0:00:00.359,0:00:03.699
[Interviewer] So can you talk about [br]how you feel about doing this?

0:00:03.699,0:00:06.197
[Alok] I think so many narratives [br]around trans people

0:00:06.197,0:00:08.831
is that we hated ourselves [br]when we were younger,

0:00:08.831,0:00:11.550
and that now we love ourselves [br]when we're older.

0:00:11.550,0:00:14.411
And that's just totally not true [br]for so many of us,

0:00:14.411,0:00:18.365
because no matter how much [br]we are comfortable in our bodies,

0:00:18.365,0:00:21.093
the minute we go outside we're under attack.

0:00:21.093,0:00:23.722
[Interviewer] Can you talk about [br]what your style says about you?

0:00:23.722,0:00:26.963
[Alok] I think my fashion is its own form of armour.

0:00:26.963,0:00:31.528
Our daily acts of resistance are just seen [br]as frivolous or excessive,

0:00:31.528,0:00:36.018
but I think style is actually extremely political.

0:00:36.018,0:00:39.400
[Interviewer] Can you talk about assumptions

0:00:39.400,0:00:41.320
that people have about you [br]based on your style?

0:00:41.320,0:00:43.856
[Alok] I grew up in a small town in Texas.

0:00:43.856,0:00:49.650
It was like a predominantly white, evangelical, [br]republican, straight, cisgender

0:00:49.650,0:00:51.486
type of town.

0:00:51.486,0:00:55.650
And I grew up in a sort of post 9/11 queer body.

0:00:55.650,0:00:59.679
Even despite being told that I was a terrorist[br]every single day,

0:00:59.679,0:01:01.722
being called a faggot[br]every single day,

0:01:01.722,0:01:03.133
being called a tranny.

0:01:03.133,0:01:06.055
And I think that there's this hierarchy[br]that gets drawn between

0:01:06.055,0:01:11.219
sort of flamboyant faggotry,[br]or like queer femininities,

0:01:11.219,0:01:12.758
or like trans femininities

0:01:12.758,0:01:14.580
as being somehow inferior

0:01:14.580,0:01:16.971
or less legitimate than "womanhood"

0:01:16.971,0:01:20.104
because we're always seen as sort of [br][em?]posturing to be women.

0:01:20.104,0:01:22.296
I feel like the way I understand my gender

0:01:22.296,0:01:28.101
is that I am both a man and a woman,[br]and neither a man or a woman.

0:01:28.101,0:01:31.481
I'm outside of these entire categories.

0:01:31.481,0:01:34.147
I think they see me, and they see me as a failure.

0:01:34.147,0:01:36.645
I think so many of us who grow up [br]in the south [of the U.S.],

0:01:36.645,0:01:38.227
or in small towns,

0:01:38.227,0:01:42.694
think that moving to New York means [br]we'll finally be acknowledged.

0:01:42.694,0:01:44.611
Like, we'll finally be safe!

0:01:44.611,0:01:46.245
That's a total and utter lie.

0:01:46.245,0:01:49.655
And I've had to learn the really hard way.

0:01:49.655,0:01:52.229
But in New York, I think, [br]because it's such a large city,

0:01:52.229,0:01:54.076
there's so much anonymity,

0:01:54.076,0:01:57.063
I think people don't feel [br]empowered enough

0:01:57.063,0:01:59.922
to defend people getting harassed on the streets.

0:01:59.922,0:02:02.395
People will just stand and stare and watch.

0:02:02.395,0:02:03.981
I've had people spit on me,

0:02:03.981,0:02:05.939
I've had people call me an "it".

0:02:05.939,0:02:08.768
This one day, I hadn't shaved [br]in like 2 weeks or something,

0:02:08.768,0:02:10.553
and I was getting off the train

0:02:10.553,0:02:13.105
and this white man was [br]about to enter the train,

0:02:13.105,0:02:15.012
and the doors open and he screamed

0:02:15.012,0:02:16.828
"OSAMA!!!!"

0:02:16.828,0:02:18.607
Like, really really loudly!

0:02:18.607,0:02:20.190
And then I was like, petrified

0:02:20.190,0:02:22.117
because my entire life i've known

0:02:22.117,0:02:24.583
that when people call me a terrorist,

0:02:24.583,0:02:27.950
or Osama, or Bin Laden, or whatever,

0:02:27.950,0:02:29.329
you run.

0:02:29.329,0:02:31.660
You run because no one's going to defend you.

0:02:31.660,0:02:34.963
And then he looked down and saw [br]that I was wearing stiletto heels.

0:02:34.963,0:02:37.330
So I had a beard, but then I had heels,

0:02:37.330,0:02:40.305
and then he cut himself short, [br]he says "OSAAAA..."

0:02:41.501,0:02:43.132
And there's this really weird moment

0:02:43.132,0:02:46.003
where I didn't, I no longer fit his stereotype

0:02:46.003,0:02:48.246
of a "man of colour sort of a terrorist".

0:02:48.246,0:02:50.415
So when people see me as a brown person,

0:02:50.415,0:02:53.168
they automatically masculinize me too,

0:02:53.168,0:02:55.732
because of this idea of the like terrorist idea.

0:02:55.732,0:02:57.607
Like the other day I was using the bathroom,

0:02:57.607,0:03:00.117
and I walked into the women's restroom

0:03:00.117,0:03:04.443
and this older white lady[br]came up to me and said

0:03:04.443,0:03:06.901
"What do you think you're doing, sir?"

0:03:06.901,0:03:09.646
And I said "using the bathroom."

0:03:09.646,0:03:13.212
And then she pointed to the door,[br]like, very vehemently,

0:03:13.212,0:03:15.634
and was like "This is the women's restroom!"

0:03:15.634,0:03:20.677
And then, in this moment, I was so frustrated [br]because I knew that I had to say I was a woman.

0:03:20.677,0:03:23.376
Like, if I walked into the men's restroom [br]in this dress right now,

0:03:23.376,0:03:26.254
there's a serious chance that I could be attacked,

0:03:26.254,0:03:27.894
like, "what are you doing?!"

0:03:27.894,0:03:31.007
And so I just said "I AM a woman",

0:03:31.007,0:03:32.971
and then she looked at me and said

0:03:32.971,0:03:38.069
"Oh. You must understand why I was confused."

0:03:38.069,0:03:39.939
And I think that's because when women see me,

0:03:39.939,0:03:44.063
they're trying to protect this category [br]that they belong to.

0:03:44.063,0:03:46.273
And I think so much of the ways [br]we talk about patriarchy,

0:03:46.273,0:03:48.188
is that it's just men doing it.

0:03:48.188,0:03:51.498
And I think actually women do patriarchy every day.

0:03:51.498,0:03:54.584
I was really nervous about going back [br]to my family home in India,

0:03:54.584,0:03:55.873
like a couple of years ago,

0:03:55.873,0:03:58.416
because I knew that my family had all found out,

0:03:58.416,0:04:01.230
that I was no longer, like, a straight man.

0:04:01.230,0:04:02.175
Even though I was so scared,

0:04:02.175,0:04:04.003
one of my aunts, like, took me aside

0:04:04.003,0:04:05.957
and gave me one of her necklaces.

0:04:05.957,0:04:07.561
And she didn't explain why,

0:04:07.561,0:04:08.925
and she didn't say, like,

0:04:08.925,0:04:11.338
"Look, I'm validating your femininity."

0:04:11.338,0:04:12.921
She just said "here you go."

0:04:12.921,0:04:14.777
And all these subtle moments in my life

0:04:14.777,0:04:16.603
matter a lot to me.

0:04:16.603,0:04:17.840
People would come up to me and say

0:04:17.840,0:04:19.669
"why do all Indian people smell bad?"

0:04:19.669,0:04:22.453
"Why are you all, like, dirty?"

0:04:22.453,0:04:24.503
Um, I would go home and tell my mom,

0:04:24.503,0:04:26.082
like, I kept on washing my hands

0:04:26.082,0:04:27.957
but this brown wouldn't come off of me.

0:04:27.957,0:04:31.501
I grew up feeling ugly because I was brown.

0:04:31.501,0:04:33.926
I thought brown people could never be desirable,

0:04:33.926,0:04:35.460
could never have sex,

0:04:35.460,0:04:39.714
I thought we were all ugly, and [br]we all needed to be white to be beautiful.

0:04:39.714,0:04:43.810
And then when I started to be more... [br]present more feminine,

0:04:43.810,0:04:45.301
people started to call me a faggot.

0:04:45.301,0:04:46.555
When we go to the club,

0:04:46.555,0:04:48.566
everyone's gonna be like[br]"Oh my god I love your outfit!"

0:04:48.566,0:04:50.921
But no one's gonna ask us [br]"how are you getting home?"

0:04:50.921,0:04:53.427
They don't care because I think [br]trans feminine people only matter

0:04:53.427,0:04:55.588
when we're fabulous.

0:04:55.588,0:04:58.529
The very core of misogyny against trans people,

0:04:58.529,0:04:59.641
or transmisogyny,

0:04:59.641,0:05:02.346
is that we're always masquerading [br]as something we're not.

0:05:02.346,0:05:05.017
That we're always just[br]put on this dress to trick someone.

0:05:05.017,0:05:07.649
And so therefore we are always seen [br]as worthy of our violence.

0:05:07.649,0:05:09.285
That's why people don't stand up for us,[br]it's kind of like

0:05:09.285,0:05:12.425
"you chose to be that way,[br]you have to take the brunt of it."

0:05:15.578,0:05:16.624
I have an older sister

0:05:16.624,0:05:18.545
and I loved my sister so much

0:05:18.545,0:05:20.582
that I just wanted to be her.

0:05:20.582,0:05:23.213
So when people would ask me "what are [br]you going to be when you grow up?"

0:05:23.213,0:05:24.874
I would say "my sister!"

0:05:24.874,0:05:27.439
I would say I want flowers [br]on every single birthday cake.

0:05:27.439,0:05:28.916
And my parents were totally down,

0:05:28.916,0:05:31.133
but then things changed[br]when I hit puberty.

0:05:31.133,0:05:34.469
I began to develop facial hair,[br]people started to say

0:05:34.469,0:05:37.561
"you need to be, you're a boy, you need to [br]be a man now, you need to butch up."

0:05:37.561,0:05:39.926
I became really really really depressed.

0:05:39.926,0:05:42.112
I attempted suicide when I was 13 years old.

0:05:42.112,0:05:44.261
I took a belt to my neck.

0:05:44.261,0:05:46.693
I was alone in my room,

0:05:46.693,0:05:48.590
and I felt destroyed.

0:05:48.590,0:05:50.530
I felt attacked on every level.

0:05:50.530,0:05:52.792
I decided that I needed to get out of my town,

0:05:52.792,0:05:53.927
so I made a plan.

0:05:53.927,0:05:57.677
I said "work really freaking hard,

0:05:57.677,0:05:59.883
and then get a full scholarship or something

0:05:59.883,0:06:01.549
to get you out of this place."

0:06:01.549,0:06:04.034
And so I moved to California because literally [br]I was looking at schools,

0:06:04.034,0:06:05.758
like, where can I do my activism?

0:06:05.758,0:06:08.930
And I just, like, joined the movement[br]the minute I could.

0:06:08.930,0:06:10.174
And that's why for me,

0:06:10.174,0:06:13.944
my "coming out" is much less [br]about my gender and sexual identity,

0:06:13.944,0:06:15.929
and much more about my politics.

0:06:15.929,0:06:17.311
The world I'm fighting for

0:06:17.311,0:06:19.315
is where we stop making assumptions

0:06:19.315,0:06:20.695
around everything.

0:06:20.695,0:06:23.520
Where we allow people to [br]self-narrate their bodies.

0:06:23.520,0:06:26.630
I think that's a profoundly radical act.

0:06:26.630,0:06:29.707
Cause we exist in a western colonial system,

0:06:29.707,0:06:33.286
that's invested in categorizing [br]every single thing about you.

0:06:33.286,0:06:35.869
And creating norms about every single thing.

0:06:35.869,0:06:37.662
Rather than actually recognizing

0:06:37.662,0:06:39.915
NONE of us fit into norms.

0:06:39.915,0:06:43.876
My politics is "I am me. I am Alok.

0:06:43.876,0:06:49.166
And Alok exists outside of your colonial white [br]supremacist heteronormative gender binary!"

0:06:49.166,0:06:51.919
I don't have to be a woman or a man[br]to be coherent.

0:06:51.919,0:06:55.606
And I think that threatens so much [br]of the fabric of this society.

0:06:55.606,0:06:58.476
I wasn't born in the wrong body,[br]I was born in the wrong world.

0:06:58.476,0:07:01.101
I see my hair as part of my femininity.

0:07:01.101,0:07:03.994
If I have a beard and lipstick,[br]that's part of who I am.

0:07:03.994,0:07:07.397
Why do we always put the onus on people [br]to change their bodies,

0:07:07.397,0:07:10.583
and the onus on people to prove [br]or authenticate themselves to other people,

0:07:10.583,0:07:12.999
versus have society shift their norms?

0:07:12.999,0:07:14.747
This is why trans women get murdered.

0:07:14.747,0:07:16.667
Because what ends up happening is that

0:07:16.667,0:07:18.300
when they're hooking up with someone,

0:07:18.300,0:07:20.855
someone sees a penis and then kills them.

0:07:20.855,0:07:23.206
Like, literally, it's the most misogynist idea

0:07:23.206,0:07:25.578
where women are defined by vagina.

0:07:25.578,0:07:28.210
That's why, like, transmisogyny [br]also effects cisgender women,

0:07:28.210,0:07:30.345
because cisgender women, "womanhood",

0:07:30.345,0:07:31.667
should be more than your vagina.

0:07:31.667,0:07:33.339
A lot of the trans people I know

0:07:33.339,0:07:36.070
will, like, have surgery, have hormones, whatever,

0:07:36.070,0:07:37.699
because of safety.

0:07:37.699,0:07:39.835
Not because they wanted to.

0:07:39.835,0:07:41.188
What I'm fighting for our world,

0:07:41.188,0:07:42.613
is that we can just say

0:07:42.613,0:07:44.520
"Y'know what? My body is on my own terms."

0:07:44.520,0:07:47.909
I think what's also frustrating is that we [br]ask trans people to have all the answers.

0:07:47.909,0:07:49.666
How the hell am I supposed to have all the answers

0:07:49.666,0:07:52.372
when I grew up in a world that erased my existence?

0:07:52.372,0:07:53.753
I'm still figuring it out!

0:07:53.753,0:07:55.167
But I have people in my life,

0:07:55.167,0:07:56.769
I have lovers in my life,[br]I have friends in my life,

0:07:56.769,0:07:58.539
who are willing to work through that with me.

0:07:58.539,0:08:00.656
And that's been the most liberating part

0:08:00.656,0:08:03.090
about becoming politically active.

0:08:03.090,0:08:05.904
I would much rather know that y'all

0:08:05.904,0:08:08.076
would, if someone was yelling at me on a train,

0:08:08.076,0:08:09.665
say "hey stop that!",

0:08:09.665,0:08:12.731
versus, like, knowing my pronouns.

0:08:12.731,0:08:14.638
I know that people hurt me because they're hurt.

0:08:14.638,0:08:16.023
I know that people,

0:08:16.023,0:08:17.440
especially people of colour,

0:08:17.440,0:08:20.017
are discriminating against me [br]because of their own trauma.

0:08:20.017,0:08:21.243
And so for me, like,

0:08:21.243,0:08:24.578
unless we liberate both [br]perpetrators and victims of violence,

0:08:24.578,0:08:26.421
then we're still caught in the same system.

0:08:26.421,0:08:29.164
My fervor comes from being... [br]from wanting to be a nicer person.

0:08:29.164,0:08:31.373
I'm really invested in niceness!

0:08:31.373,0:08:33.364
I think it's really radical.

0:08:33.364,0:08:35.829
I think the state is SO BAD,

0:08:35.829,0:08:38.123
I think we grow up with so much toxicity,

0:08:38.123,0:08:40.549
and we're so mean and disposable for each other,

0:08:40.549,0:08:42.393
[Interviewer] When do you feel the most vulnerable?

0:08:42.393,0:08:44.629
[Alok] Hm. When I'm writing poetry.

0:08:44.629,0:08:50.502
So, um, I started writing poetry[br]after my suicide attempt.

0:08:50.502,0:08:53.693
Art is the space we go[br]when language fails us.

0:08:53.693,0:08:56.220
Yes, go get therapy[br]if you need to have therapy,

0:08:56.220,0:08:59.321
but how can our friendships [br]BE that therapy?

0:08:59.321,0:09:01.674
How can we really love each other hard enough

0:09:01.674,0:09:03.512
where we don't have to outsource our trauma?

0:09:03.512,0:09:05.897
Where we don't have to leave [br]where we're at to deal with shit?

0:09:05.897,0:09:09.375
So much of my identity[br]has been framed by violence.

0:09:09.376,0:09:12.822
I didn't understand my gender,[br]other than being called a faggot.

0:09:12.822,0:09:15.756
I didn't understand my race,[br]other than being called a terrorist.

0:09:15.756,0:09:17.201
I think when I moved here

0:09:17.201,0:09:20.659
I was like "oh my god, you're never gonna feel [br]lonely 'cause there's a million things to do!"

0:09:20.659,0:09:23.813
And those million things to do [br]actually make you more lonely.

0:09:23.813,0:09:26.100
We keep on making this mistake in the west

0:09:26.100,0:09:28.686
where if we have more things, we're happier;

0:09:28.686,0:09:30.467
or if we're around more things, we're happier.

0:09:30.467,0:09:33.137
Versus recognizing that [br]we already had everything we needed.

0:09:33.137,0:09:35.674
So moving away from scarcity towards abundance,

0:09:35.674,0:09:37.763
recognizing that we are enough.

0:09:37.763,0:09:39.578
So it's a poem called "Funeral".

0:09:40.677,0:09:44.031
Our train is delayed and I am [br]late for lunch with a boy I like

0:09:44.031,0:09:48.302
because his smile makes me feel [br]a little bit less lonely.

0:09:48.302,0:09:52.868
And this feels like a working definition [br]for love these days in the city

0:09:52.868,0:09:57.078
where it's possible to be surrounded by [br]the warmth of over a million apartment lights

0:09:57.078,0:09:59.412
and still feel cold.

0:09:59.412,0:10:01.719
The lights turn off and the train starts moving.

0:10:01.719,0:10:02.962
...stops moving.

0:10:02.962,0:10:04.220
And it's one of those rare moment when

0:10:04.220,0:10:06.135
we're forced to look up from our screens

0:10:06.135,0:10:08.580
and remember that we exist outside of them.

0:10:08.580,0:10:11.553
They tell us that a man jumped in front of the train.

0:10:11.553,0:10:13.470
That he died upon impact.

0:10:13.470,0:10:15.343
So we just sit there in silence

0:10:15.343,0:10:17.806
as they remove his remains from the tracks.

0:10:17.806,0:10:19.343
And some part of us is happy

0:10:19.343,0:10:22.347
because this, this is the first time in a long time

0:10:22.347,0:10:25.297
we have been forced to feel [br]like something greater than ourselves

0:10:25.297,0:10:27.862
in the city, where sometimes it takes an accident

0:10:27.862,0:10:33.404
to remember what the purpose [br]of a body is to begin with anyways.

0:10:33.404,0:10:35.822
The lights turn on, the train starts moving,

0:10:35.822,0:10:38.364
and the woman next to me starts complaining.

0:10:38.364,0:10:42.356
Asks why this man couldn't have taken [br]a bottle of pills before leaving the house.

0:10:42.356,0:10:46.671
How selfish it is to delay others with your own death.

0:10:46.671,0:10:47.969
And I want to hug her, say

0:10:47.969,0:10:50.601
"remind me the purpose of arm."

0:10:50.601,0:10:52.221
I want to love her, say

0:10:52.221,0:10:54.587
"remind me the purpose of heart."

0:10:54.587,0:10:56.733
But then I remember that this is America,

0:10:56.733,0:10:59.809
where bodies fall on streets like discarded leaves,

0:10:59.809,0:11:04.110
only touching accidentally as we all [br]tumble onto these cities we grew up with,

0:11:04.110,0:11:07.293
circling a map saying "remind me happiness",

0:11:07.293,0:11:09.671
and somehow convinced ourselves that they did.

0:11:09.671,0:11:12.748
The same way we learned about [br]the borders between countries so well.

0:11:12.748,0:11:14.775
That we built walls around them,

0:11:14.775,0:11:17.055
call them "mine".

0:11:17.055,0:11:18.501
This is America,

0:11:18.501,0:11:22.198
where pain is ritual we are [br]required to conduct in private.

0:11:22.198,0:11:24.368
An elaborate symphony on mute.

0:11:24.368,0:11:27.092
Call it "he lived to be 86 years old",

0:11:27.092,0:11:30.349
not "he hated himself for 30 of them."

0:11:30.349,0:11:32.642
Call it "he died in his sleep peacefully",

0:11:32.642,0:11:36.011
not "the stroke tore him to pieces."

0:11:36.011,0:11:37.840
Call it "accident",

0:11:37.840,0:11:40.140
not "no healthcare".

0:11:40.140,0:11:42.256
Call it "casualty",

0:11:42.256,0:11:44.355
not "calculation".

0:11:44.355,0:11:45.817
To live in America,

0:11:45.817,0:11:48.617
is to live in a constant state of illusion [allusion?]

0:11:48.617,0:11:50.833
is to be 30 people underground on a train,

0:11:50.833,0:11:53.439
unable to hold one another and weep,

0:11:53.439,0:11:55.283
is to sit there in silence

0:11:55.283,0:11:56.953
until we can just keep on moving

0:11:56.953,0:12:00.264
and forget how much death is required in the soil

0:12:00.264,0:12:03.885
to birth such beautiful denial.

0:12:03.885,0:12:06.593
And I want to text the boy above ground, ask

0:12:06.593,0:12:10.006
"have you ever been to a funeral [br]with complete strangers?"

0:12:10.006,0:12:12.882
But instead, I look at the woman next to me

0:12:12.882,0:12:15.970
the one who told a dead man [br]to die more considerately,

0:12:15.970,0:12:18.251
and then I remember that to live in America

0:12:18.251,0:12:21.476
is already to attend a funeral [br]with complete strangers.

0:12:21.476,0:12:25.914
How many ghosts does it take before [br]a cemetery can call itself a country?

0:12:25.914,0:12:27.190
To live in America

0:12:27.190,0:12:29.393
is to blame the dead for their own death.

0:12:29.393,0:12:31.551
Not the country for creating the conditions

0:12:31.551,0:12:33.398
that already killed them before they

0:12:33.398,0:12:36.247
caught up and made things more clear [br]for the rest of us.

0:12:36.247,0:12:40.202
Which is why, when the liberal who [br]wears words like "democrat" and "diplomacy"

0:12:40.202,0:12:42.546
calls me a terrorist after I tell him

0:12:42.546,0:12:44.959
that I'm not interested in paying his taxes

0:12:44.959,0:12:48.046
because I do not want my coins [br]to cause more carnage,

0:12:48.046,0:12:49.594
I understand.

0:12:49.594,0:12:51.372
Which is why, when I tell him that

0:12:51.372,0:12:55.095
I do believe in monsters who come out at night

0:12:55.095,0:12:57.223
call them "men" for short,

0:12:57.223,0:12:59.387
and he tells me that I only dress femme

0:12:59.387,0:13:00.948
because I want to be bashed,

0:13:00.948,0:13:02.595
I understand.

0:13:02.595,0:13:04.326
Which is why, when I tell him

0:13:04.326,0:13:06.792
that the same women who started his movement

0:13:06.792,0:13:08.079
are still being murdered,

0:13:08.079,0:13:09.902
and the same cities he's getting married

0:13:09.902,0:13:11.487
and calling it momentous

0:13:11.487,0:13:12.847
and he gasps and says

0:13:12.847,0:13:15.309
"that happens HERE? In America?!",

0:13:15.309,0:13:17.171
I understand.

0:13:17.171,0:13:19.119
The way we've been taught [br]to apologize for the pain,

0:13:19.119,0:13:21.066
to erase the hurt,

0:13:21.066,0:13:22.720
to numb the violence,

0:13:22.720,0:13:25.971
to deny that we may not be able [br]to wake up in the morning,

0:13:25.971,0:13:28.891
that we may see a pill [br]coming in the place of the train,

0:13:28.891,0:13:30.305
that we may wonder

0:13:30.305,0:13:33.593
what it would feel like to finally have [br]others empathize with our struggle,

0:13:33.593,0:13:35.845
for once, in OUR GODDAMNED LIFE,

0:13:35.845,0:13:36.990
what it would feel like

0:13:36.990,0:13:38.477
to hold captive attention

0:13:38.477,0:13:40.614
of a funeral of strangers, so

0:13:40.614,0:13:42.241
I would run back on that train,

0:13:42.241,0:13:43.351
hug that woman, say

0:13:43.351,0:13:44.738
"I'm afraid too." say

0:13:44.738,0:13:46.058
"remind me trust" say

0:13:46.058,0:13:49.479
"sometimes silence feels like [br]the highest pitch of screaming" say

0:13:49.479,0:13:51.413
"this is the first time in a long time

0:13:51.413,0:13:53.560
I have been forced to publicly mourn death

0:13:53.560,0:13:56.755
and there is something [br]beautiful about that", say

0:13:56.755,0:14:00.784
"what if we allowed the pain to fill us [br]a little bit less empty?"

0:14:00.784,0:14:04.081
But instead, I will sit there [br]in silence on the train.

0:14:04.081,0:14:07.504
I will say nothing to the woman next to me.

0:14:07.504,0:14:09.801
I will disembark at the next stop.

0:14:09.801,0:14:11.500
I will have lunch with a boy I like,

0:14:11.500,0:14:13.500
because his smile makes me feel

0:14:13.500,0:14:15.218
a little bit less lonely.

0:14:15.218,0:14:17.303
I will apologize for being late.

0:14:17.303,0:14:19.102
I will not have the word

0:14:19.102,0:14:22.472
for a type of loss that is so distant it is intimate.

0:14:22.472,0:14:25.106
After lunch, I will get back on the train,

0:14:25.106,0:14:27.021
I will remember,

0:14:27.021,0:14:29.681
I will soon forget.