Aurora Magazine 2018

predictability of this place feels like home, but it’s the predict- able responses: “You’re just making this up”, ‘Stop complain- ing”, “My Irish ancestors were oppressed too, so what?”, that makes this place feel like there’s no place. There’s no place that takes me seriously, no place that wants to listen to our BSA event ideas, no place that wants to truly come to the realiza- tion that these are the times where racism and oppression still exists, and are thriving like they just got a personal invite from our grand ‘ol president to go full force. I had a dream the other day that I was running from every place because every place was no place to be; not for me. Not for my lesbian relationship, not for my female body, not for my listening ears, or my loud thoughts. Every place was mute, every place was deaf, every place turned its back on all that I am, so I was just running. And when I had thought I found a place, the leader of this place and its people who looked like all of us in the world all at once, came up to me and touched my shoulder. She said, “There’s no place for you here.” I asked her why and she said that my pain was too loud and would surely ruin her place. I woke and felt more alone in the universe than ever, but these are the times. I am holding on to the hope of better tomorrows, knowing that even tomorrows are no place for me. My fian- cé and I are pursuing education here because we figure that is our way out of this place, but we fear that our next place will look much like this one, sound like this, and feel like the ghosts of hanging bodies from trees…

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