Eyes Bound Open
A Day in America
On days like this, my eyes just—open. The sun glares through the window on my left, and I turn my back to it. I stare out into nothing, thinking about children and whole families dying—in Palestine. Sudan. The Congo. My eyes search beyond the wall in front of me. Where else are we overlooking, perhaps even ignoring and thus supporting, people’s humanity being violently revoked? A heavy, bitter helplessness keeps me in bed a minute longer, but I can’t afford to stay in bed, so I get up. I make breakfast while people are starved. I slowly drink coffee, waiting for it to give me something, anything, to begin the day. When it (hope, perhaps) arrives, it’s just enough to answer the phone call from my mother.
She cries and cries, cries harder than I had heard her cry in a while. She runs from one crisis to another in a single breath. There are issues with inspection in her public housing unit, so she might soon be without a home. (Most of us are closer to homelessness than we think.) She continues lamenting that her brother and parents offer nothing but heavy criticism while she goes to the doctor to be screened for ovarian cancer. She fears for her daughter, my sister, and speaks of the abuse she endured with my father, and she prays to God that her only daughter won’t be trapped by this pregnancy nor by whatever she’s misconstrued as love. Before sighing and ending her desahogo, she asks God to take it in his hands.
I don’t mention she’s more likely to be racially profiled by police because Texas gave them the power to arrest anyone “suspected” of unauthorized entry into the country, or that Texas denied additional SNAP assistance for her and my little brother, or that her partner can now legally be denied water breaks while our hometown has the highest number of heat-related deaths. I don’t mention her family isn’t shit. I don’t mention how she is heavily triggered by my sister’s relationship, though I suspect she knows, despite not knowing the technical term “trigger” since she said, “Me veo en ella. Veo a tu papá en ese hijo de puta.” And in a sob, “Chingao.”
The call ends and I wonder how often my mother think about genocide happening in Palestine, Sudan, and the Congo. I wonder if she knows about billionaires and corporations warping systems and whole institutions for profit and power, siphoning it from her hands. But I remember that she does. She knows, too well, the mercilessness of this country. As quickly as it is acknowledged, it is waved, shrugged, and sighed away. “Ay no, no te digo?” the question is not a question so much as a statement. She has been telling me how hard it is to make ends meet. But isn’t the economy and stock market booming? And weren’t things always hard? “Sí, pero no compares ellos ha nosotros. Especialmente ahorita.” She means things feel different and reminds me that their progress doesn’t come with our own. The stock market isn’t hers nor mine.
Without being able to articulate the workings of geopolitics or capitalism, she knows, deep in her bones, that this—all of this—is wrong. I know she also means she’s just trying to survive, which requires her to focus on just right now. Anything more might kill her. Not all of us have the privilege to stop and contemplate beyond today. She must go on.
I can’t believe it’s only the morning. But I follow the motion of the day and work. (The threat of homelessness echoes.) I hear from clients about their days, and I listen to different forms of adversity, what corners them into lashing out, shutting down, or forgetting parts of themselves. They talk of the helplessness from learning that children are having arms and legs amputated without anesthesia. I don’t mention how they’re also starving and wanting to die, even the youngest among them, and that (y)our tax dollars are paying for it. They talk of a god being used to demand the end of their existence, and how they are also being severely overworked and underpaid. I point out that the corporations they work for are helping Christofacists push the country deeper into authoritarianism, having us blame each other for how little we’re given for breaking our backs and killing our spirit.
Money. All for money.
“How will I ever buy a house?” “Is this it? Like, is this the rest of my life?” “But what can I do? What can I do?” I sit across them wondering the same thing.
They curse our coward leaders and insatiable corporations. I nod, and I nod.
Maybe it’s to spite our shit politicians, or our stubborn pride which disallows giving up, or maybe it really is hope, nurtured from love tucked away in small moments that show us how great it is to be alive, that we find ways to resist. How does it look like to regain power in the face oppression? How can we break through the normalization of violence, the loss of dignity, and invite others to do the same? Fear is mentioned, and I say that makes sense. What we’re facing is scary as fuck. Liberation, however, doesn’t come without fear, which is to say liberation cannot come without being asked to be brave. Oppression’s best ally, after all, is the comfort of privilege. To liberate ourselves and each other, then, means facing uncomfortable truths, holding ourselves accountable, and showing up over and over again, but not without the ultimate gift: we don’t have to do it alone. We have each other.
Thus, my clients and I come to our conclusion. I wish the lightbulb moment were brighter. Oftentimes, arriving to this place means being called upon to do more, live differently, resist, and occupy space. It might look like: holding your partner’s hand in public, bringing food and water to gatherings, attending community forums or meetings, talking to strangers and help them be part of your community, organizing letter campaigns or call banks, making art that inspires and provokes a question/call to answer, and, most of all, it means creating new ways of living and relating with each other, starting in our neighborhoods. It means showing up and causing good trouble, even if our hands and voice shake.
Hours of work go by, and it’s somehow past five. I go buy groceries while bakeries are being bombed. I call my youngest brother and he tells me about Fortnite, and I think of the children scratching at the Earth, dying for cobalt to power our phones, computers, and electric cars. Progress is celebrated, and it looks like individualized “green” and “ethical” EV options instead of high-speed rails and public transportation. It looks like “a market” that’s costed hundreds of thousands of lives to make a few hundred companies rich. Who is this progress for, and where is it taken from? What does it mean when certain children are entertained by Fortnite, while other children die to power it?
I call my other brother, and he doesn’t answer; I call my sister, and she also doesn’t answer.
I call my father, and he tells me about how he hasn’t slept in days, maybe about six, seven hours across three nights, and I urge him to sleep. “What good would working do if you’re dead?” I point out. “Mijo, I have to.” He says it like I don’t understand, and maybe I don’t. On such a rare moment, like this, he asks how I’m doing, and I simply say: “People are dying.” He sighs. “I know, it's fucked up, right? We’re struggling and they want war.” I’m surprised, but I also want to cry because he understands what’s happening, which is to say he knows what’s been on my mind. I’ve called my family in hopes of sharing a moment, to feel less alone, and finally, there’s a glimpse of one of them understanding why I’m so tired and so fucking angry. Yet, after all that, I only muster: “Yeah, it’s fucked up.” And he returns to work.
I eat while people are still being starved. I shower while people die of dysentery and share a single toilet with 700 other people. And when I go to bed, I think of people without homes or beds or food or medicine or an answer to their prayers. I think of walls crashing down, thundering planes, and torrents of agony. I think of the dystopian Hunger Games being actualized at the Met Gala and in Palestine’s shores. Do you know what it costs to get flour or water or tampons or anything at all? In some parts of the world, it costs lives. Lives and more lives.
I lay in bed, thinking of whole countries and families being ripped apart. Killed for profit while being disguised as progress—but for who? I toss. I turn. My eyes stay open.
We must answer: what will I do while the world burns? whose lives am I willing to sacrifice to be comfortable? what will I do when there is no one left to step on, except ourselves?
What will you do in the face of injustice?