Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns

To do list

By Daniell Cohen

    1. Get out of bed
    2. Brush teeth
    3. Get dressed
    4. Breathe
    5. Apply for citizenship
    6. Confront your male friend for claiming your sexuality is “a waste” because you fit his “ideal partner criteria”
    7. Confront a cisgender white woman in class about why “we can’t just accept that we have different opinions,”
    8. Reply with “what do you have at stake?”
    9. Nurse a sore throat
    10. Move past uncompromising panic attacks and cry bursts
    11. Hold your friends as they fall apart
    12. Hold yourself as you fall apart
    13. Tell your brother it will be okay even though you worry about his safety even more now than ever
    14. Meditate
    15. Create
    16. Gather … strength
    17. Silence a middle-aged white man with a bandana wrapped around his fat head and cigarette in his impulsive, pathetic, dirty fucking mouth as he whistles at you
    18. Re-evaluate your privilege
    19. Accept
    20. Repeat

Daniell Cohen is a Somerville, Massachusetts-based artist, born and raised in Israel. She earned a BFA in photography from SUNY Purchase College, and her work has been featured in The Journal News, and at Merge Arts, Artbar, +KG, and Tea Lounge. Daniell is pursuing her Master’s degree in Art Therapy at Lesley University in Cambridge, and she is a social activist, a feminist and queer artist, and an aspiring holistic art therapist who strives to inspire, connect and move others toward equality and radical acceptance.

Reading recommendation: Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns by Andrea Gibson.