my address to my personal amy coopers

Dear Amy Cooper.

I will not tolerate a finger wag of privilege or entitlement

From you.

No email

No facebook message

No unliked post will go unscrutinized.

For power wielding

or galavanting your unearned lordship over me

Will not be overlooked.

Not today.

And not any day beyond it.

Amy Cooper.

You will not use fear tactics to con me into giving you what you want

When you want it

Or let you think that I am anything other than human

Imperfect

Full of hope and promises

And also failure.

I will not let you reduce me to my productivity

Or a (my/our) learned habit

of gripping onto statements

made at a time very different from today

and resurrecting them as some concrete statute of truth.

I am not bound

to any part of my being

That I was yesterday

Because that being is not the one who stands before you today.

This being is traumatized and still thriving

She is shining light in the dawn of some of the darkest corners of the history of the earth

She is carrying battered beings