CONTENT: mention of sexual assault, consent issues, drugs
We rolled all night. When we started to come down, we dosed again. We were sitting on the stoop, smoking, I’d imagine, watching the first hints of dawn beckoning over Druid Hill. Across the street, some techno hippies were breaking down the event they’d held that night in our collective’s warehouse space. You, always a character, never one down to turn down a conversation, probably hollered Hey. We were given a curosry head nod and everyone went back to business. Until a few minutes later. The head hippie passed his van and headed over to our side of the street. “Hey uh, there’s a bunch of smoke in the warehouse, I think something might be on fire.” Rolling or not, you sprang to action. Our rickety old building, nothing up to code, the physicalization of our deep love for community. Oh no you don’t.
Not having any kind of central heating (or cooling, for that matter) we used to keep the wood stove burning during any winter event. The stove itself was sturdy, but the pipe stretched jankily through a hole some punk had put in the ceiling years ago. I seem to recall there was duct tape involved. It seems a solidarity cinder had gleefully blown not up and out of the ceiling, but into it - into the insulation, between the roof and the also punk-installed ceiling tiles. Our warehouse was going to burn down and take our love with it -- food rescue programs, letter writing campaigns, zine library, the stage and the microphones and the amps, and the office containing the collective’s long and storied history…. not to mention the not-quite-legal home of several collective members. Simply put, a fire could. not. happen.
And so you, high as a kite, leapt up on a chair and started to pull the ceiling down. I scrambled across the warehouse, as well as the gardens, sheds, and three (absolutely perfectly legal) houses our collective owned, trawling for every fire extinguisher I could lay my paws on. I also texted our reluctant but fearless leader, Reagan, a woman whose coolness would shrivel you. Luckily she always woke up early (as gardeners tend to do) and it wasn’t long before she was on the scene. It must’ve been 6am by now. By the time she arrived, you were hanging from the ceiling, literally swinging from the rafters, a bandana over your face and an axe in your hand -- all that insulation and smoke floating down around you, a blurry vision.
When you got home from Jan’s house (although looking back, I highly doubt you were honest about where you’d been) you found me at the table in Middle House, though everyone else was asleep. A member of our sister commune had called out another (long-term, prominent) member as an abusive predator. There were a lot of emails. When you found me, I was reading Batman’s letter in which she confirmed yes, this person pushed the boundaries of her consent as well. You put me in your lap and I read what Batman wrote: her history, multiple rapes, monstrous men. You offered me lemonade -- we always drank juice straight from the jar, I didn’t think twice about accepting. I hardly noticed the bitter taste; I was trying to swallow heavy stories. Tears pricked my eyes and your prick -- well I’m glad everyone else was asleep. My body began to move without me telling it to. My mind couldn’t process text anymore. Thursday, this stuff is really fucked up, I feel really weird, I am not in control. How long before you giggled, “Oh shit” and remembered what you’d done to the lemonade? And how could I ever have thought your offering it to me was an accident?
Not having any kind of central heating (or cooling, for that matter) we used to keep the wood stove burning during any winter event. The stove itself was sturdy, but the pipe stretched jankily through a hole some punk had put in the ceiling years ago. I seem to recall there was duct tape involved. It seems a solidarity cinder had gleefully blown not up and out of the ceiling, but into it - into the insulation, between the roof and the also punk-installed ceiling tiles. Our warehouse was going to burn down and take our love with it -- food rescue programs, letter writing campaigns, zine library, the stage and the microphones and the amps, and the office containing the collective’s long and storied history…. not to mention the not-quite-legal home of several collective members. Simply put, a fire could. not. happen.
And so you, high as a kite, leapt up on a chair and started to pull the ceiling down. I scrambled across the warehouse, as well as the gardens, sheds, and three (absolutely perfectly legal) houses our collective owned, trawling for every fire extinguisher I could lay my paws on. I also texted our reluctant but fearless leader, Reagan, a woman whose coolness would shrivel you. Luckily she always woke up early (as gardeners tend to do) and it wasn’t long before she was on the scene. It must’ve been 6am by now. By the time she arrived, you were hanging from the ceiling, literally swinging from the rafters, a bandana over your face and an axe in your hand -- all that insulation and smoke floating down around you, a blurry vision.
When you got home from Jan’s house (although looking back, I highly doubt you were honest about where you’d been) you found me at the table in Middle House, though everyone else was asleep. A member of our sister commune had called out another (long-term, prominent) member as an abusive predator. There were a lot of emails. When you found me, I was reading Batman’s letter in which she confirmed yes, this person pushed the boundaries of her consent as well. You put me in your lap and I read what Batman wrote: her history, multiple rapes, monstrous men. You offered me lemonade -- we always drank juice straight from the jar, I didn’t think twice about accepting. I hardly noticed the bitter taste; I was trying to swallow heavy stories. Tears pricked my eyes and your prick -- well I’m glad everyone else was asleep. My body began to move without me telling it to. My mind couldn’t process text anymore. Thursday, this stuff is really fucked up, I feel really weird, I am not in control. How long before you giggled, “Oh shit” and remembered what you’d done to the lemonade? And how could I ever have thought your offering it to me was an accident?
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