This Is Why We Are Afra(L)i(ght)d (Rail)
Minneapolis, Minnesota. February 27, 2023.
“Light rail, light rail,” we sing
with buried faces.
“Light rail! O light rail that taketh
the innocence away, that taketh the shame
of the devil away.”
“Light rails,” he says as he chews
the stem of his glasses, “put an end
to complications.”
I had just stepped away from my session with my
trauma therapist.
Wrapped up work for the day.
No more texts from panicked fingers. No
more gravy train.
“What are you going to do tonight?” she asked me.
“I am going to write and reflect,” I said with a
half-sm(L)i(ght)le(rail).
Text message rolls in from Aaron. It’s
from MPR.
Aaron.
Gay and middle-aged.
The Statler to my Waldorf.
Stroozas writes, “A transgender woman was violently attacked at a Minneapolis light rail station Monday morning, leaving her with a broken rib, collapsed lung and internal cranial bleeding, according to Hennepin County prosecutors.
Around 9:45 a.m., officers were dispatched to the light rail station on Lake Street for a violent assault.
The caller had advised dispatch that the woman was lying on the ground of the lower-level north tower on the ground.”
This is why we are afraid, I think.
I feel sadness and I
don’t necessarily feel this but I
sense (L)i(ght)nsistent dissoci(r)a(il)tion
as my fucking default.
I took off work for self-care but
only because I knew it’s what I should
do.
Interrupting cow is intrusive thought is interrupting cow is intrusive thought is Light Rail is intrusive thought….
Witness says “There was brain
matter.”
Brain matter. Brains matter.
Human brains.
Transgender brains.
A brain getting ready for the morning.
Broad daylight(rail).
“Sucker punch to the face,” Aaron
recalls from 2017.
Our bodies will get ready for work, school, play, dates, groceries.
We will wear clothes. Duh.
We will shop and flirt and talk and make decisions.
We WILL take the fucking light rail.
There she lies, complicated and human, brain matter on the pavement.
Fuck you.
She was just being.
She was just doing.
God bless you.
“Light rail, O light rail.”
This is why we are afraid.
