We only met a handful of times. At parties. Late at night. Once, and only once, at a pro-choice protest where men on the sidelines yelled that we were on a highway to hell. There, you grabbed my hand in yours and raised both over our heads. I felt lucky to follow your lead.
At parties we worked opposite sides of dim rooms. I was impossibly young and in love with someone who I realized later did not exist. You and I met in cramped kitchens, you stir-frying ginger and chile and meltingly slippery noodles. Drunk food, you said. For everyone, you said. I didn’t drink then, but I nodded like I understood. I understood your great hunger, at least, your desire to care for and feed and love. I ate those noodles like they were my last meal.
Once, in a haze of smoke and warm bodies crammed too close together, I left my girlfriend at the sound of your voice. You had a way of drawing people to you, of drawing me. You were telling some impossible story about some impossible adventure. You laughed hard and long, and with some strange boldness I didn’t recognize, I sidled up to you and skimmed my nails across your bare back. You cooed, unabashed, without reserve, like you had been waiting for just that.
We all adored you. We orbited you like planets, you beamed on us with infinite sunshine. You gave so much of yourself. I saw it all the time, in the notes you left, the words you spoke, the hugs you gave. Maybe you thought we took you for granted. Maybe we did.
I know now how hard it was. Now that I’m ten years older, jaded in ways that I despise every day. I know how hard you worked for seemingly nothing, how society turned its back, relentlessly dismissing your gifts. I know what it is to be wary. You must have been so tired. If you yearned for someone to hold you, I understand. If you wished to not go alone, I know that feeling, too. If you went with your head high and your feet sure, I admire you more than anyone, ever.
My grief is nothing compared to those who know you more. My grief is nothing, too, in comparison with the power I hope to god you felt, doing what you must, doing what you held in your beautiful brave hands as the ultimate act. Ultimate power. Ultimate control. When a world that refused over and over again to see you became too bleak, you said, I have had enough. I’ll take it from here.
I hope you felt empowered. I hope you felt finally, finally, at peace. I hope your rest is sweet. I hope you knew, somehow, that you would live on in our minds and our smiles and the way we laugh unreserved and comfort and care. Mostly, I hope you knew how you would be indelibly, dearly, unequivocally missed.
Blind inFlight 