Love That is Worth the Risk

By Anna Blaedel

Dear ones, sweethearts:

I wanna start by asking how you’re doing – are you ok? But what a question. No one and nothing is ok. But. And. How are you doing? Are you ok?

Breathe with me, will you? At least three deep breaths. Breathing together, we conspire together.

Every morning, these days, I begin the day with song. First I breathe, and I look in the mirror and whisper sweet words to myself. Words of courage. Of power. Of love. Of wisdom, passed through the queer, nonlinear ages. Words like: You can do this. You were made for this. You have what you need, to move with love. Then I sing.

One of the songs I have been singing was taught to me by Lyndsey Scott. Written by Sounder, we’ve been calling it “Warriors for Love”:

I open my heart to you, my love.
Please open your heart to me, my love.
As warriors we risk it all for love.
Please fight, to keep it open.
Please fight, to be here with me.

“Courage,” writes emet ezell, “is the invitation to look into the face of your life through love, rather than fear.”

Dear ones, sweethearts: I know there is so much fear, swirling, and no shortage of reasons to be very, very afraid. Black and brown beloveds being terrorized, disappeared. Trans beloveds being brutalized, legislated out of existence. Queer beloveds being demonized. Disabled beloveds being abandoned. The earth – consumed, commodified – groaning under the weight of colonization, and capitalism’s endless greed. Everything that is sacred, vital, and necessary is under threat, being targeted.

And. All around me I see love swirling, too. Ferocious love. Liberating love. Love that leaves no one alone, and no one behind. Love that refuses siloing, and zero-sum-games of divide and conquer. Love that risks it all. Love that fights to stay open-hearted, tender, soft, here. Love that fights, to be with and for each other.

At enfleshed, we’ve spent the last month studying coalition. Practicing and extending the invitation: Behold. Cherish. Linger. Remembering that meaningful coalition beholds, cherishes, lingers in the sacredness of Black life. In honor of Black history. In commitment to Black futurity. In celebration of and solidarity with Black life. In lineage and legacy with Bernice Johnson Reagon, who taught that our shared survival depends upon our learning how to cultivate and practice coalition. Because: “none of us are free until all of us are free.”

Coalition practices into being a world in which Black life flourishes freely, and rests easefully. Coalition remembers a world in which Black life flourishes freely and rests easefully is a portal into a world in which all life flourishes freely and rests easefully.

Fred Moten, cherisher of Black life, writes of coalition: “The coalition emerges out of your recognition that it’s fucked up for you, in the same way that we’ve recognized that it’s fucked up for us. I don’t need your help. I just need you to realize that this shit is killing you, too, however much more softly.”

Please open your heart to me, my love. I open my heart to you, my love. Please fight, to keep it open. Please fight, to stay here, with me.

A few days ago I found myself at the Iowa state capitol, masked up and in my clergy collar, fighting with trans beloveds to stay here, to exist. While a stacked subcommittee met behind closed doors, we shouted and chanted and clapped and stomped. We hugged each other and checked in on each other, and opened our hearts to each other. At some point, waves of state police arrived, escalating, aggressive, working hard to inflict fear. And I was afraid. State police, right in front of me, and behind me. But on one side of me was a dear colleague, practiced in the art of courage, and on my other side was a dear friend, who I had texted upon arrival, and who responded to my text by showing up to the rotunda. The subcommittee declared that trans people do not exist. As our power grew louder and disruptive, the state police kettled. “Warriors for Love” persisted. Armed with courage, armed with heart, armed with love, we remained steady together.

As Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish avowed, “We love life whenever we can.”

As Marsha P. Johnson whispers, still, beyond the bounds of space and time: “I’m not saying it don’t hurt to be awake in this world. But stay awake, my darlings.” Please fight, with and for each other.

Poet Jarod Anderson describes “kindness, gentleness, and empathy” as “fires shining in the forest night” that must be tended. Tending these fires, he warns, illuminates us, makes us a target for all that feeds and fuels our fear. “So, as ever, love is risk,” he cautions. “And, as ever, worth the danger.”

In coalition, we know that the shit that’s coming for and killing you is coming for and killing me, too. As warriors, we risk it all for love. As warriors for love, we remember it is worth the danger.