love song for activism

usually we come individually,
slowly, after a great moment of wrongness,
resulting in a desire to do right.
we arrive at the progressivist conclusion,
deciding to eke change out of stagnance
and learning that the process
measures us, hazes us, finds us unsuitable
and dumps us into the fire of self-pronounced failure.
branded, we remove ourselves
and, sticky with the filth of healing,
dive into the fray, feeling everything, fixing nothing.
living in this way
is more dangerous, more daring
than dying, than being a martyr;
but i will see the victory, when i am done.
i will see something amorphous earn its substance;
i will see the skin of others
sloughed off, with mine, shedded
like some great social purge.
i will see change, and i will have healing.