Porous Acts: Becoming Community #poetry #BeTheCommunity #WhatIsCommunity

My Community is Not a Parade, It’s a Pulse

i.
i wear mismatched socks on thursdays
to confuse conformity
& smile at the pigeons who know the sidewalk better
than the mayor does.
community, to me,
is not a bulletin board.

ii.
i stitch time with strangers,
eye contact at stoplights,
my hello is a manifesto
spoken in café lines
with oat milk breath.

iii.
i once fed the revolution a sandwich.
it was soggy with mustard but full of care.
the activist forgot her lunch—
i said, “i got you,”
and suddenly
we were allies
in a world too hungry for hashtags.

iv.
i build libraries with silence,
leave post-it poems on bathroom mirrors—
they read:
you’re more than your Wi-Fi signal.

v.
when the city coughed,
i listened.
i did not spray sanitizer;
i offered my own song
stitched from breaths
that remembered lullabies.

vi.
i dance badly at local fairs
so someone else can feel brave.
they laugh. i laugh.
this is communion.
not wafers. not wine.
just rhythm
made public.

vii.
i do not “volunteer.”
i show up.
not with resumes,
but with rhythm, raw bread,
and half-knitted sweaters of compassion.

viii.
i break rules like bread.
share it with strangers.
some call it madness.
i call it mutuality.

ix.
i don’t belong in any committee.
i belong in the crack of a park bench,
in the graffiti that spells “hope” with a backwards ‘e’.

x.
what do i do?
i don’t “do” community.
i become porous.
i let it leak into me,
like rain
that doesn’t ask
if it’s welcome.

They Saw Him Through the Steam of Soup

I did not wear a badge or uniform—
my identity unfolded in gestures
too quiet for speeches,
too loud for applause.

They called me
the one who nods at crows
and listens to trees when
he thinks no one is watching.
(But the trees know.
The pigeons gossip.)

I walked the alley like it was a gallery.
Every trash bin
a museum of what we discard
too easily.

In town hall meetings,
I was not the loudest.
But once,
I passed a note
to a weeping teenager
that said:
“You are not an error.”
That child now teaches
biology with protest in her bones.

I made soup.
Always soup.
Lentils, mostly—red, split,
like the hearts we try to hide.
I didn’t say “feed the poor.”
I said,
“Come eat with me.”
And the difference
was a revolution.

Somewhere between
mosquitoes and moonlight,
I painted a fence
without asking for thanks—
just because the wood
looked tired
and no one else noticed.

I joined no platforms,
built no apps,
but gave my login password
to a neighbor
who needed Zoom
to attend her grandson’s wedding.

I offered silence
as a public utility.
Carried grieving
like groceries—
not mine, but important
nonetheless.

They never named me
Volunteer of the Year.
But someone wrote a poem
on the sidewalk one day:
“Whoever you are,
I felt less alone
because of you.”

And that
was enough.