[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]It’s Friday. I hope you’ve reached the end of your work week, if you’re as tired as I am. Not too tired to wish a belated Eid Mubarak to those in our community celebrating, though!

It was a subdued Eid for some of us. Our hearts and thoughts go out to the families of the victims in Sholakia. And to those in Dhaka and Baghdad as well before. And, closer to home for most of our editors, to the families of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, as well as the families of the five officers in Dallas killed while serving their community and protecting peaceful demonstrators.

It is, as I write this, seven days into the seventh month of 2016. I want to say to you, it’s getting better. I want to say to you, this year will let up sometime, that there won’t be another Orlando, another Istanbul. But 2016 isn’t making any promises to me either. By the time you read this, statistics say there will have been another mass shooting in the United States. In fact, when I wrote this, the first shots hadn’t been fired in Dallas. By the time you read this, statistics say there will have been five or more terrorist attacks around the world. By the end of this month, statistics say another trans woman will have been killed.

So how do we go on? How do we lift our hearts and care for each other when our families – by blood and by choice and by creed – are dying around us? No, that’s not entirely accurate. When they are being murdered around us. When the list of the dead is so long. If you are grieving today, you are not alone. That’s all I have to offer you right now. I don’t know if it’s enough. I suspect it’s not.

If you’re reading this, you’re part of my family of writers. And we have a job to do: to give words to the wordless and voices to those who can’t speak.

So read. Write. Do the things you can do. I’ll leave you with the results of our grids, and with the words of another writer:[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]what they did yesterday afternoon

they set my aunts house on fire

i cried the way women on tv do
folding at the middle
like a five pound note.
i called the boy who use to love me
tried to ‘okay’ my voice
i said hello
he said warsan, what’s wrong, what’s happened?

i’ve been praying,
and these are what my prayers look like;
dear god
i come from two countries
one is thirsty
the other is on fire
both need water.

later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?

it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.

-warsan shire[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

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