HOW TO SURVIVE A DICTATOR
→ Call your mother-in-law who lived through the Third Reich. She may tell you
to keep a chicken, collect firewood from the graveyard, or burn the stamp collection
for warmth. All of these are valid.
→ Brush up on Russian curse words.
→ Never, ever have his name in your mouth. It is not worthy of your tongue
or lungs & will cancer the air around you.
→ Understand nothing will be easy. Understand nothing is normal.
→ Find a way to forgive a family member’s vote. Note: this may take your lifetime.
→ Bring back spell-casting & voodoo dolls.
→ Extend a hand. Make bread. Make love. Laugh deeply & whenever possible.
→ Teach your children the word gaslighting, to smother its flame.
→ Be the voice of the targeted, beaten, slain. Both teach & learn from other
generations.
→ Contain scattershot bitterness & disillusionment—be an arrow: aim for
true center.
→ Keep moving forward, but lie down & rest, often. Practice radical self-care
on a global scale.
→ Retrain your eyes to love the color orange: nasturtiums, saffron dust across
the palm, sunset at dusk as it marries the sea.
→ Remember fascists, too, eventually die; hate cannot be sustained indefinitely.
→ Praise the stars that your parents are gone & will not suffer this.
→ On the darkest days, steer blindly towards small joys: a leaf’s thread-thin
veins, the charm of finches at the feeder, a rock in the shape of a heart.
→ Be ready. To become. Whatever. Is necessary.
→ Memorize this list—then set it afire.
Kelly Cressio-Moeller’s poetry is forthcoming in Radar Poetry and Poet Lore. Previous publications include Crab Orchard Review, Gargoyle, THRUSH, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and ZYZZYVA among others. She is a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best New Poets nominee and an Associate Editor at Glass Lyre Press. www.kellycressiomoeller.com