions, are now little fuzzy, barely audible buzzes.

The butterflies are corpses. The lights are flickering, low. The wick is burning way way down. The newness is lost. The innocence has plummeted, into the gutters.

And i lay above it all, on the streets, letting the rain wash the flesh from my bones, still feeling nothing at all.

It’s Time for Activists to Enter the Political Arena

The political landscape has been widely dominated by the same social class: white men from middle class families who tend to have a background in law or business. As a result, growing up I always thought the road towards political office was through these faculties. But this assumption, as it turns out, is the very problem stratifying our current political structure. Hence why we need a political shift, and the first to lead this shift should be activists in various fields; people who are passionate about education, queer rights, civil rights, healthcare, education and so forth. Most importantly, these activists need to do it on their own agenda, rather than by following the old guards’ path.

Deray Mckesson embodies this political shift better than anyone in recent years. The 30-year-old educator gained prominence as an activist for the Black Lives Matter movement following the murders of Michael Brown in August 2014. Since then, he’s amassed over 333, 000 twitter followers, met with the President of the United States, and many notable celebrities, and not without his own political credentials. In August 2015, with the help of fellow activists, he launched an election campaign platformed on a set of policy proposals aimed at reducing police violence, called Campaign Zero. Though with a good initial response, Deray Mckesson finished 6th with only 2% of the votes. Although his election may not have been as successful as he had hoped, Mckesson shaped the conversation surrounding Baltimore’s municipal elections by forcing other candidates to address issues like police accountability, education, and transparency.

Attempting to successfully enter politics in order to hold legitimate power can also come with a fair share of criticism. Such was the case for Léo Bureau-Blouinas, who became the youngest elected MNA in the history of the province of Quebec after rising to prominence during the 2012 student protests. Bureau-Blouinas became the target of many critics when the Parti Québécois agreed to an annual indexation of 3% on university tuition - a seeming reversal of election promises. To many, this compromise appeared as the proof that his activism was a way to promote his self-interest as he rose through the political ranks, rather than a sense of civic duty.

Nevertheless, if the current political discourse is teaching us something, it’s that we need more than just business moguls and Yale law graduates running for office. If we want public policy that reflects the needs of the most vulnerable communities, then activists alike will have to be uncompromising when running for political office, and when the position is attained.