F*CK YOU 2016 or What 2016 taught me and what I’m doing differently next year

This is not a letter of resignation

not a suicide note

this is not

a piece of great revelations

I’ve got no answers

I’m just holding on

…

This year I’ve been so filled with consternation, fear and confusion. I’ve been astounded, incredulous and utterly devastated. I lost Prince, Bowie, Fidel, Ali and the wondrous Sharon Jones. I lost my faith in my race and my health has continued to be a struggle unlike any other I’ve faced. For a large portion of the year, I privately fell into a state of despair so great, I considered throwing it all in and calling it quits. I fantasised about vomiting up the the red pill, getting a regular day job with a regular income, moving to suburbia and hooking into some banal TV to numb myself completely. If bliss truly is ignorance then I wanted a big fucking dose of it and I wanted it now. I wanted the ability to disconnect my empathy switch, the ability to ignore the likes of Drumpf, Hanson, May. I wanted to disconnect from the Obama infatuation as though he who forcibly deported  over one million “illegal” immigrants from the US which is more than any President before him, he who removed many of the checks and balances put in place to ensure Presidents don’t go to war willy nilly which makes it so much easier for Drumpf to do as he pleases, he who this year alone he’s bombed the shit out of Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Libya were some shining example of a leader.

They been telling us lies

kids

treating us a young un’s

whilst polishing guns

taste that barrel now

lick it

suck it

they’re going to show us how

it’s done

….

I watched and wept as this year the Liberal government proceeded to dismantle every social service, every welfare necessity, ever shelter and environmental policy, every creative potential. Those who thought Turnbull might actually be able to change something forgot how a) he is the wealthiest Prime Minister we have ever had and b) he’s beholden to an organisation being choked by the far/alt right. His hands are tied. He has less control than Abbott did, and that’s saying something. I felt the incredulity swell as people scoffed at the racist Drumpf declaring he’d build a wall to keep out Mexicans, his threats still just threats, when here, we used a wall of water to keep out the deserving desperate.

Your body’s just a vessel

to carry water

you’re mostly water

so wash away

all those fears

darlin’

all those dreams

darlin’

and get swimming

…

In addition to the political world, I’ve been exhausted by the constant battle to be recognised and identified for the work I’m doing – the art I’m creating as a queer woman of colour, the struggle to financially exist in an economic system built to kill creatives unwilling to work in advertising.

Health wise, I’ve barely had the strength to carry my broken body through it’s trials. I wanted to escape the prison of cancer and chronic pain which leaves me bed bound for days sometimes, unable to write or perform or even read a book.

You’ve never left

a job unfinished

how you gonna walk away now

when you been telling

the masses

they gotta get marching?

…

In essence, I wanted no part of this world in it’s current state. I’m not suggesting I was suicidal – I’m articulating that I, outspoken warrior and activist felt completely and absolutely bereft of hope for the first time in my life. For the very first time in my life, I, the eternal optimist became a pessimist.

This is human. I know that.

I understand darkness

comes

blankets us

sometimes that

cimmerian is a shadowy shade

allowing us to wallow and weep

…

I’ve done a lot of that this year. As an artivist whose rally cry has always been REVOLUTION! FIGHT BACK! PROTEST! YELL! GET ACTIVE! it was particularly challenging for me to feel this way. To feel like the fight had gone out of me wholly and completely.

I had burned right out of fire

now nothing remained

but stinking

choking

smoke

…

Drumpf knows how to speak to the millions of angry, disenfranchised poor and the middle class which has been steadily descending into the poorer class anyway. He knows how to say “It’s all shit, you know it, I know it, let’s try something different”. He’s right. Of course I don’t agree with his policies, fear and hate mongering or extreme misogyny, I don’t agree with the ways he potentially plans on making America “great” again but I do believe he tapped into the most important vein and managed to address the fear. Hilary couldn’t even *pretend* to understand what the real world is like for those people.

We’re all looking into

glass

seeing through it

no mirrors

no reflection

just imagining

wondering

how the surreal

became real

…

This was the revelation for me – that such a parody of a human, such an awful, disgusting, racist, misogynistic opportunist could be elected President of the United States made me confront the fact that I am not effective. I am not being effective in the ways I am seeking to change the world. I was/am equally guilty of being deaf to those who don’t think like me. All this time I have been shouting when I should have been listening, fighting when I should have been conversing, storming and stamping and trying to convert when I should have been asking questions. I do not believe that we must bow down to the right – but they have figured out how to galvanise followers, to raise funds for elections, to speak the language of the broken and broke, the workers and most poverty stricken. I understand that in this “Post Truth” era, most of what they’re spitting is lies, but the fact is – they did what we on the left couldn’t.

We’re all atoms

we forgot that

we’re all particles

we forgot that

we’re all matter

just moving through

a world

that forgot that

…

I believe this world to be very much balanced by the positive and negative – so for every negative there must be a positive in this ordered chaos. As soon as it tips too far one way, we get fascism or distorted communism. There must be a middle ground that we can find, where we needn’t all think and act alike. The truth is left or right, we have an equal desire for the same things: access to shelter, food, security, safety. That is the essence of human nature.

I am tired of fighting

tired of trying to change

the slippery and slimy

gripping white knuckled

hoping that something will flip

somewhere

…

So my revelation led me soon after to an epiphany. Instead of trying to dismantle a destructive and unfair systems, instead of sinking all my energy into trying to destroy and in being destructive, I have now committed to building a new way. I’m not going to try and convert anyone. I’m not interested in shouting and yelling trying to be heard above the din of hatred, racism, misogyny and the rest. I’m interested in living a life by my own code, by my set of principles – respect, tolerance, compassion and love as the only form of resistance to all those things I find hateful. I want to connect with people who want to build this same world with me – we can build it in the art we create, in the spaces we choose to meet and talk, in the way we exchange goods. We can look at a new way of existence. Those who revel in the current system can stay in it and have it. We who don’t like it can pull out of it as much as possible and those who want to can join us. Maybe, if we start to build something incredible and wonderful, those who have chosen fear instead of curiosity,  hatred instead of love, might be compelled to join us. But that’s up to them, not us. 

I’m not turning my back on anyone

I’m not abandoning the

marginalised, broken, destroyed, attacked, homeless,

the first people of Australia

the addicted

refugees, Muslims, women, people of colour

all who require support and love

…

I’ll continue to work with these incredible humans to help them tell their stories in their own ways in their own voices – it’s what I can offer, I’ve seen the tangible positive effects of that work and I’ll be throwing myself even harder into facilitating as many of those workshops as I can. But I’m not protesting or fighting in that old school way anymore. I’m also not suggesting others shouldn’t protest or fight if they feel it’s the right way.

I’m just offering something different.

I’ve witnessed the strength of community over and over again. I have sat sick and listened to my friends chatting around me as they’ve come in great numbers to love. I have received funds from those who understand how hard it is to exist as me in this world and earn enough financially. I have watched organisations, collectives, small groups bring great beauty, love and assistance to those who need it most. Many are already doing this. Many of YOU are already doing this. It seems the best way forward for me too.

So.

In 2017 all my energy is going into building beauty. That’s it. No more destruction. No talk of “revolution”. For every revolution only creates a new tyrant, a new greed, a new ugly. All I want to do is build beauty from the rubble we have all been complicit in creating.

Whose with me?

Peace & Respect,
Candy Royalle

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