You Can’t Do What You Can’t Do

Written By Pink Flowers

If you’re still trying to figure it out, you haven’t figured it out, y’all — for realz!

That may seem obvious AF, but there’s still a lot of mo’ fo’s walking around scratching they head waiting to figure out how they not only make they own life perfect, but gonna fix everything for everybody. They prolly know that shit’s never gonna happen, but somebody wired them to believe it was they job to fix it all. I’m a fighter for social justice and I’m shoulder to shoulder with people who believe that every frigging day.

The first step’s about admitting your ass is powerless and that your life done got out of control. The second step’s about learning to live with that. See, people miss that. People think step one is admitting they got a problem. That ain’t it. Most people know they got a problem. They just think they got that shit under control. They think they can stop when they wanna stop. Other people sit around waiting for them to “decide” to stop when facts it ain’t up to them at all.

Step two accepts the fact in order to get clean, or whatever you trying to do, you gotta call on something more powerful than you. That’s get folks in trouble ain’t got imagination conjure up anything that powerful. They done made the addiction the most powerful force in they life—money, sex, drugs, fame, experiences, gambling. It ain’t a question of faith. Plenty of folks believe shit full the fuck on, but don’t believe the thing they believe in is powerful enough to get the job done.

Step two mean you gotta level up your God game, or goddess game, or whatever you believe in. You gotta get the Higher Power expansion pack and get ‘em doing kind of miracle shit you need them do for you. One way do that, talk to people believe what you believe and have them share what worked for them. Another thing you can do just get quiet and visualize your Higher Power getting the work done. You can just act like it’s working. You be surprised how “fake it til you make it” can really work.

That’s the step, y’all. Good luck.

Pink Flowers

Pink Flowers is a Black trans artist, peacemaker, educator, and pleasure activist whose work lives at the intersection of embodiment, governance, and cultural transformation. Trained in Theater of the Oppressed, Art of Hosting, and Navajo-informed Peacemaking practices, Pink designs spaces where conflict can be addressed, power can be examined, and joy can be reclaimed.

Her artistic and pedagogical practice draws from African trickster cosmology, Brazilian Joker traditions, shamanic ritual, and cooperative economics. She is the founder of the award-winning Falconworks Theater Company (2005–2021), which used popular theater to build civic capacity and participatory leadership in historically marginalized communities.

Pink served for over five years as a trained Peacemaker in the Red Hook Community Justice Center in Brooklyn, facilitating restorative processes within the New York City court system. From 2015–2018, she worked in cooperative business development with the Center for Family Life, supporting worker-owned enterprises in immigrant communities.

She currently serves as Director of Education and Training for the Inter-Cooperative Council in Ann Arbor, where she leads leadership development and conflict engagement initiatives. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally, including at the Stretch Festival in Berlin and the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference.

Across ritual, performance, mediation, and institutional design, Pink’s work asks a central question:

What becomes possible when we refuse shame and choose conscious power instead?

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Step Three; The Overturn
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Walk Y’all Through the Steps