(working title) ​Protesting The Youth Jail In Winter
I’m seeing my city unfold
into something that is no longer mine
In the typical Seattle Freeze fashion, the polite ice is broken
Fractured
exposing foundations that run deeper
Than any black child’s grave can ever hope to
Progressiveness does not last through the winter here
It shrivels up
crackles like the dead bone-leaves under a marcher’s feet
There was a protest in front the mayor’s house around Christmas Eve
And in the quiet treachery this city is so used to
he approved the permits for new youth jail
I was hopeful in Fall
When Seattle city council passed a resolution for Zero Youth Detention: I thawed
I had faith social justice grew perennial here, and my mouth filled with sap
Coated sharp teeth defenses, made my doubt grow soft, dissolve into cavity-complacence
I spoiled myself with the idea of my peers not being cages
I was proud to call this city mine in the season of shedding old customs, of laying new
foundations, new things to grow
They have been since been frozen over
Our voice is fighting to be not be lost
It is cold outside
And I don’t have faith.
This is the season where defeat comes to settle
in any pool of complacence we let sit
This is the season when homeless people die
This is the season where you build a multi-million-dollar broken promise that is anything but a
home
You have taught me that hypocrisy is the foundation Seattle builds itself on
Hypocrisy is ambidextrous: it nurtures and kills with both hands
Cleans the blood with a false concession, makes a promise on a pedestal for the cameras
Then retreats into its own hollowness when that obligation shows itself inconvenient
Yesterday
I saw a police officer swoop down from his bike to give a little brown child a SPD badge sticker
and as he clutched it his tiny, gloved hand I wondered if Seattle progressiveness doesn’t go
deeper than images

 In wilting resolutions that crumble like snow when you touch them
In militarized Safe Spaces, in a gentrified Capitol Hill that is becoming freezing sterile
In white saviors thinking they know my oppression better than I do
I know a kid can’t do yoga in handcuffs
I know resources can live elsewhere than in the back of a police cruiser
Seattle is the only place where white supremacy manifests itself in improv performance training
in a youth prison
Seattle’s racism hides behind many masks and trust me, I will take off every single of them and
not give thanks until every excuse is shattered at my feet
Your small concessions are not the only salvations that keep us warm
So trust me,
This movement will not freeze over and be forgotten
We know fire,
We know how to keep demanding
How to sustain ourselves like a spark manages to in the dead of winter
I have grown my teeth back, sharper than ever
Complacence does not find a home in the bitter taste
your broken promise left me
This city is retracting into something that is not mine
And something I am not proud of
Winter, where the night falls too early, and hopelessness threatens to freeze around my ankles
like a preemptive shackle
I trust that this the season of continuing the fight
Of breaking chains in the coldest of conditions
I am using my voice
In this moment,
I am preparing for Spring.