V. H. King's Ink

Back in October, I was trying to come up with some kind of intro or tagline for my fall sale. I’m not a marketing person, so I usually dread that kind of thing. Most social media content is a headache for me to make (or maintain), but this poem came with ease.

Maybe I was just that angry, that exhausted, that stubborn. Sound familiar?

Snag a print on my ko-fi!

KICKING & SCREAMING

like being born for the first and the second 
and the hundred-thousandth time; 
like dragging yourself through yet another 
fucking impossible day; like clawing your way out 
of nightmare #589 of the year; like furiously demanding 
to live—even in the desert, even under siege 
of the sun, even when everything is an ache. 

kicking and screaming like the futility of hollow victories 
and the fury of everything they can’t take 
from you: like the last time you burst into laughter 
so hard it made your stomach hurt, and that time 
you let your shoulders sag as you breathed in 
the stale air from an open window, like the sinking 
realization that “it wasn’t supposed to be like this”; 

kicking and screaming like the will to love as hard as you can 
because you can’t fix the world but maybe you can help 
one person feel less alone. kicking and screaming like 
you’re fighting to stay alive, stay human, stay tender, 
stay generous, stay curious, when every system says 
you’d better not, or else—or else what? kicking and 
screaming like there’s no other goddamn option.