writing about monsters when you don't have the words

I want to write about monsters. I still don't have the words. Are there any words really for the atrocities, the mass graves, the disabling, the exploitation, the starvation, the gaslighting, the lying, the unending list of harms committed, led, and supported by—impunity?

I've recently started learning Latin roots in my efforts to rebuild my ability to write. It isn't my go-to, but it has been helping me rebuild that part of my brain. Still, I wish I didn't understand what impunity means. I wish I didn't have a lifetime of understanding it.

"Freedom from punishment or pain"– I'm thinking about pain, who feels it, who is imagined to have more tolerance to it, and who feels they have a right to use punishment and pain to try to correct behavior, whether immigration, crimes of poverty, or fear-enabling indifference to the needs of others. I'll return again and again to these reflections.

But also, are there any words for the monsters of childhood? There are so many kinds of monsters in childhood—aren't there enough without continuously creating more???

I was thinking about this, and all who were enabling the genocide of Palestinians, when I wrote a poem on 11/2/2023 that I shared on Twitter/X, as well as my first post on Bluesky and IG, before I lost capacity for more than a year to post further on either platform. At the time, I signed it "🫶🏻 gaza", and that is still connected to it, and I've only given it a name since then.

I was thinking about this too, when I started to write, in what I had previously published on January 14, only to unpublish it and try to find a way to share here. It was connected to anxiety, sources of anxiety, seeds of it, what I reference in the above poem, now narrating a bit in reverse of how I had previously written it. This post was still mostly complete before others, mostly written over a week ago, but still needing to understand the platform and what I needed to do to post.

before, or at the beginning..

This is still only the beginning of trying to start writing, and this is more from the first post. This part is connected to childhood monsters. I'm sharing it as I had written it, now a new share, within a share.

Start:

My anxiety is part of the turbulence. It can change and create change, repeatedly.

When I first started to write this post, I wasn’t certain if the ability to write could be sustained, and while I’m still not certain, I know a little more. I tried to re-write what felt rambling, but when that became much longer, and a different story than what I was trying to share here began to emerge, and I’ve now addressed circuitousness, I decided to copy the original text from this section from 6 days ago, which is connected to the next:

I recently read Ring Shout, a novella by P. Djèlí Clark, my first read of the year, which I recommend. In the passage I share below, Maryse, a character in P. Djèlí Clark’s Ring Shout asks,

“Is this in my head? Or is it real?”

I appreciated this passage for many reasons, and the book as a whole, which also has connections to the poems I share in this post.

P. Djèlí Clark in Ring Shout:

End.

Get this book wherever you get your books.

Words to talk about monsters, so many kinds of monsters in childhood—those who cause the loss of innocence, who bomb children, who support putting children in jail, rather than almost any other possible option, who freeze, starve, kidnap from families, put in a kids jail, no, an adult jail, no family jail without family, no,...NO!! No to kids in jails, to people who steal innocence, to people who take lives, all using a lens of dehumanization and propaganda to induce fear.

For Tamir Rice, Ma'Khia Bryant, for children all over the world, we're done, no more, past done, we must stop the development of cop cities and the killing, starvation, deportation, and maiming of children and their families and friends. We must stop the imprisonment, solitary confinement, and torture of children. We must end the reasons and causes that children must work in artisanal mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to get cobalt for people who don't have to think about sending their kids to the mines because they themselves have become too disabled in a mine's collapse.

I wanted to share more, I have so much more, but that will be in subsequent posts. Until there are no more monsters who hold power over others, we must continue to confront the very idea that some children are considered terrorists and are threatened, killed, jailed, while others terrorize and are uplifted, celebrated, forgiven.

when I wanted to scream about monsters

The day after I posted the previous poem, on November 3, 2023, I shared another post on X/Twitter. It was in the form of a poem, and also reflection on a book I was reading. I'm sharing the full post below in this section.

Start:

Last week, when trying to fall asleep, I read these lines in NK Jemisin’s short story “Walking Awake:

“All the monsters were right here. No need to go looking for more in space.”

I’ve wanted to share them, couldn’t get them out of my head, writing is hard, finding a way.

Read the short story “Walking Awake” by N. K. Jemisin at in Lightspeed Magazine. It is also included in How Long 'Til Black Future Month?.

Walking Awake - Lightspeed Magazine

The Master who came for Enri was wearing a relatively young body. Sadie guessed it was maybe fifty years old. It was healthy and in good condition, still handsome. It could last twenty years more, easily.

Lightspeed MagazineWendy Wagner

End.

As I become more comfortable with sharing, I want to be able to share who helped me along my own journey of thinking about monsters with power. Hint: the person is a Palestinian. Free Palestine, from occupation, with right of return, with sovereignty on their land, everyday.

when is the right time to talk about childhood monsters?

The poems I shared are connected to monsters of childhood of all types, those who steal from childhood, whether it is the introduction to one's own sexuality, the comfort of sleep, the safety of living, all of these together. Children, especially those who are Black, Indigenous, and/or part of the global majority, deserve so much better of this world, and we must be committed to changing it and addressing it. Sexual violence is part of almost any conflict, with rape often used as a weapon of war. But what also enables this sexual violence to happen, to persist?

I'll return to this, so many things I write that I cannot include. At this point, I'll only point to a book that helped me deal with my own history, Love WITH Accountability: Digging Up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse by Aishah Shahidah Simmons. In the introduction to this anthology, Aishah Shahidah Simmons writes,

I'm thinking about how so many monsters were hidden, had impunity, were never punished, were never moved from hidden to known, people who hurt my friends, who hurt me, a pain that kept on hurting, that traveled into our adult lives, that disrupted relationships, decision-making, careers, lives. As Aishah Shahidah Simmons asks in Love WITH Accountability,

I wanted to write about a friend, but my friend, if he were still alive, would understand that these questions are a good place to end.

books

At the end of each post, I will share books I referenced and recommend unless the post itself already contains recommendations with book covers or the book is not part of recommendations, but was related to a quote or passage I shared. Some books, I will touch on again, but in case that doesn't happen, I will try to include each.

Get any/all of these books wherever you get your books. Please support libraries however you can. Find out many ways to get involved in supporting libraries at Libraries for the People.

Thank you for reading.