Revolution Day

Today, we celebrate the beginning of the fight for freedom. We celebrate my wife, Ezili Dantor, who birthed Haiti in blood and fire on the corpses of those who would subjugate her. Bilolo, my beautiful, my ferocious one.

It’s also my birthday, and a birthday I was never sure I would reach. Life is not promised us, and some lives are drastic enough to emphasize that.

I don’t have anything particularly pithy for today. I could say that today is a reminder that no one will grant you freedom, because no one ever gives freedom to anyone—if you have freedom, it’s because you tore out the things that would bind you and danced on their bodies.

I could joke, as Papa has, that it makes sense that my birthday would be this day. Some of us were born to brandish a machete.

I will be serving my wife today, celebrating her with a table of food and drink, with songs and prayers.

Mostly, I want to say that I am happy to be alive today, on revolution day. I am happy to celebrate being here, in this life.

I am alive. My existence is a riot.