I often find myself on this side of an invisible line, while the vast majority of my family, friends, and neighbors are on the other side. Listening to a recent interview with Kae Tempest, the English Poet, they were referred to as a prophetess. I am not a prophet but I can relate to what they discuss

On being described as a “prophetess” by Amy Ray As they stated, “For writers, we pay extreme attention — this is what I’m saying about this decision to pay particular attention. And when you do that, what you access is the present but what it looks like and reads like is prescience. It looks like you’re talking about the future, but actually you’re just paying attention to the present, and it happens all the time when you read novels or you listen to lyrics by people that are afflicted with the burden of being somebody who notices in such sharp frequencies what’s going on. Then you explain it and you get it out of you and it seems like you’re talking about future but you’re not; you’re just describing the moment.”

What this means is that I spend my time looking at things that most people are not aware of. I look at you driving your car, and I see how that is going to directly impact my grandchildren’s climate future. I see you saying how you want to buy a house in the least diverse suburb and I see the future for your children growing up in that setting. I see a neighborhood and I see all of the patterns of exclusion and redlining and government policies that have resulted in it being ‘miraculously’ almost all white or not. I know there was nothing miraculous about it. Going back farther I know that the Seneca Indians had villages here, but there are now no traces, what traumas made that happen? I do not know? Do I want to? I see a patient and see their disabilities and I see countless probable futures that depend on what actions are taken or not taken today to address them.

The thing is most of what I see right now is not good. It is scary as hell. I feel like the person who knows the monster is coming and they will be here in the next five panels of this comic book and I want to scream a warning, but because it is not here yet, no-one will believe me. I often socially find myself in situations where people don’t believe me. I try not to talk at parties, because if I open my mouth, I might scream.

There are so many connections pointing to the direct impact of climate change on each and everyone of us, but because America’s news media is totally focused on the latest tweet of our idiot in chief, they never show the flooding, the storms, the heat waves, the infestations, the deaths, the loss of glaciers which will impact every life that currently depends on that glacier melt for life. It is all there, but no one is putting the pieces together to show all of us that driving that car and burning that gas to go a fucking quarter of a mile, is just making the whole situation that much worse.

I see color and I see systematic racism. I see from my male white middle class eyes, how systemic racism has shaped my entire community and how it is so fucking obvious but when I point it out to another white person it is like I am talking about a color they can not see. It is as if half our country insists on being literally color blind and they actively deny the existence of red and green. Meanwhile people of color are like, can you actually believe this shit?

I see homeless people. You drive by them and somehow do not see them, but I see them and their stories. I talk with them, I give them support when I can. I just discovered winter solstice services that honor the deaths of homeless people in a community and wonder how I did not know this and pledge to attend next years.

In the same way I see new immigrant families, not nearly as many now after three years of this awful presidency and its policies. I have sat in their houses, and I have heard their stories. I know in the words of Warsan Shire that “you don’t leave home unless home is the mouth of a shark.” I have looked into the mouth of those sharks working with these families, we have counted the bodies together, I have sat while they cried about their murdered family members.

I see food waste, I see factory farming. You eat that hot dog and I see how that pig was raised and slaughtered, I also see how pigs are smarter than 5 year old children. Would you eat a 5 year old child? You eat that chicken and I see how it was raised and never saw the light of day in that hot, hot building in which it was raised, lived, and killed, and I think your a Christian, Jew, Muslim, and it was one of God’s creations, how?

I see the religious right saying “oh 170,000 dead American’s from a flu (just insert the latest number there), they were going to die anyway, but we will fight tooth and nail to protect unborn children. I see this is not about life, it is about misogyny and patriarchy and about controlling women’s bodies. If you cared, you would be at the border freeing migrant and immigrant children from our modern concentration camps, because is that not what Jesus would do?

I see female genital mutilation and the fact that it is largely done by women to their children or grandchildren and I see the hands of the patriarchy and how when you are raised in a stew of patriarchy and misogyny that it flavors you. If flavors you to the point that you can not smell the stench on yourself.

As you can see, I see dead people. I see you on the other side of this line, and I often wish, I could still be on that side of that line with you. Then I realize that that world is a fantasy. Enjoy it. The monster is now only two three colored panels away, it will be here soon.

© words by Daniel DeMarle 8/25/2020