photos by Mayur Kakreli, compliments of Nocturne
This is dedicated to the communal grief a pandemic has had us live through. The communal existential grief of being a human, the grief of trying to live in late capitalism, the grief for the earth.
And, to the ways that a pandemic has affected each of us, groups of us, so differently. The disproportionate effects of the systems we live in. And the ways no one escapes the grief caused by colonialism, white supremacy, patriarchy, abelism, and on and on...
It is for the events that bring us to our knees while the rest of the world goes on around us. And for the grief that we carry with us so quietly maybe no one else knows it is there.
Dedicated to the sun that bounces off the dirty glass in that way that lifts my eyes to the window and the plant that keeps climbing the chainlink fence,
For the grief that has been carried with us from our ancestors.
For every required act of resistance, ever time resilience has needed to be grown. And the feeling when you notice someone is standing beside you.
It’s to every kiddo who is born knowing how to express their feelings. And all we have to learn by witnessing that. And for the adults who can read their child’s rage as sadness and what this can teach us all about anger as unexpressed grief .

Dedicated to everyone who doesn’t have walls to manage their grief behind, who shares it in our communal spaces, who walk as teachers of vulnerability and offer so many moments for response.
To everyone whose grief isn’t welcomed or seen. To unravelling and tearing apart the systems that don’t have us all jumping in support for everyone’s grief.
This is to everyone that was silenced by my white woman tears. In hope that my grief for that is only a call to action until tears are a universal call to compassion.
To the small prophets of possibility who are amongst us, offering an invitation to the magic of joy with a smile, the clapping of their hands and their insistence on skipping from one place to another.