Elegy to the ones that never were

Love not until death.
Love until life. Until love.
Free, alive, queer, strong.

Along with others, I organized a local vigil. We held meetings late at night, looked for collaborators, and reached out to a community that wholeheartedly answered back. It was busy, chaotic, and soul-empowering.

On Trans Day of Remembrance the weather was cold and dry. We heard speeches, poems and songs, and then we all listened to a long list of names of people no longer with us, how old they were when they passed away, and where it happened. Scores of people most of us never met. From all paths of life. From all backgrounds. In many different countries. All fallen victims to the oppression that we all have suffered; some ignore, some survive, some repeat, some escape, some fight and some resist.

It made me sad. The list was so long for such a small slice of the population. Minutes turned into hours while we took turns reading, one name right after another without pause. A list of people who did not hide. Maybe some tried but felt the internal pressure was too intense. Perhaps some were used to showing one face in public and another in private — in the deep privacy only loneliness can give — but couldn’t stand it anymore. Maybe some were helped by others coming out. Maybe some weren’t. All of them are now gone.

In the cold, I listened. Impossibly trying to imagine, just from that tiny fraction of information, what kind of lives they once had.

Someone with a name surprisingly similar to mine. Were they an immigrant, too? Were they a refugee? How was their relationship with their land? Did they meet a fate they were escaping from?

Someone old. How did they navigate all those years of homophobia and transphobia? Did they have grandkids? Who did they leave behind?

Someone my age. Were we born in the same year? How was their story similar to mine? How was it different? Why did theirs end while mine continues?

Someone young. Why was their life so short? Were they born here? How did they meet their final fate?

Nobody I know was named that night. I hope that doesn’t change. I hope I meet lots of new people.

There I was, lost in thought when another list came to my mind — not the list of people who came and went, who were being remembered, but a list of the ones who never came to be. The ones that never were.

The ones who know something’s missing but have never paid attention to it.

The ones who fear conquered and decided that lying to themselves would make life bearable.

The ones who hide and live in fear of being discovered, not knowing anything else.

The ones who try to destroy themselves.

The ones who reach out and hope someone will give them a helping hand.

The ones who try to run away from themselves and always fail.

The ones who harden themselves and hope numbness prevails.

The ones who search for a cure, any cure, and end up suffering more.

The ones who relentlessly try to convince themselves of what they’re not.

The ones who dismiss it as just a phase.

The ones overcome by cruelty.

The ones who are over it.

The ones whose lives never gave them an opportunity.

The ones who have left, never knowing they were a part of us all along.

In the dry cold, my thoughts were with all of them — the nameless, faceless, storyless, denied, hidden ones — those who are relegated to the farthest reaches of the mind and will struggle until the end, whose actions will have effects even in denial.

My thoughts go to all of you, my fellow queer people who never were. I once was one of you. I mourn you in your unrealized existence. And I wish, with all my heart, for you to find a place and time of support and safety where you can love who you are.

I was able to find a land where I could be who I am. Land doesn’t question your existence and never puts it on hold. Nobody should.