After The Rooster Crows: Dispatch From A Poet In Exile

There is nary different measurement to opportunity this: I constitute you now from exile, having (if you are reference this) fled governmental persecution successful my location country, nan United (for now) States of America.

I opportunity this plainly, without metaphor aliases embellishment. The reality of it has stripped moreover connection of its accustomed protections. The arena outpaced immoderate trade aliases device. What remains is simply a truth spoken aloud to nary 1 and everyone: I person left.

In nan weeks earlier leaving, I heard it successful everything: you can’t return it pinch you. The woody furnishings built by ancestors who had themselves erstwhile fled. My pots and pans. My sister. My parents. The position from my window. The ashes of my rabbits. My orangish typewriter. My happy plants. Some of these whitethorn find maine later, if circumstances let it.

Others are already becoming memory. In their place: a rainfall jacket, a mini photograph album, a geode, aggregate pairs of shoes, my maracas, apostilled documents, a passport that I wasn’t capable to renew (though I’ll effort astatine nan embassy here). And myself, which lately has felt progressively high-risk to carry.

What does it mean to “choose” to leave, erstwhile nan disposable options person been whittled to splinters? What is nan usability of prime successful nan discourse of scapegoating, erasure, and surveillance? I chose nothing—except not to hold for worse. My leaving was self-preservation. The clearest corridor of possibility. To take nan erstwhile and wherever of your exit way is still to beryllium fleeing. “Perhaps location is not a place,” James Baldwin wrote, “but simply an irrevocable condition.”

And elsewhere, of his ain formation from nan United States: “The years I lived successful Paris did 1 point for me, they released maine from that peculiar societal panic which was not nan paranoia of my ain mind, but a existent societal threat visible successful nan look of each cop, each boss, everybody.” In my ain way, I understood him. I had to extremity looking complete my shoulder. I near successful bid to live.

In a ineligible webinar for trans travelers, attorneys advised america to create information plans: to found a check-in for each checkpoint. My desire to bring myself contended pinch nan request to battalion thing that mightiness deny maine to a dispute scan aliases officer. I tried to memorize my rights, branded medications successful ways I hoped wouldn’t tie attention. I carried myself done information pinch thing to hide, but everything to lose. This is really to debar a “groin anomaly” alert. This is really to minimize a beingness search. I sent my itinerary to my lawyer.

Do integer nomads consciousness this way? I deliberation not. But if not, past what is nan noun for what I americium now? “A borderland,” Gloria Anzaldúa wrote, “is a vague and undetermined spot created by nan affectional residue of an unnatural boundary.”

In simplest terms, asylum intends protection. Safety. When I was 2 months into a caller dream occupation arsenic a teen services librarian, constabulary officers came to my workplace and accosted maine pinch a mendacious criminal accusation. During my agelong conflict for justice, a hand-addressed letter cover arrived successful nan mailbox, torn unfastened and empty, scrawled with: You are a fraud. In nan aftermath of Trump’s 2nd election, an anti-trans decease threat came done my website’s interaction form. The week of his inauguration, a alien shouted nationalist obscenities astatine maine connected nan street. The sentiment grew louder successful its intent—and truthful did nan alarm.

I believed a bluish authorities could bargain maine much time. I was wrong. The property merchandise listed my doctor’s infirmary strategy arsenic a occurrence communicative of early compliance pinch nan caller executive order. I couldn’t eat. I was physically sick for days. When I yet decided to go, nan nausea lifted.

What came pinch maine is vigilance. I packed and repacked successful my mind, rehearsing. A sound wrong maine that had started arsenic a stomachache began to shout: go. It turned into clarity. There are moments erstwhile a spot you unrecorded stops being livable. Sometimes that arrives slowly, for illustration a leak. Sometimes each astatine once.

Some experiences are marked by thresholds. What I bought connected my past market trip. What I near successful nan fridge. The measurement nan sun felt done nan model arsenic I fto caller aerial in, unsure if aliases erstwhile I’ll return. Saying goodbye to my parents’ attitudinal elder cat. I held a notarized affidavit successful 1 manus arsenic if it were a aureate ticket, and successful nan other, nan phone—discussing my plans successful hushed tones, receiving encouragement, support, benignant words.

This is what a migrating animal does erstwhile conditions change: They move. Not because it is noble aliases romanticist aliases bold, but because staying would mean death. It’s not ever strategy, not exactly. Sometimes it’s instinct. A reflex honed complete generations.

Dante Alighieri wrote, “You shall time off everything loved astir dearly, and this is nan shaft of which nan front of exile shoots first. You shall beryllium really brackish is nan sensation of different man’s bread, and really difficult is nan measurement up and down different man’s stairs.”

André Aciman wrote, “What makes exile nan pernicious point it is is not really nan authorities of being away, arsenic overmuch arsenic nan impossibility of ever not being away.”

Mail key. Smell of nan hallway. Sponge successful nan sink. Dramatic tokens of dislocation. Small things, Aciman says, publication successful nan cardinal of loss.

Grief is not a checkpoint. It travels pinch you. It gets location first. It sits beside you and does not speak.

In my last week, I took nan agelong measurement location truthful I could thrust done nan bosom of nan city, windows down, swapping euphony pinch strangers. It was a gorgeous day. Singing arsenic I drove, I thought of young Tracy Chapman, twenty-four years aged astatine Nelson Mandela’s 70th day tribute concert, famously filling successful for Stevie Wonder aft a method issue—and stunning nan world. We gotta make a determination / Leave coming aliases unrecorded and dice this way. I played it connected loop.

I don’t cognize yet what this different broadside will consciousness like. I don’t cognize what noun I will admit myself successful astir easily, aliases what spot mightiness statesman to telephone itself home. I don’t cognize erstwhile I’ll extremity measuring clip successful narration to threat aliases checkpoint, aliases if I’ll ever extremity emotion truthful exhausted. I cognize only that I entered into mobility because location was nary crushed near connected which to stand. Because I person penning to do. Because I was not put present to beryllium I could strengthen nan terrifying, sadistic things humans do to each other. Because location are flowers successful bloom that request my attention, and loved ones increasing older. Because “one chaotic and precious life.”

The ones who comprehend this arsenic exaggeration whitethorn person ne'er had to measurement their humanity against a argumentation memo. They’ve ne'er been told their beingness successful a state was fraudulent, aliases a threat to nationalist security, simply for existing. They cannot ideate carrying their ain body, medication, aliases sanction for illustration contraband.

I americium not penning this to beryllium anything. I’m penning because connection still belongs to me—and because if you are reference this, past I person not been erased, I americium still here.

What I dream is that those still surviving wrong nan panic will know: exile is not failure. Leaving is not betrayal. There are still exits too nan 1 marked death. Some mightiness moreover lead to life.

So, fto this beryllium a dispatch from nan in-between. A rooster crowed. The occurrence came. I jumped from a window, pinch small much than words successful my hand.

What comes adjacent is breath, conscionable that.

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Consider nan Rooster by Oliver Baez Bendorf is disposable from Nightboat Books.