from to the ones this world was never made for
i've never worried about dying. it's the world we live in that i fear, and all the things i might have to see before it ends. the things that people do to one another, and the things i might do to others. i read in a book that when lightning strikes a person, it leaves Lichtenberg figures on their skin — scars in the shape of electric currents. the lighting still lives inside them, and sometimes it changes their personality. sometimes it causes phantom pains and memory loss, the uncontrollable spasming of limbs. sometimes it grants mysterious gifts, like a genius talent for playing piano or the ability to foretell the weather. i think this is what violence does to the soul. the other day i watched a stand-up comedy special in which the comedian told joke after joke about how trans people are apparently harming our allies and our own by fighting for our human rights. it wasn't very funny, but it did make me cry. as i listened to the comedian, i could feel the violence still burning in the place where it entered my soul, and i could hear where the violence had entered his. he says he doesn't hate people like me, and i believe him, but hate has almost never been the reason that humans hurt humans. fear is. i spend a lot of time these days thinking about the kind of person i want to be and all the courage it will take to get there. today i looked inside the ocean of my sadness and found a volcano of anger there. the lava said, i am the courageous part of love. where in the body does courage call home? the same place where lightning lives. cuers is Old French, meaning "heart." rage is also Old French, meaning "fury." what does that tell us about what it means to be brave? choosing love is a practice. every day it takes all my strength. still, i believe in this body, this soul, this fallible flesh that still burns with wanting. somewhere, after the lightning strikes, there will be a world for us.
from Falling Back in Love with Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls by Kai Cheng Thom
