Poem and performance by Alexis Pauline Gumbs. Video and sound by Julia Roxanne Wallace.
Inspired? Participate in our virtual performance: http://www.alexispauline.com/brillianceremastered/2012/10/23/need-a-cyber-performance-ritual-for-community-accountable-scholars/

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Cations by Building Radical Accessible Communities Everywhere's Radical Access Mapping Project
http://radicalaccessiblecommunities.wordpress.com/subtitled-videos/

""to make love to concrete…
you need
to become a light rope a hammer
a repeatable bridge…
between forgiving too easily
and never giving at all."
-Audre Lorde
i.

we live in the universe
and energy transforms
and how it does matters
and I am an unprovokable peace
I am a warrior walking
with a belt of ocean shells
my love is so predestined you can hear it coming
so deep you cannot startle it out
it is already all I hear

ii.
make love

love is something we make
not something you take
love is something we make
fist sized factory of my heart
pumping all night in tandem with each of you
love is something we make
not something we take
lying down

iii.
repeatable bridge

this is where I would sit
a patch of grass over brick
suspended across Amsterdam ave
and I would watch
all the lights turn red
stop
turn green. go.
rush through turn yellow anything could happen
breathe
turn red. Stop

turn green. Go.
Until I could feel my lungs
Hands to the grass.
Lights change
Ahead and behind.
Breathe stop go believe
that concrete will hold you

iv.

light rope

this is how you walk after
this is how you walk home
one inhale
keep moving two
your legs remember
when learning to walk
was learning to fall
when the forward you knew
was greater than your fear
your legs remember go
this is how you walk after
tracing light
electric home
shock absorbed
heart sore
your legs remember
walk home

v.
jack hammer breakthrough
this is the city
never finished build
no one can hear
my feet breaking tunnel
deeper than train
my untrained feet
remembering drum

jackhammer
sledge walk
this is how I melt
my bones titanium
this is how I stay
too soft to break

dig home
sweet chariot
sneaker pulse to carry me home
sneak home wonder woman lariat
walking like the meters of a poem.

vi.
between

one day you will dance again
you are dancing now
one day you will shake in samba confidence
wake up black earth
one day you will dance
you are dancing right now
you exist to a rhythm
we all love and need
love is something you make
even in your sleep
you always have enough
walking home

Give (a coda)

give ankles to uncle
give wrists to rice
give fire back to dragon
give love

give nina back the rising sun
billie back brackish water
give the abacus bay to Abbey
you are done

give all this reaching hair the sky
give open hands give open eyes
give trust trampled trodden tried
give it up give love give all of it

love is something we make
not take
love is something we make
and give
love is something we make
not take

love it what we make
and live
love is something we make we make
we dance we break
we walk until we fly"