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The Deadliest Loneliness
fabian romero: indigenous immigrant queer boi writer fabianromero.com fabiortizromero@gmail.com
Out of the many things planned on our journey to a new country no one talked about dying here. And it’s been through death that we have found each other again. Cousins across state lines, tias who don’t take time off unless it’s to see what remains of a person one last time. And then there are those who don’t have the option. I too mourned onto open books during lunch break at school and I remember still when I worked through the tears. Years ago when I sold ice cream in a small town thousands of miles from the grieving elders praying over my grandmothers body and now thou- sands of miles away from a catalyzing aunt being buried too young. No one talked about the loneliness that comes from not being able to grieve with your bloodline, your com- munity, in the traditions of your people. The loneliness that comes the systematic isolation of oppression. To emigrate
is to prepare for isolation and even in assimilation there is a loneliness that comes from knowing that to be accepted by those in power is to reject what makes you whole.
Although there are many moments in my life that encompass this solitude I will never forget meeting a man
in my early twenties that introduced me to the concept of “deadly loneliness.” Over the only meal we shared I remem- ber his sincerity as she shared in vague detail his grief of experiencing war as a soldier. He asked me “have you ever felt deadly loneliness?” It was quick moment of realization.
I wasn’t at a place to understand the depth of this question then but today I think of it often.
I have a memory of feelings. I remember that the moment that this man said that to me I had a stampede of ghosts rush through me. I wanted to run away from the feeling that
those words struck in me. The deadly kind of loneliness. If I had the chance to redo my answer now I would say yes. I have experienced loneliness, a different kind of deadly than his. The kind that racism causes, the kind of loneliness that oppression impresses on bodies. The kind that separates and isolates people with anxiety, depression and all disabilities.
I didn’t have that language back then. I didn’t know how
to communicate that. But yes the kind of loneliness that refugees and immigrants feel, yes I know that kind. The kind that separates me from my gendered body. That kind of loneliness of not knowing what to make of my skin. Yes I know loneliness. The kind of loneliness of being essen- tialized, turned into a character, an object. The kind that comes from not having people to relate to. The moving that comes with poverty, with migrant work. It’s hard to build intimacy when you are always ready to leave. The kind of loneliness of smiling and nodding when people talk about things that I will never experience; having financial security, a loving relationship with men in my family, etc. There is loneliness in code switching. There is loneliness in knowing that everything we have our lives built on is a result of war and genocide, our mixture, our journey here. Things that are hard to talk about, that get talked about in academia or through logic while the feelings sit or fit or ally with deadly loneliness.
But the loneliness I write about is about holding onto grief because there is no time to feel it. And feeling it spill onto everything. It’s why I write, to release the grief that sits inside of me.