I tell you I'm scared because people are being detained at the border. Held for months without charge or reason. I tell you I'm scared because trans peoples passports are being confiscated, put in a bureaucratic limbo. The country south of us is on stage six of a ten stage genocide.
But you don't keep up with the news anymore. I'm being depressing. I'm overreacting. We're not there anyway, so why talk about it. It doesn't have anything to do with us.
I don't know if I was ever part of your 'us'.
Instead we talk over coffee, about how the Safeway near you stopped selling Del Monte corn.
A mother was detained and hasn't been able to see her children in months. She hasn't been able to see a lawyer either. She overstayed her visa three days.
We chat on the phone, about how you swapped Nudes for White Claws, Pepsi for Coke.
People can no longer stop when driving through certain states, especially not for a pit stop. It's not safe to pee when you're trans.
We text, about your plans for a vacation in Florida with your parents.
Over three hundred people were sent to a prison in El Salvador to be held indefinitely. A court ordered a stop to the transfer as the planes took off. They didn't turn around. None of the passengers have had a trial.
I hold it all in my head. Because you refuse to hold any of it in yours. I'm standing next to you, alone.
I act like the world isn't ending. Because yours isn't.
I was born in one country and lived in another. I don't know if it's safe to change the gender markers on my passport. My country is fine with it. My country wants me dead for it. I don't know if it's safe to travel just two hours south of where I live, to the country I was born in. I don't know if my friends travelling will disappear when they try to go home. I don't know if I will.
I need to go to the states for work next year. Will you talk about me if I don't make it back?