The things we most dream of, care about, and strive toward can, as we know too well, take a long time to reach. And we only get remotely close when we join in that struggle, that world building, together with like-minded others.

It’s not even the big aspirations that are tough these days, though, when so many communal and ecological ties feel cut off from us—never mind a sense of futurity and thus possibility. Sometimes, even the simplest of things, like mail reaching me, can take a long time. And so sweet letters from faraway rebel pals—which could make the uphill battles feel a little less lonely, a lot less futile—aren’t in hand and can’t warm my heart.

I just dropped a postcard in the mail to a friend in prison, and as the mailbox clanked shut with a hollow, impersonal sound, I wondered if this missive would ever reach behind brutal lock and key, to its intended recipient, bringing a tiny bit of comfort that they are loved by many, that they aren’t forgotten, that maybe someday the bars will bend open and trees will surround my friend instead. Trees and flowers and friends.

Today, too, a long-delayed package found its way to me, filled with the #ArtOfResistance and #ArtOfFriendship. I’d forgotten about this gift, it had taken that long, until I saw the stack of zines and patch with the unmistakable art of @no_jail_no_juvi_, whose creations I’ve loved from the first time I walked by one of their eye-catching wheat pastes on a visit long ago to so-called Seattle. Amid the rampant gentrification and “progressive”-hipster wealth in that city, which even then had that many-times-over-destroyed-by-capitalism feel, their prints broke free somehow, with love and rage.

So I took their zine—a compilation of images of their street art from the past decade or so—and my fav image of theirs, #BooCapitalism, on a #FuckPrisons walk. And in honor of my friend and so many others kidnapped by the injustice system, whether in jails, juvie, detention, or other forms of carceral capture, I set @no_jail_no_juvi_’s work amid flowers and green leaves and sunshine—all glimpses of freedom that might be carried on the wind to them, even if it takes a while. #UntilAllAreFree.