La lucha, they say, is no place for love letters

by malintZINE

It´s finally sunset on top of the mountain but the shades of red are simply the sky’s reflection of the anger in your words: “I don’t understand how your mind works. I don’t like how your mind works” you said. Between shades of silent frustration, I hear again and again the echo of those words, as I  struggle to ground myself in the poems and tales of those who were abused by their compañeros within the movement. La lucha, they say, is no place for love letters.

 

“I don’t like how your mind works. I don’t like how your mind works”. I try not to silence my memory and reuse my dry seeds to replant ideas of healthy relationships between comrades. I gather my tears and save them for communal sorrows as I repeat a survivor’s mantra: My mind is powerful, my mind is beautiful. Your mind, mujer, is powerful; it´s beautiful.

 

That mind , tan  hermosa, tan coqueta, that seeks  foreplay, excitement and climax in ideas of liberation.

 

That mind where thoughts of conspiracy are being nurtured with the most intense political sense of rebellious motherhood.

 

That mind, that subversive mind, that is never competent with half answers and incomplete sentences. That mind that screams with rage at historical inaccuracies and euphemisms that hide genocide.

 

That mind that can trace the origin of myths and dogmatic perceptions that keep our collective consciousness hidden between pulpits that preach fear.

 

That mind that challenges orders.   

 

That mind that questions power.

 

That mind where gardens of decolonization are watered by  banned books and guerrilla lover letters.

 

That mind where poems are born.

 

That mind where songs are sung.

 

That mind, the engine of this mouth, that chants for freedom.

 

That mind, compañero, that mind that you claim in anger to not understand is where our everyday revolution is consolidated in love.

That  mind that today firmly replies, in my mother tongue, adiós.