the death of innocence.

"Because settler colonialism is built upon an entangled triad structure of settler-native-slave, the decolonial desires of white, nonwhite, immigrant, postcolonial, and oppressed people, can similarly be entangled in resettlement, reoccupation, and reinhabitation that actually further settler colonialism. The metaphorization of decolonization makes possible a set of evasions, or 'settler moves to innocence,' that problematically attempt to reconcile settler guilt and complicity, and rescue settler futurity." - Tuck & Yang

i would like innocence to die. actually, i would like to kill innocence.

that is not a concept i would teach any child i am in community with, not the way i have been taught: innocence, the way i have been taught, is a kind of abyss. you fall into it, and stop moving. innocence, for settlers, for anyone who thinks in a settled way, is a blockade to liberation. innocence, far more, for me, than the response to danger we call fear, is the mind-killer. innocence teaches moralism; it teaches that you can either be good or bad.

if you are good, you are good indefinitely and without growth or change. you are good, as in, approved of. you have made your way to Heaven. you are perfect, your sins have been redeemed through no work of your own, you are no longer responsible.

if you are bad, you are bad indefinitely and without growth or change. you are bad, as in, disapproved of. you are doomed to Hell. you are sin personified, you are the most responsible; faulted for harm & fated for redemption.

that is not something that i would teach any child i am in community with: i would teach that some of us are guilty, but to not let ourselves fall into the abyss of paralysis, inaction, stuckness, some of us are guilty, but all of us are responsible. none of us are entitled to paralysis, inaction, stuckness; none of us are entitled to irresponsibility. if "solidarity is an uneasy, reserved, and unsettled matter that neither reconciles present grievances nor forecloses future conflict" (more words from Tuck & Yang), then your worry for your character, your wounded ego - how "good" or "bad" you are - has no place in the work you do, because your "goodness" will not save you and your "badness" will not doom you. i used to be unsure of the place of guilt in our relations with each other. that was before it was shown to me via the thing Westerners call heartbreak, or perhaps, betrayal. a man i loved did lie to me, and due to my failing to maintain strength enough to not center the desire i had to be with him above all else (including the very impact he was having on me & others in the reality we live in), it nearly destroyed me. but i rebuilt, and i also learned the place of guilt in our relations: nowhere. or, perhaps optional in small enough doses to humble you, or open your eyes, but no more than that. if Narcissus, from Greek myth, had been cursing himself while looking deeply into his own eyes, instead of praising himself, he still would've failed to see anyone or anything else, including the water he was looking into. the man who lied to me felt guilt about lying to me, and his guilt did not support my healing from the harm he dealt me. his own internal, personal feelings of failure did nothing to help anyone, including himself, to recover. he had fallen into Narcissus' pool, the abyss of lost innocence.

i do not know if there is a spiritual meaning of life, but to live, we can't get stuck in our lost innocence. we have to keep moving. not running, not rushing, moving. not in our heads, in our bodies in (as close to) totality (as we can possibly get).

"'It's really hard to be embodied.' Nothing more, nothing less, nothing mystical to learn or overcome, it's just really hard." - a message passed along to me, from someone i haven't met in this life, by my new friend Ryn

to all the people i am trying to move to totality, to liberation, with, i ask only one thing of you. this is not a command, it is a true question, for if you do not tell me you will do this, i will do it myself, as i have all the agency to do so: kill my innocence.

so that we may live, i ask of all of us to kill our innocence.

i have sovereignty over nothing, here, except for my own self. i will always try my best to accept nothing, here, except for responsibility, to unsettle myself, to question everything, to live. to be embodied. so i must kill my innocence, and ask anyone supporting me to do the same.

never let ourselves settle.