It all ends with being in your arms.

All rest; I rest.

Breathe.

CW//

I’m so done with cishet men occupying spaces they do not belong to, debating what they barely understand, creating structures that are inadequate, and yet getting away with the consequences of their unkind, ill-thought, mediocre actions.

While, on the other, we question whether we even fit into a movement against hurt, trauma & pain. We keep hoping we’re not diluting the significance of the causes we support with our participation. We educate ourselves to term the violence & the abusers correctly.

The responsibility of taking precautions, coping, handling the hurt & trauma, learning & unlearning, all the while being mindful, always falls on the abuse survivors, never the abusers.

You cannot tend to what you do not understand.

You make me want to talk about myself.

That has been our love.

More than who you find at the table, it is worth examining who does the talking.

Performative gestures may put women & marginalised folks in the power circuits while still keeping them from actively participating.

At a tiny, cosy café a few evenings back, when a visibly amused woman interrupted my mind’s routine excursions to request the English translation of a word & I immediately supplied her with it, the very-friendly man from behind the counter — being able to easily eavesdrop, owing to the near emptiness of the place — took swift steps in our direction, placed the steaming tea and pakodas on her round, wooden table, and urged us to reiterate the word because he wished to learn it.

He sincerely repeated it twice and then mumbled a couple of more times on his way back. I think I saw him writing it down on a tissue.

My very mundane evening had just turned too pleasant!

Our hands have a habit of holding hands in times of chaos.

Let them.