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The Liberated Place, The Libirated Life

James B. Nicola

1. Where I Live, Where I Would Like to Live

I am not proud of being who I am. I just am.
I’m not ashamed of being what I am. I just am.

I understand that flaunting the word Pride all June, however, is and will be necessary
as long as there are those who fling Shame—or think it without even saying it.

And I am glad to offer them this prayer
of Liberation. Spell it: Libiration.

One day, they’ll get there.

One day, we’ll get there.

2. Bio

    I self-identify as a
label-resistant,
libirated,
American native
of worldwide ancestry and
variegated hues.

    Therefore I do not fill in dots or frames—
as an act of honest living, though,
of libiration,
not of liberation.

    By “li-bi-rated” I mean

(a) striving to be open-minded;

(b) acknowledging that I am an ongoing work-in-progress in becoming who I am, or am supposed to be, on this continent, rather than who I am told to be;

(c) granting this same right, indeed encouraging this practice, to fellow human beings;

(d) casting off the shackles of the thousands-year-old cultural tradition of two-ness, “us-or-them”-ness, and so on; rather,

(e) championing the truth of Oneness, i.e., that all of us on the planet are, in fact, related; thus

(f) avoiding the language of divisiveness—deployed historically by the intolerant so strategically that it is now used casually even by the well-meaning and disenfranchised—if I can possibly get away with it.

One day, I’ll get there.

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