Sagamihara: Remembrance

Light danced on my skin today, an experience you'll never have again.  My breath catches a little when I think of you, all nineteen, and the things you'll never have again. Or never had to begin with.

Did your families visit often?  Which seasons made you feel most alive?  Did you have a secret crush across the hall, burning your ears with secrets and tingling your lips with kisses?

Who were you?  Who would you have become if given the chance?

Today is the anniversary.  The day a hole was torn through your community.  The day you slipped away, faceless and unnamed, while your assailant smiled for his fifteen minutes.  Well, more like two minutes.  Not everyone spoke of it.  Most did not.

But we did-- we do.  The members of your extended community, the disabled community.  We have cried for you, screamed, raged.  We love you.  Love you still.  We hold you in our hearts and minds.  

I will never speak your murderer's name.  The vile scum will slip into the rot of forgetting and I'll leave him slide there... into the cold darkness where he belongs.  

I will never speak your names, but I want to.  I want to shout them out as a cry for justice and as a reminder of wretched ableism.  I want to whisper them to the stars so I can imagine you as light, happy things.  I want to say them, because you were important and worthy people, the kind of people deserving of remembrance that includes names and faces.

But I will remember you, regardless.  Always...