Cosmic memory: a ring of fire illuminated by superstitious healing
existing in days out of time for all time until next time
What does it mean to heal during a time of pain, a time of layered pain, in every direction. This letter invites this question.
“The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.” - James Baldwin, 1980
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Love letter sent to 8/14/21
(the day after Friday 10/13/21)
Dear you,
My beloved, you survived.
This is a love letter.
it is 10/14 here, and a ring of fire illuminated the sky. darkness covered, exposing the hidden layer in invisible view. I promised one more letter, and honestly, I could not see you until last night, on the last letter day promised.
last night I saw the possibility past pain, the space that appears only going through the pain. and back again. and back again.
until it alchemizes. until it transforms. until it reaches the point beyond the triple point.
that’s when I saw you, which meant I could find you again.
you were there at birth. at death. at death. at birth. at pain. at joy.
really we could just consider this the creation when the high priestess meets the empress, all while surrounded by exponential death. I see you now.
fire remembers fire.
on this day, however, you burned away our eyes. not the eyes you see the world but the eyes you see the world with. the eyes that can see the unseen, the spaces in between that are hidden in the folds of being out of time. our cosmic memory is out of time, and pain is the best lighthouse when the storms arise. capsaicin will capsize the mycelial webs, exposing the bones.
yet, the bones of ours grew. the keys touched differently.
we became carriers of the vials. we were armed in arms.
we became entranced zealots. we reconnected to the wires.
we allowed ourselves to birth. to create. to ripple.
the layers of cosmic memory have one thing in common: birth in the cosmos creates ripples in the very fabric of space-time.
every action has a birth. even burning our fingertips through accidental capsaicin bath is a birth of pain. pain is a teacher whose lessons appear when liminality is squeezed.
when a star is born, death reconfigures.
when death reconfigures, a star is born.
a nebula is where stars are born. where the kids of the cosmos are born.
consider this the siren song of nebulas in every timeline.
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trust kids: an ode to echolalia*
(the you is I and the me is we because all time is happening at all times so we are kids and you are me)
trust kids.
trust kids too.
trust kids to know.
trust kids to know no so when you hear their no you know they know their no.
trust kids to know themselves before they know you / kids will author their own stories before they invite you to read them / kids will invite you to know them only when they trust you to know your own stories / kids will know you before you know yourself / kids will know that magneto was right / kids know.
trust kids.
trust kids too.
trust kids to be.
to be kids.
trust kids to be kids who know themselves in a language that you have never spoken / to create languages that you may learn to speak if you learn to listen / to speak the stories that they know in ways that they may never know / to create the new worlds in which they want to live in / to grow in the ways that they want to be rooted / to live in their truth before you even begin to understand them as a human in the multiverse.
trust kids to be kids in a world that does not want them to be kids.
trust kids to be kids.
to be neurodivergent.
neuroemergent.
neurodifferent.
neurofabulous.
neurodimensional.
neuroqueer.
trust kids to be.
trust (these) kids.
trust (those) kids too.
trust kids / all kids / sad kids / mad kids / happy kids / Black kids / Indigenous kids / magical kids / anxious kids / quiet kids / outspoken kids / undocumented kids / adopted kids / thoughtful kids / tree-climbing kids / naming-all-the-frogs-George kids / otherworld daydreaming kids / mutain’eering kids / screaming kids / joyful kids / disabled kids / grieving kids / autistic kids / sick kids / scared kids / hurt kids / traumatized kids / non-verbal kids / compassionate kids / empathetic kids / system kids / hypervigilant kids / voice-hearing kids / stimming kids / hungry kids / tired kids / ticcing kids / hopeful kids / trans kids / queer kids / intersex kids / 2SLGBTQIAA+ kids / all (and we mean all) kids.
because this list is not exhaustive of kids to trust
how about
just
trust (all) kids.
trust kids because it is quite possible that you were not trusted as a kid / you know how it feels to not be trusted / it hurts to be not trusted when you were a kid / it hurts to be not trusted when you are a kid
and that is not okay.
that is not okay.
that mistrust is not okay.
that mistrust of kids is not okay.
that mistrust of kids while you were a kid is not okay.
that mistrust of kids has now been passed on to you as an adult
& the remedy to this is simple
& requires you to simply
trust kids.
trust (all) kids because all kids deserve to be.
trust (all) kids because all kids deserve to be trusted / you deserve to have been trusted / your kids deserve to be trusted / my kids deserve to be trusted / our kids deserve to be trusted / all kids deserve to be trusted.
trust kids.
trust kids to not want what you want.
trust kids to not want what you want to give them / to gift them / to pass on to them / to sell to them / to coerce on them / to force on them / to advertise to them / to add to them.
trust kids to say.
trust kids to say no.
trust kids to say their no.
trust kids to say no racial violence / colonized violence / capitalistic violence / patriarchal violence / gender violence / sexual violence / housing instability / food insecurity / assigned gender you forced on them at birth / to the name you gave them before you knew them / to the food you thought they liked before you asked them / to their picture posted everywhere without consent / hegemonic systems / cops / prisons / pathologized psychiatric violence / to your government / to your politics / to your history / to your empire / to any of your violence
trust kids because you have been taught
you have embodied
you have been taught to not trust kids.
you have been taught to not trust kids
as the (tiny) humans they are
as the (youthful) humans they are
as the kids they are
because kids who are kids are not to be trusted so kids should not be kids.
when does that happen?
(all time is happening always)
where are kids no longer kids?
(space time is non-linear)
why are kids stolen from being kids?
(this is not about being an adult)
how do kids stop being kids?
(this is about agency & autonomy at any age)
the answer: because (somewhere/somehow) adults stopped trusting kids.
adults stopped trusting kids.
(old kids) stopped trusting (young) kids.
this is a statement a fact an unknown known truth and yet
there was never a question and yet
the answer
is always
always
trust kids.
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I’ve looked forward to this letter, a first letter of its kind.
a living love letter that ripples in all directions through the fabric of all space-time.
the siren song of nebulas across the cosmos.
I love you forever and always, across all timelines and worlds.
love, m.e.
*(written in 6 hours on 8/29/21; published in Trust Kids!: Stories on Youth Autonomy and Confronting Adult Supremacy on 11/1/22; sent back in time, out of time to 8/14/21 on 10/14/23)