I'm waiting for a rage that isn't coming. You would think I would feel angry.

Instead it's just utter heartbreak. That deep, empty-hole-in-the-soul, kind of heartbreak. The kind caused by a type of disappointment that will never be recovered or repaired.

After a year of participating in a public leadership fellowship and a year at the service of students, appearing as the shining example of democratic leadership, I find myself struggling to believe in something that just continues to disappoint me.

All these years I have been taught to believe in a system of beliefs that says that the minority is protected, that the collective opinion will somehow resolve itself and equalize everything, that wrongs will find a way to be corrected. Yet, all I keep seeing is act after act of this democratic public that does everything it can to oppress the minority and to perpetuate any inequities that can be exploited.

Someone needs to show me, and I mean really show me, what has changed in all these decades. Slums are still starving people to death, in the shadows of wealth and capital. Anyone who is different is still being forced to hide, pretend, and suffer a silent shame. Color still determines who receives help and who doesn't.

I'm not angry.
I can't feel the anger anymore. After years of pretending that I wasn't disappointed and pretending things will be better, I've learned to suppress whatever feelings I have.

I'm tired of patience-- of holding in frustration, of waiting until the next day for things to improve. Patience didn't get anyone anywhere. The impatient-- the ones who would stay up all night looking for an answer, the ones who hungered for something more than what was given to them-- they are the ones who succeed and the ones who shape the world.

Maybe if we, the silenced, the oppressed, the separate-but-maybe-not-quite-equal, stop being patient we will actually get somewhere.

Daydreaming about Dreams

(I'm going to completely disregard the fact that I haven't written here in about a lifetime or more and proceed as though I have been a very diligent and up-to-date individual...)

I woke up this morning from one of those dreams that kind of lingers on your consciousness for that extra minute between sleeping and fully waking. I woke up taking in a lungful of air, catching my breath from that moment of... something.

How to best re-tell this?

After a long and involved dream, involving close friends and acquaintances and tattoos and going clubbing, and living in a mess of a house, I open the door and find myself in the 1950s, in the bedroom of a teenage boy. I find that I have been transformed to a 1950s girl, wearing the typical "Pleasantville" type full skirt with cashmere sweater set. I don't recognize the boy, but I know that I know him. We are friends.

My heart beats as though we could be more than that.

The door to the bedroom is closed, but we are still nervous. His parents are hovering nearby and we are both aware of the unusual nature of our privacy and we respect it. I take off my cardigan and carefully place it on the desk, making sure that it doesn't wrinkle. I'm in a short sleeved sweater top, standing by the window, looking out the window. I don't know if we're even speaking. Suddenly, we turn to each other and it happens.
A kiss.
The only kind of kiss you can have as a shy teenager-- one filled with desire and love and passion that has no other outlet than a kiss. There is no groping, no pushing to take it one step further-- it's just that all-consuming kiss.

Suddenly he stops, hearing soft footsteps approaching his door. We separate and catch our breaths just in time as his father opens the door. Finding nothing suspicious, he moves on, leaving us alone again. The boy sits in a desk chair, his eyes still blazing.

I take another breath and we are together again and we stop for the briefest moment to look at each and I think, "God, am I in love?"

I gasp for air, as I feel the butterflies escaping my stomach and I wake up...



I woke up feeling nostalgic for that feeling. I miss that feeling-- that kiss that leads nowhere else but that kiss... a kiss that's enough. I hate the introduction of sex to adult relationships. It ruins that kiss.