We're All Allowed to Be Political Here
Someone at the table last night...
still wearing their coat...
hands wrapped around a paper cup gone cold...
said they hadn't talked about any of this in months...
Part of the exhaustion is how alone we are...
More people live by themselves than ever before...
Not because solitude is what we want...
Our nation's economy has pushed us into smaller shelters...
One income trying to cover what used to take a small village...
Everyone cooking their own meals every night...
The shopping... the countertop chopping... the cleaning...
happening alone in millions of kitchens...
Everyone figuring out their own childcare...
Scrambling... feeling guilty when the system fails...
Everyone navigating healthcare without an effective guide...
The forms... the confusing bills... the waiting on hold...
The fear of becoming sick and not being able to afford it...
All of it... alone...
We've lost the collective way of doing things...
Food used to be shared...
Elders used to be cared for by family or community...
Children used to be raised by more than one or two exhausted parents...
The isolation isn't accidental...
Tired people don't organize...
Lonely people don't show up...
Burnout keeps us at home
and too depleted to imagine another way...
But people still join movements...
to sit in a room with others who care deeply about the same things...
to purge what's been building up...
to hear someone else voice the same concerns...
Every gathering is a chance...
Every room where human passion arrives opens to possibilities...
We're all allowed to be political here...
Absolutely share our own politics...
This is the moment...
Be as peacefully radical as you want to be...
Describe the type of world you want...
Tell us what you dramatically dislike...
This is life inside systems that weren't built for everyone...
Bring it...
Even the thing you haven't said out loud yet...
That's exactly what we want to work with...
The person at the table finally took off their coat...
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January 12, 2026
Staying Alive
Author: Oyparaploo
Methodology: Wonderful Garbage
Style: Noir Chanson
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