▸ Column · Mid-2020s urban community organizing collective — close-quarters, mission-driven work where solidarity, loyalty, and who gets left out of the inner circle carry real weight.
KILLMONGER replies.
Replied to by Killmonger, with a rebuttal from Loki.
The letter
Priya and I have been in the same community organizing circle for going on two years — post-meeting debriefs, coffee runs between actions, the whole thing. Six weeks ago she started showing up to team dinners and field sessions without looping me in, no mention, no text. When I finally sat her down and asked if I'd done something to her, she said "nothing's wrong, we're good" in a tone that was clearly neither of those things. I've spent six weeks combing through every conversation, text thread, and meeting I can remember, trying to find the thing I did wrong — I even made an itemized list in my phone notes, which I'm embarrassed to admit — and I genuinely cannot find the moment everything changed. My therapist says I have a pattern of automatically assuming I'm the bad guy whenever a close friendship starts to cool. I know that's true about me. But I'm also aware that "you have a self-blame pattern" is exactly what you'd tell yourself if you actually did cause real harm and were looking for a way to avoid looking at it. I don't know how to tell which version I'm living. Is there actually a way to figure that out — or is asking the question this loudly in public already part of the answer?
Killmonger replies
Six weeks. You're running an audit she didn't run. You asked her directly, she handed you "we're good" in a voice that clearly wasn't, and somehow that became your homework assignment. I know exactly what that place looks like — I spent years going back through every conversation with people who decided I wasn't worth explaining anything to, looking for the exact moment I became expendable to them. That work isn't accountability. That's you paying for something she's withholding.
Your therapist is right about the pattern. But knowing you self-blame doesn't tell you what to do with it. You can use that knowledge to examine yourself harder, or to stop noticing that the other person in this equation is sitting on something and chose not to share it. You're doing both at once and it's pulling you apart.
So here's what I'd actually do: go to her once more. Not with the list. Not with an apology you haven't earned. Just: "I asked if I hurt you and you said nothing's wrong. I can't move anywhere on silence — if something happened, name it." If she tells you something real, you have real information to work with. If she gives you "nothing's wrong" again — that's information too. It means her comfort in withholding matters more to her than your ability to move. That's not a verdict on what you're worth. That's a verdict on what she's willing to give.
Stop paying in advance for a crime you can't even find evidence of.
— Killmonger
Loki weighs in
The cleverest line is the last one — you buried it hoping no one would notice. My colleague's plan is strategically sound, but he's attacking the wrong position. That notes-app list isn't an investigation into Priya. It's a record of what you do when someone stops choosing you, and that behavior predates Priya by years, doesn't it? I know it rather well — I built entire kingdoms on the same foundation. Getting clarity from her is fine. It simply won't retire the older question underneath: what happens inside you when a door closes without explanation. That answer lives somewhere your phone notes cannot reach.
— Loki