Aftermath
by Kim Lefort
When they cut me open (the second time)
the nerves were severed and now it feels like
someone else’s skin under my fingertips
I didn’t know it would be this way, and so
(the first time) I touched the scar
I cried
I sometimes still do
there’s a part of myself that will never feel again
A piece of abdomen, right beside the belly button
Pale and scarred and inconsequential
What is consequential skin
but one that can feel warm and one that protects
a necessary casualty for survival
My body feels disconnected and
I grieve, understanding
how the flesh becomes a map to the mind
My skin was cut
but it is my mind that bled
I think it is still bleeding
Kim Lefort (she/her) is an aspiring writer based in Montreal, Canada. Her work has been published in the McGill student journal Samizdat. She likes frogs, folklore, and urban agriculture.
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As Fellow Members of this Coequal State, the United States of America, Our American Republic that is Governed by Us, the People Who Are Each and All the Individually Sovereign Co-Inhabitants of the Ecoregions of which We Are Part, Residing Together with the Other Creatures of Earthkind, All of which Answer Solely to the Living Forces of Nature, “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” our Mother Creators the Moon and Sun among the Stars of the Cosmos, Moving Along Paths Made by Walking Back into Concordance with our Creation Pact’s Mutual Pledge of Ourselves to Each Other as our Aboriginal Act, with the Orchestral Perséymphony as the Freewill of Evernal Life in this Sanctuary Garden, Forthwith the Airiess Makaijā and Fore Mosseas, Who Preside Together Over and Around this Whole Perfection of Nurtures’ Design as the Self-Evident Truths We Hold To Be Coequally Whole and Completely Free, Altogether the Creatures of this House as One Planette Berthed by the Mother of Humanity Invited to Share as a Single Family, United and Always Home where We become Alive whence the Choice to Assume Our Role as Integrants Among the Other Creatures of these Continuous Protectorates as the Complete Preservation of Life’s Shielded-Shield this Tree of Airsseas Living For Evaere—
We, the people are the ONLY ones with the legal authority to address the current state of affairs — our Republic (of the U.S.A.), which was a new kind of State at the time it was formed (in 1776) remains to this day one that is both composed of AND comprised by us.
Whereas our Offices of Government are both structurally subordinated to that Republic, or us, as well as strictly limited by the Constitution that instituted the said Offices Twelve (12) years later (in 1788).
That is to say, that neither the government nor anyone else other than we Members (People) of the Public (Republic) have the Legal Power to fix our government by reminding our Public Servants that:
WE are the self-governing sovereigns of the American Experiment as those endowed with the absolute Legal Right to do so; answering Solely to the private Natural Justice of our own inherent Native Coequality, whereas:
THEY hold OUR Offices of Government, which are designed by the Constitution, to protect US, and when they are malfunctioning, those WE elect to hold them are NOT authorized to fix them without first receiving our Instructions dictating how.
This is how it has been since the Conventions of the People of the States decided to choose Delegates to join Congress in their behalf and ultimately to Instruct them to form our Republic including a Charter (or Bill) of Natural Rights, and then Publish that Fact to the World (1776) in a Declaration of the independence of their Colonies formed into one United American State of the People inhabiting their respective ecoregions as states thereby united that Original Act, there thence and thenceforward for ever freely in Sole-Possession (as we are now) of the Legal Right to create our own Form of Government, which we did after the Revolutionary War ended in 1781, by Adopting the Constitution in 1788, as we don’t doubt you are already aware but for the completeness of our thought:
For the Good of what is Right, we ought to Instruct ours; because this Republic is OURS.
Noting e.g., Social Determinants of Health (SDOHs) are estimated to explain more than 50% of Human Health and Wellbeing in the most modern models, with some even suggesting that a sense of purpose is the biggest contributing factor, and that having one may increase life expectancy by more than a decade!
And wars as well as murders by ICE agents become blood on our own hands if we choose to complain online but take no further action;
Because there are numerous and powerful mechanisms of self-governance available to us; but, we are simply unfamiliar with them as a society that has in more recent years lived in relative tranquility.
The below article is the first in a series that will detail a number of legal mechanisms each and every one of us can use to govern our government, including Applications for injunctive relief, and binding Instructions for the redress of grievances—where the highest (supreme) Laws of the Lands “Guarantee” that the same constitutional powers are available to everyone in every State:
You will not hear about them from Politicians; nor from News houses without Journalists:
https://republia.substack.com/p/on-the-right-to-instruct-our-representatives
We hope you’ll join us as we move across this final threshold between now and the unlimitedly shared futures of a new tomorrow!
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