Various

We have our causes.

We change and grow. We sometimes need our closest friends to remind us of that.

We get frustrated about the circumstances we find ourselves in.

People surprise us.

We believe again. We pray.

We get scared for our younger sisters.

We miss home.

We try to make a difference in various kinds of ways.

Then we run out of links. And run back to the real world.

Where we get really disappointed in people that we love. And although we try to understand where they are coming from, sometimes it is very hard. Because you know they are hurting themselves.

Where classrooms stop being--were they ever?--spaces of safety and learning. Instead they become places where racist thoughts slash like knives across your identity, your history, your privacy. (This is called privilege)

Where authority is used as a mask to conceal fear, paranoia, frustration and incompetence. Where we are workers and not students, not scholars, not intellectuals. Where we are servants and contractors, not griots, not elders, not sages.

Where empathy is replaced by self-indulgence and prejudice.

Where with just a sentence, I'm disarmed, and I feel myself, my sisters, my daughtes, my aunt, and my mother spread in lewd, overexposed display.

Where we want to sleep.