liquid spilling from a cup away

from the tongue and onto the table

is when I will cease to question

authority. When the things I used

to shout no longer give people

heart attacks or pause, when

the insane minor glimmer in my

eyes recedes like a wave crashing

in on itself is when I’ll begin

to question my reasons for

waking up in the morning and

putting on my beat-up, old shoes.

I speak now in moderate tones.

I neither whisper behind another’s

back nor do I scream to turn the ear

of those too distant to reach with

fist or finger. Resistance is a bone

in the back, a muscle in the arm,

a connection between circle and

square that cannot be removed,

cannot be refuted or refined into

evenly spaced lines. To age gracefully

into contentment is not a vanishing

because resistance is in the blood;

it does not subside, it does not

diminish. It flows, retreats,

expands, ready to whisper, ready

to scream, make peace, bleed.

–Jose Padua