For years, I’ve burned all of my art. But the sight of his hands stopped me warm. As an only the hands of another trans man could.

His hands have never met mine, yet even at a great distance, they were powerful enough to make me consider why it is I feel so compelled to destroy testaments of my love…

“You’re still hiding” said my Gram, 17 years to the day after she’d died. The last words she’d said to me were, Hide your pain from people who love you, or they’ll resent you. She passed from cancer and complications due to fibromyalgia not long after that. All of which she’d hidden from everyone. But she was wrong. I’d found family and started a company, both based intentionally in not hiding your pain and more embracing healing. I was excited to light her yahrzeit candle and tell her. I’d never lit a remembrance candle for her before. I’d never been ready before. So I was shocked to hear her respond ahead of me. I had to turn all the way into myself to look…

I’m a mutual aid organizer and fundraiser. I’m also a descendant of enslaved Africans, an anti-zionist Jew, and a transgender man. I’m watching America collapse inward on its unstable foundation of hatred. The vibration of the crumbling and Sam’s death in the strata reverberate a question through me. One I wish on an ancestral level that I didn’t have to ask: How do people enduring genocide stay connected to their abundance?