binary

Content Notes: guilt, shame, internalized ableism, abelism in general, moral perfectionism & obsession, body horror, altered reality / unreality, police / state violence used against protesters, choking & asphyxiation, harm to eyes

We need every single one of you! If you’re not with us, you’re against us!

There is a protest today. Hundreds, hopefully thousands of people are taking to the streets to show their frustration and anger and sadness. I just feel guilt, because instead of joining them, I’m lying in my bed, scrolling through Instagram, watching the photos and videos pour in. Raised fists and voices, slogans and signs. It’s powerful, it’s important. Why am I not there? I should be there. It doesn’t matter that I am scared, or that crowds make my skin crawl, or that I feel so weak, so exhausted. All that doesn’t matter in the face of what is happening. It shouldn’t matter. What are one individual's struggles compared to the future of the country? Plus, it’s not that bad, so many people have it worse and they still show up. If I prioritize my momentary comfort, what does that say about me?

You need to show up! This is the right side of history! Silence is compliance!

If I were a better person, I would make it work. I could take a painkiller, wear my ear defenders, pack my cane, grab my fidgets and do what I know is right. Join in. Use my voice for good because a vote isn’t enough. I don’t think it ever was, but especially now. But I don’t. I’m stuck in bed, my limbs too heavy to move, curtains drawn, no lightsource except the flickering of my phone. Nothing else seems real, nothing else matters. Because it’s the only thing I can do, I like and share and comment. It’s not enough. There is so much I have to atone for: the history of the country I was born in and profit from, the privileges I didn’t earn and don’t deserve, the discrimination I unknowingly absorb and recreate, the environmental impact I have by living and the actions I could have taken but didn’t. Like today. Yet another thing, I have to make up for.

Fear is no excuse! What will you tell your grandkids when they ask, where you were today?

My head hurts. The light emanating from my screen bores itself through my eyes and into my brain. The images get imprinted on my cranial matter like a tattoo: motives jammed into the tissue by unrelenting needles. The pictures overlap, bleed through and on each other - bodies collide with shields, heads collide with batons - producing a mosaic of fear and rage and violence. I wish I could shut my eyes, stop the onslaught just for a moment, but they remain wide open, tearing and burning. Tear gas and riot gear. I can only observe as the livestreams blink out one by one. I would say it’s hard to watch, but watching is the easy part. I’m not there, I’m safe, nothing I feel is comparable. The least I can do is share a fraction of their pain - or maybe I’m just punishing myself, egoistic once again.

How can you look at yourself in the mirror? The blood is on your hands too!

I just want to be good but I’m part of the problem. It’s all consuming. Guilt and doubt and fear are pressing me down and filling me up with what feels like liquid concrete. It seeps through my skin and slides down my throat - cold, thick and sticky - until every hollow space in my body is solid gray. Every breath I take cracks and splinters the slowly hardening mass, the ragged edges tearing my insides apart. They slash through fiber, opening up new paths for the viscous fluid which stretches the gaping wounds wider and wider. I feel it spreading through my veins, destroying them in the process. I don't know what will happen when it reaches my heart.

If you’re not one of us, you’re one of them! The racists, sexists, ableists, bigots and fascists!

No I am not. I don’t think I am at least. I could be better - I should be better - so I’m not good. Which means I’m bad, right? I'm a bad queer, a bad activist, a bad anarchist. At least that’s how I understand it and the comments and articles agree. Everything screams that I am not enough to be one of them: not conscious enough, not moral enough, not human enough. But I don’t want to be one of the others, so what am I? I’m not a traitor or a terrorist, I’m not a silent enabler or a dangerous criminal. I’m just exhausted and so very, very scared.

Get up, stand up, speak up! The time is now!

When was the last time I stood up? I try to shift my weight but pain surges through me immediately. Something is scraping inside me, grinding like stone on stone with my nerves caught in between. My skin feels like it's stretched tight over sharp angles, threatening to rip. A scream is stuck in my throat but it can’t get past the cement I’m choking on. Desperately, I try to claw at it but my hands merged with my phone long ago - thin cables burrowed through screen and skin and into my flesh and are now crawling towards my head - and all I manage to do is jam tiny glass shards into my neck. But I don’t bleed, I just leak drops of gray plaster. I can’t tell if the lights that flash before my eyes are electric signals, implanted diodes or oxygen starvation, but I don’t faint either. I’m suspended in pain and panic. I don’t think I can do this for much longer, but I don’t think it will end. I don’t think I will be allowed to die.

This is about all of us! Don’t just stand there and do nothing!

I just lie and watch and choke. In terror, through tears and distortions, I watch my form deteriorate and wither. My flesh melts into the mattress and exposes a construct of concrete, metal and bone that holds my twitching organs. They writhe like hurt animals, scared out of their mind and on the brink of death. I watch the world go to hell around me. I see interviews of grinning politicians who think they’ve won, videos of people burning books while singing, photos of nazis marching the streets and cops beating civilians. I see propaganda and people claiming it’s all AI or deepfaked while they fabricate “evidence” themselves. I don’t know what’s real or important anymore and I know that my overwhelm is part of their plan.

Your inaction is killing us!

Everything is too much. Was it always like this or is it because of the cables squirming in my head, sending code directly into what’s left of my oxygen deprived brain? I just need a break, a second of peace, please...

Us, them. Good, bad. Right, wrong.

My skull is pressing in on me, getting tighter and tighter and starts growing spikes that puncture my brain and my thoughts. I can sense the holes they make, spaces that were once full and are now absent, noticable only by the sudden terror when I fall into them. My eyes strain and bulge in the warping sockets until, with a wet pop, the sclera raptures. Transparent jelly oozes out of the slowly deflating eyeballs and briefly, my vision turns inward. The last thing I see is a pulsing mass of spongy gray matter, pierced by wires and optical fibers, with lights racing in and out.

01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000

I’m losing grasp of my thoughts. They blink in and out, disorienting flashes of emotions and information which are too fast to process. I can't move. Everything is still, concealing the onslaught of sensations behind my congealed form. The only outward sign of life is the feveryish beat of my exposed heart. Suspended with wire and dangling from the remnants of my ribcage, it still tries to pump blood.