" When I was a kid, there was this song that played on the radio all the time. It talked about a road that was long and a brother who had to be carried on it. The singer said the brother wasn’t heavy. That he was, simply, his brother. And that line repeated again and again—He ain’t heavy. He’s my brother. And something about the way the singer’s voice hugged these words, proclaimed them to the world, caught in the back of my throat. Making it hard to move. To swallow. I didn’t know then—at nine, ten, eleven—that this was love. That this was community. That this was about a greater good. If the road is long, it doesn’t matter what you weigh—I will carry you. "

― , Poetry Magazine March 2021