walking with the comrats
A slam poem I performed and dedicated to my friends in the movement during Araw ng Kagitingan (Day of Valor), April 9 2021.
[“Giting” in hiligaynon means “rat”. This is also inspired by the book “Walking with the Comrades” by Arundhati Roy.]
Walking, walking, walking with the comrats.
You will find us at 4am, scurrying
on the streets named after hacienderos
who got credited for winning local revolutions more than a century ago,
their bellies rotund and swelling from drinking wine out of sugarcanes
harvested by the men and the women and the children
who died to fight their wars.
Our history books are filled with wealthy, filthy men
who cannot taste the blood when it's mixed with alcohol,
but we can.
We can always taste the blood in our modern-day beers,
made by corporations we swear to someday burn to dust,
laughing about how their ashes can be turned to powder
we can apply over our cakey, pretty makeup.
We can always taste blood, especially when it's our own.
Marching, marching marching with the comrats.
You will find us in the middle of the city,
throats dry from screaming about god knows what this time—
“Energy democracy!" "Power to the people!"
"Kapitalismo!" "Ibagsak!"
"Imperyalismo!" "Ibagsak!"
"Uring manggagawa!" "Hukbong mapagpalaya!
"What do we want?" "Climate justice!"
"When do we want it?" "NOW!"
people are asking what the fuck is it now—
is it the burning climate
is it because we have 12 years left
no, 8 years left
no, 5 years left
until the point of no return?
is it because of the stolen lands,
the looming threat of dictatorship,
the businessmen taking over our water?
is it because of the coal plants, the fossil gas,
the mining, the killings, the plague?
is it because they’re building an economic bridge at the heart of our mountains,
or a reclamation project on our seas teeming with reefs—
and how everyone always seems to ask
"doesn’t it get tiring? fighting for so many different things?"
and how we're so sick of telling them,
"doesn’t it get tiring,
DOESN’T IT GET TIRING
explaining how they're actually all the same?"
Dancing, dancing, dancing with the comrats.
You'll find us with smudged eyeliner
discussing our next strategies inside random bars
while we sing at the top of our lungs,
dancing to the endless rhythm,
eating magic from the pregnant Earth,
tripping in the bathrooms and snorting poetry as if it will make us sane,
as if we will ever be sane
trying to forget the guilt that comes with happiness.
Can we dance amid the deaths?
Can we laugh amid the slaughters?
Can we we love amidst a dictatorship?
Dying, dying, dying with the comrats.
You will find us crying about how sure we are that when it comes to it, we are willing to die for the Cause—
the cause being as free as we possibly can,
the cause being Each Other.
Some of us haven’t seen each other in so long,
but we meant it when we said, “I’d take a bullet for you,”
over and over again,
a hundred drunken nights ago.
Living, living, living for the comrats.
It is a greater cause to continue
to choose to live
in a world that wants us dead.
🐀