Journal excerpts

SHANNON YUSO

One day we’ll find a whole group of people who seek the truth.

We’ll listen to old records every day and nobody will watch TV.

We’ll write with our hands. We’ll cry in front of each other.

We’ll stop living by whatever identity others have assembled

for us from the jumble of last-minute decisions we’ve made.

I met someone beautiful yesterday.

She was smart and kind and had eyes like a cat and it was too much. for me. We

We kissed on mossy stone steps

and our teeth clicked together between wide smiles.

I’ve never smiled so much while kissing.

I don’t want to take a stand about it; get off my back.

Labels on boxes & categories of humans.

We need a new way. Stop defining, identifying all

as something else.

The facades, the insecurities, the judgment. 

Aren’t we all so sick of this?

They say it doesn’t stop, either.

And they wouldn’t lie about something as devastating as that.

So let’s start something new.

A revolution where we are good to each other.

And we take care of ourselves. And we think and empathize and place our hands

on each others’ shoulders and say, “you are important!”

Because it’s true.

Because you are important.

Because there’s nothing else that matters.

No, I’m not fucking sappy, I mean it.

It’s that cynical attitude that got us into this mess in the first place.

Stop laughing at people who are being honest. It’s hard to be honest.

Let’s just stop and think for a minute and try to say what we really mean.

Let’s run so fast that our feet can’t catch us.

Let’s jump down hills and spend endless bounds in the air!

Let’s not feel embarrassed ever again.

Let’s create everything we can think of and when we can’t think of anything else, we’ll dance and howl and burst into tiny infinite universes and sing as loud as we can.

And while we’re at it, we can quit judging others for who they

fall in love with?

And no, it’s not a phase for attention.