situate writing in your life, attempt to--reformatted
chapbook by ella davis for the freedomways workshop by suzanne gardinier
may 9, 2026

words of prelude–
captivity/suffocate/risk/execution

cuts from the first poem you ever wrote (part 1)
there must be something
underneath.
you've seen the grime and dirt and grease,
sat on benches halved and quartered,
walked through the shadows of windowless buildings and
wondered what they were.

it's a while before you meet what's
underneath.
you watch as a boy not older than you
clears the threshold between captivity and freedom.
he won't be able to orient himself until morning and
all you can do is offer him shoelaces.

things s.g. says
keep a generous, demanding eye on yourself;
i don't give a shit about history, i love you, let's go eat
some scones;
i need these images or i can't live on this earth;
have you ever made photos in the soup?

i.LTBI
/when a person is infected
with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, but does not have
active tuberculosis/
when the disease is latent,
when the universe gives you a pass, not the universe,
the pharmaceutical companies
the CDC can speak
of elimination because the drug only cost you five dollars at
the pharmacy instead of a hundred and twenty
how much is that in gourdes
and that’s for thirty days, if you take it for thirty days and stop
it will become drug resistant,
120 x 4 if it’s latent, x 9 if it’s not
World Health Organization says that in order to even be
given the treatment for latent TB you have to be
/at risk/,
have to prove that you are suffocating,
but of course that’s only if you’re not you,
not at the center, the nucleus,
because we can speak of elimination but that’s too much to
ask of them–
you’ve heard of John Green, you’ve heard of Paul Farmer,
but have you heard of the /mountains/ of bodies /beyond
mountains/ of bacilli, what does it mean to be at risk, what
does it mean to be latent

ii. ceasefire
/A whole civilization will die tonight,
never to be brought back again/
the power of the civilized to decide
who is and isn't,
to define and redefine at will
to call for /war/peace/war/peace/war/
can the uncivilized take back this power
/Maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen,
WHO KNOWS?/ and
is it all just rhetoric or
can we really strip anyone of their personhood,
anytime.
you'd like to say no,
but
less than nine hours /after the ceasefire/
we killed 254 people.
that's a controversial we, of course
but the states that benefit from western imperialism are
less separated than they seem and
you didn't carry out the executions but you sat there in
silence and
you didn't elect their presidents but you paid for their bombs
and
/We will find out tonight, one of the most important
moments in the long and complex history of the World/
/God Bless the Great People of Iran!/

note titled: this is the way the world should be
experienced. there should be a steady drip of fear every
once in a while.
i have a sick smirk on my face when i'm writing.
new york i love you but you're bringing me down +
inventory + forgive me for i wrote odes to presidents
the dance kept us in the fight because it was the dance we
were fighting for
i read a lot of it as in not a lot of it as in most of it as in 12
pages of it as in more than a little of it
noam chomsky
i kinda like the long stupid ramp
we put the pigeons there while they were useful to us
morris av / E 161 st
try to write about mental health from outside the imperial I
empire of dirt
the birds are singnff
envy: onset of tears, knot in stomach, weight on chest

iii. ???
the word /latent/ and the word /ceasefire/
and the word /civilization/ were
given to me. writing
is easier when you're ruminating. as if
writing is something that should
be easy, as if the things you're
trying to say aren't a matter of life and death.
as deadlines loom I waited for another
word to be given to me. a word
for me to make eloquent, for me to own,
to manipulate into saying what I want. maybe
I wasn't waiting, I was looking, and
/forgive me/
for my presumption that I could
make these horrors eloquent and
when you learn that /'israeli' prison guards/¹
are training dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners
there is nothing eloquent to say other than
/burn it to the fucking ground/
¹De-emphasis added.

words i found and stole
thank you oily seven sisters for knowing
how to upload a video
i actually checked again, and
the meaning of intifada is still uprising
ghost/cheek/but/grave/horse/rice seedling
let's at least admit we mean each other / harm / we intend
to do damage
may peace and peace and peace be everywhere
i think she deserves a better metaphor²
and Poetry / hid speechless behind the trees /
staring at her luminous and useless hands
have your men with their millions of votes
freed themselves from this injustice?
(9233# on any detention facility phone)
I seek an excuse for conforming to the laws
of the land. I am but too ready to conform to them.
I sympathize with the poor, but
the number of poor who are to be sympathized with is very
small.
S: qualitative numbers
take this letter, put it on your tongue, /
sleep while i keep watch, /
know that i am your spy here, your terrorist, /
find me
suzanne is a barracuda
²Thank you Sabrina :)

cuts from the first poem you ever wrote (part 2)
discomfort and
friction make the art interesting.
this city is built on friction.
it lets you do the whole starving artist thing and then,
once you're done, you can avoid what's underneath,
stay out of the Bronx and Harlem and
Brooklyn and Morningside and
Midtown and Queens and
Chinatown and Central Park and
/you'll be fine, really, as long as you don't make eye
contact./

shouts and
thuds and the sound of drums fill the subway station–
not drums, buckets turned upside down,
rhythms bouncing up to the ceiling,
then back down and caging you in
between the boy with
a box of gum, $3, and the two women
laughing with each other, cardboard signs leaned against
their knees and the man sitting next to his sleeping dog and
/you'll be fine, really, as long as you don't make eye
contact./

arguments between two people in love
E: I don't feel like I have a choice in what I do with my life.
I know it's self imposed, but I also know I wouldn't be able
to live with myself if I weren't doing this.
S: Don't you think that's kind of sad? You should be able to
do what you want with your life.

S: If you're engaging with something so much that you start
to doubt everything you once thought, I think you're
engaging with it too much.
E: I don't think it's possible from where we are to engage
with it too much. If learning about it is this stressful and
life-changing, what would it be like to live it?

S: I don't see a point in not talking to him. If you're just
making a bunch of noise and refusing to argue your point,
aren't you just throwing a party?
E: ...

des mots d'envoi–
réflection/écriture/symbole/essai^3
3reflection/writing/symbol/attempt