sometimes, i want to write everything. i want to write about being fully in love again, about ironing out the creases and the crinkles and the rips and tears and gashes, about mending and sewing and fixing and patching and recreating a relationship that seemed months ago shredded possibly beyond repair. i want to write about this concurrent movement in the slight direction of ::gasp:: celibacy. and what an odd confluence of situationals. i don’t know that i really want to be celibate. i just know that for the first time in my life, sex in general (not just sex-with-men or sex-with-couples or sex-with-phallic-objects) seems really scary. even sex with beloved safe people. it is possible that i have a hormone imbalance. not enough progesterone or something. but possibly not. maybe people just go through periods of not wanting to jam with other folks’ fluids. i don’t know. i’m open to herbal remedies. and, of course, i still love to be touched. and i’m still polyamorous. i’m still *interested* in lots of different amazing folks. and i’m still in love with someone who is still in love with me, despite my latent squeamishness.

i want to write about kelly who is living deliciously in laos, manifesting her dreams and everybody else’s, too. she is so very possible. she draws the rest of us into understanding how possible we all can be if we stay super open and super present and let go the shoulds and woulds and coulds and rather just follow the red and rapid beating of our hearts. i want to write about ms. limina libida, who teaches constantly by example how to be young and mature and compassionate and present and self-aware and in your body and how to play with power and with strength and with the feminine and with the intermingling of gender and of boundaries, how to move and shake and play and engage in meaningful work and meaningful fun, how to actively create your life, how to write, how to offer a handful of honest (easy, sexy, profound) words to give rise to heart-opening gasps. i want to write about orangepeeler, whose felicity with language grows deeper and more intricate and subtle every hour, i think. and sriram, who makes me want to be a doctor (so i can be just like him), makes being a doctor seem like revolutionary activity, makes revolutionary activity and revolutionary thought occur everywhere, everyday, keeps the poetry in everything. and the humblest grasshopper and dipti and llana, who inspire me always beyond words. and new friends (chris! and mo! and *yoga*) and old friends (michelle michelle michelle michelle michelle!) who give me a reason to go out my front door.

and i want to go back to school, sort of, and study something totally different like computer science or astrophysics and get another bachelor's degree and maybe a masters or something after that or go to medical school (so i can be like dipti and sri and my girlfriend) and i want to talk about the mosaic project, which is probably the most meaningful thing i'm about to do. and i want to write about war, but i still don't know how to and stumble every time i begin. i stare at the screen or at the notebook and my eyes slowly unfocus and i start seeing hazy visions of imagined horror until my eyes film, and i blink away the almost tears and i get up to distract myself with something else. i want to write about what i don't know how to write about. i'm full of contradictions.

i want to write about martin luther king, junior. i listened to one of his speeches, today. the speech he gave the day before being shot. the speech in which he told the assembled 11,000 people that he was not afraid of dying. that he had reached the mountain top. that he had no fear. i heard that part and i cried. andre and i were driving through the city. i was on my way to a teeth-cleaning and we listened to kpfa and we gasped and we listened and we held our chests and we listened and wept. i don’t think i have ever heard an entire speech of his before today. and i didn’t hear the whole thing, today; just more than i had ever heard before. and i was transformed. my body was not my body. my body was an open vessel for movement. i was a receptor. i listened and it was as if i was in that mass of people open and awaiting instructions, my body strung tight like a bow or a drum, ready to fly, ready to resonate.

the man spoke of peace in such a way as to make buildings fall down. does that make sense? i mean the man was a quiet earthquake. and, it seemed to me that he never raised a word in anger. never spoke harshly of those who were harmful and violent and cruel. he spoke instead of sickness. referred to the woman who had stabbed him as "demented," but spoke that word with kindness. he spoke of what we needed to do when we were met with opposition to the growth of these rights it was time to stand up for. he spoke and i understood how he could mobilize a people. he spoke and i grieved for the death of this man so capable of bringing us together. he spoke and i cast about for a martin luther king in the world to bring us together and the only martin luther king i ever knew, june jordan, died of breast cancer last summer. the loss of june made me understand a glimmer of what it must have felt like losing dr. king. i remember attending the memorial service in her honor and thinking without june, how will we go on? who will say the things that must be said? who will say the things that must be said with a voice strong enough and passionate enough and eloquent enough to move a people? without june, who will say the things that must be said, the things they punish you with censure, treason, and death for saying? that day, the only answer i could find was a small and tentative voice inside me saying, "i will. i must. i will say the things that must be said. if only i can find the words . . ." and today, casting about for a martin luther king to unite us, and (in the absence of june jordan) finding none, i looked for the martin luther king in myself. we have to be that force that unifies, that unites, that speaks of our beliefs, loud and true. we have to be the hands that hold. we have to reach and find and speak with everyone who would work with us in the movement towards peace. we have to teach people who have only ever been taught that they cannot change the movings of the supposed powers that be, that we are the power, have the power, and that we are not alone. we are the peacefulness that will not be silent in the face of war, that will not turn our back, that will make enemies of no one, we are peace in a tsunami of people coming together, a massive human tidal wave of peace rising up out of the earth to transform this war, this violence, this hatred. we are a quiet earthquake. can you hear the rumbling underfoot? in the air? between leaves and branches and blades of grass? join in. raise hands and voice and open arms. join us in this standing up.