The top row of my google docs reads as follows: Resume Summer 2024, Writing Cover Letter, Restaurant Cover Letter, Writing Resume 2024. 

It used to read something like: poem, lament, longing, the pain of existence etc. Does this difference mean I’m growing up? Probably not. It just means I haven’t been writing. 

Words not coming from or in support of Palestinians are hollow and vacant and I have very little interest in them. 

What else is there to write about–think about? There is nothing more important. Nothing.

I’ve been thinking about space recently–the spaces where we come together to talk about these most important things—where we organize both our thoughts and ourselves. Where are we, people outside academia and its ring of constant, encouraged discussion, supposed to go to talk and learn and be with each other? 

I work nearly every day, serving overpriced food for $2 an hour plus tips, to afford an apartment in a city I hate, whose agenda reads, “welcome drunk racists–we hate women too.” 

So, work doesn’t feel like the place to organize. Outside of work then–I’ve decided–that’ll have to do. 

You may say to go online–follow people whose beliefs align with yours. And yeah, absolutely do this. Genocide is being livestreamed, and those people risking everything to capture the images that we now see whenever we close our eyes are the ones we should turn our attention towards. 

Unfortunately, truly evil platforms like instagram and twitter are where images like these are given proper attention. So we follow, we look, and we do not disconnect. However, the commodification of genocide brought about by these platforms is something I will never forgive us for. Never. 

Sponsored posts–commissioned prayers–western individuals who are making money by selling postural support for Palestine are misguided at best, sinister at worst. I cannot begin to touch the rage I feel at this–ME, who is sitting here safe and warm and fed. 

There has to be another place to gather, away from people that would sell our souls back to us half priced. 

Nashville, with its rolling highways and green, pasteurized developments, feels like a place where ideas come to drown in booze. If you park in an unmarked spot, or god forbid one you haven’t paid for, your car will be booted in a matter of minutes. There are no sidewalks on the main strip of East Nashville. You have to pay at least twice my rent if you want to be able to walk down your block next to your friend without fear of being hit by a car. The bus line only leads to one place–downtown. This is where you go to drink, get drunk, and abuse the waitstaff. This city is DESIGNED to kill ideas. 

Where do we go then, to talk to each other? Where do we go where we don’t have to pay to sit next to each other? The park? Absolutely, great idea, but it closes at sunset. 

Naturally, I started looking into Tennessee loitering and trespass laws. 

“This is private property” seems to be the biggest hurdle to jump with this deal. Do businesses own their parking lots? Yes. Do businesses own city sidewalks? No. They don’t. You can stay there as long as you want so long as you do not solicit money, sex, or otherwise threaten passersby. However, things get foggy when we deal with “threaten” as people, especially business owners, will say just about anything to make us look dangerous. 

11-605. Loitering. (1) A person commits the offense of loitering when he or she is lingering, remaining or prowling in a place at a time or in a manner not usual for law-abiding individuals under circumstances that warrant a justifiable and reasonable alarm or immediate concern for the safety of persons or property in the vicinity, including but not limited to any of the following circumstances:

Then they name reasonably understandable situations–being outside a school without reason, selling things that are illegal to sell. But the “not limited to” rubs me the wrong way. Why even indicate specific scenarios if disclaimed by “not limited to.” If all laws were written this way, where would they end? Here’s an important bit:

(3) Prior to any arrest for violation of this section, unless flight or other circumstances make it impracticable, a law enforcement officer shall give the person an opportunity to dispel any alarm or immediate concern by requesting the person to identify himself or herself and explain his or her presence and conduct.

(4) No person shall be convicted for this offense if the law enforcement officer failed to comply with the foregoing procedure or if it appears at trial that

Loitering laws have been raked over in multiple cases for vagueness and unconstitutionality, and the reasons are obvious. “Not limited to” gives cops the opportunity to do what cops do–things Not Limited To what is required of them. 

Third spaces–not work, not one’s home–famously called, “That space where the oppressed plot their liberation” by Homi K. Bhabha in The Location of Culture, are essential to the success of our collective action. And they are getting harder and harder to find. When spending money feels like throwing it down the throat of a weapons manufacturing machine, and working feels like passively doing the same, there is a need for a space that exists outside of these two options. 

I want for us what universities have for their students–accessible spaces and people who want to talk about what they find there. How can we do this–create this–for people who don’t have the resources to go to or back to school? 

We have to find a way to be with each other in spaces not limited to the ones sold to us. Well, I guess, like everything-the-fuck else, we have to build them ourselves. 

When we do, I’ll meet you there.