Write the world.
In 2014 I left Europe for the first time.
In New York, I lied to Joyce Carol Oats about being Belgian, and she gave me her autograph.
A man on a park bench wrote me a poem more true to my spirit than had I written it myself,
and some friends made me drink a shot of pickled garlic liquor (don't try this at home!).
On a boat along the Boston coastline I watched a Pakistani and an Iranian reenact the "I'm the king of the world"-scene from Titanic. It was glorious. In a restaurant on Elm Street, I talked about arranged marriages and feminism with an Indian friend who just a week ago had been a stranger.
Upon return to Brussels, I listened to Barack Obama speak to the youth of Europe. In a beautiful concert hall of red and gold, he said "Do not think for a moment that your freedom, your prosperity, your moral imagination is bound by the limits of your community, your ethnicity or your country." and I tried to imagine a European leader speak as though our souls were at stake, not just our economy.
I met a man who said my words are dangerous, that they take people to the darkest places and that I need to be held accountable for that. As I rolled up my sheet of paper, I wondered- just for a minute- if he was right.
Is there too much hardship in this world to make room for my difficult questions?
In 2014 I thought a lot about the world.
I was told stories of violence, war and discrimination. Stories about people who fight back.
Hiding notes of hope written for the universe, I imagined that small words can make a big impact.
I studied postcolonialism. I read Zadie Smith and Chimamanda Adichie, Azar Nafisi, Salman Rushdie,
and I wanted to be a warrior poet.
I listened to messages of peace by someone who knew Martin Luther King.
I watched the news and I thought to myself:
Write the word; Write the world; right the world.
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