WEBVTT

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So I had a great moment,
my second day here,

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where I thought to myself,
man, I would love a ginger ale.

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And I saw that the 7-Eleven
was two blocks away.

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And I was like, this is an
easy distance, I can make it.

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Mind you, Farid Matuk
here, had already told me--

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warned me really, against
venturing out in the heat.

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And I was like, I'm
from the valley.

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I can handle it.

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It's going to be fine.

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I made it about a block.

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And then I texted Farid.

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I was like, you live like this?

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You all live like this?

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Very grateful for the
heat, makes the brain work

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differently.

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And I'm going to get to some
new stuff, but before I do,

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I'm going to read you
some of Desgraciado:

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(The Collected Letters).

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And this is a book that
came out last year.

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And this is a book that
I wrote like it would

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be the last book I ever wrote.

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I threw everything
into this book.

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I threw my life into this book.

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I broke my life into this book.

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This book had to happen,
or I wouldn't be here.

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And this is a series
of love letters written

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to Spanish friar by the
name of Diego de Landa, who

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on July 12th, 1562
attempted to eradicate

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the Yucatec Maya language on
a platform in Maní, Yucatan.

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In which he demanded hundreds,
if not thousands of codices

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be burned on that platform,
along with hundreds of idols,

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and the desecrated
bodies of my ancestors.

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He would go on to stand trial
against the crown of Spain.

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He didn't fill out
the right paperwork

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to be using
inquisitional tactics.

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That's not a joke.

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That's really what happened.

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Bishop Toral sent him back to
Spain, and he won that trial.

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He won that trial and he
came back to the Yucatan

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with a promotion.

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And wrote a text called
"Relación de cosas pasado

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in el Yucatán," which
is often treated

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as the foremost
pre-Spanish contact

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text for the
Yucatec Maya people,

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and you can see why that's
maybe a little problematic.

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And this book actually started
because of the great Farid

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Matuk and Susan Briante.

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I took a workshop with
them at Naropa University

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summer writing program, and was
presented with a prompt that

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would change my life.

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Write a love letter
to your worst enemy.

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I could think of no worse
enemy than Diego de Landa.

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And I spent the next seven
years writing to him.

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So here are some of
these love letters.

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Dear Diego.

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I want revenge.

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I don't know how else to put it.

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I don't want anything back.

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I want something new, a
newness from the ruin.

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I desire the death
of my enemies.

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Enemies like the wars of the
'80s, the '90s, the housing

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market crash, the banks,
the bankers, the war itself.

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I keep telling
people that I know

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I won't see these empires of
capitalism and white supremacy

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crumble in my lifetime.

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But in the dead of night, I
keep writing these little flower

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pots, plump with bombs
of luminous memory.

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I try and connect other
wires across the synapse

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seeking out an alleyway escape
over the wall in one motion,

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50 cinder blocks high.

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I keep trying to imbue
these poems with schematics

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of a different future.

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I keep trying to explain
that bricks bounce,

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but with enough force
a cinder block won't.

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Sugar in the gas tank to
break their transit down.

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I'll be honest with you, Diego.

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I want more than just revenge.

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I understand revenge is
just one elemental dimension

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of what comes next.

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I know that ultimately there
are things more important

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than revenge, like liberation.

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Education as liberation,
it's more than

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knowing how to
use a tool or two.

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It's the whole damn bag.

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It's a constant
exchanging of tools.

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It's a constant reassessment
and re-calibration

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of yourself, your tools.

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It's understanding
that you can be wrong.

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It's knowing that ultimately
you are both insignificant

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and the whole entire
world, all at once,

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everything and nothing.

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It's more than just you.

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Liberation is a
constant process.

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Liberation is a perpetual
trial and error,

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it's not any one thing.

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There is no end-point.

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And maybe that's
the point, there

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is no point at which a
thing ends necessarily.

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It's a matter of
knowing that thing

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is dealt with and discussed.

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I will never write
enough letters or poems

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to cure the world of its
ailments, and still I write.

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Still I remember,
still I choose to work

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against the face of constant
death, this empire of misery

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and dust.

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I know that I am but one pen,
one poet, one person, one, one.

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And yet, I contain multitudes.

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I am every highway I have
ever wandered weary or wired,

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I am 10,000 hours and then some.

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I am the aching mountain
of haunted earth.

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I am the architectures of
cellular memory, the overly

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antsy, the sick with feelings.

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I am the ocean of right now.

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I can't help but
throw this whole body

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of flesh and language at
the threshold of history

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and all of temporality.

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I have to try.

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I have to try.

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I have to.

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All I have ever wanted
was to be alive,

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and then I learned
it's more than that.

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I, idiot tongued
manifestation of reckoning

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named after a song, self-made
seraphim of the middle passage,

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marred by the many
manifestations

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of living in this
reality of thought,

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and matter, and wave,
living beyond revenge,

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living long enough to
see one's enemies fall,

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that's the real dream.

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Narrating the remembering,
recording the recall,

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sealing the synapse,
understanding the subject,

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and not being swayed by it.

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Staying with the endless
madness of the mess,

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staying mad, remaining vigilant
until everyone is free.

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