The past and the future are not linear, they are shapeshifters

We do not know how we arrived here, but where we found an absence, we imagined ourselves into reality.

I think loss is that empty bed, a peculiar anomaly of time, like a piece of furniture that time travels, like a relic for grief and confusion. If I have children, I will point to that empty bed, but I might decorate it to hide its melancholy, they might jump on it, and break its spine. If my children grow up tall and can gaze over boundary walls, they will see a dusty courtyard, the side of the house that is walled up and abandoned, they might see my grandmother's silver hair tangled in her comb. I will leave it as it is, the tv, the plastered calendar, the calling of the cat that is never let in. Let loss be like the inverted projection of the street, an unlikely pinhole camera playing out the street on limestone, let loss gaze inwards, not outwards. Let a tree grow in place of a wall, let a wall crumble voluntarily as a seed is planted in the cracked cement. Let my children water the seeds that destroy homes that reek of loss, let them climb the trees and build their nests, let them not be human, let them not be man or woman, let them be the wind, the rain, a rock lodged in the forest, not a playing field. When I die, let me not be ash, but a dried leaf blown away by the wind, carried by the stream, off the edge of the world.

I would weave at present, I wish to wear what I like, step out in bold lashes, eyeliner adorning my eyes, my lip colour brighter than gazes that tear me apart. I wish to gaze back, return the gaze, make you uncomfortable like you have made me.

“While the world may not tell our stories, we must tell them ourselves, even behind closed doors, as our queer ancestors always did.”

“I imagined meeting my queer ancestor in a space from my childhood, open and free but protected. It felt like they wanted me to accept all of myself, and understand what it means to be beautiful.

The silk cotton tree loomed outside my window, it is my companion in time travel. An albatross climbs up the sky and the sun is golden, and full. I remind myself to stay.”

“My pen is my portal, and it can take me into the past and the future.”

An-Other ব্যাকরণ: My native language bangla has no gendered pronouns but it doesn't offer the simplicity of the word nonbinary. Our experience of reality is fundamentally structured by language and so my mind is a patchwork of linguistic fragments, an endless métissage. I borrow names from one language, feelings from another while I live in both, never whole but never static.

Even if i know what's happening in the present, the past is completely a mystery to me. So my utopia involves living in some sort of communal living situation, a place where people can feel less empty, a place where people can harness some of the fire going through the history of our community, and it's also simple things like being less afraid of terfs, or making pizzas for everyone with my girlfriend, or running a cafe with miscellaneous bread goods.

A hundred years ago, I’m at the lake surrounded by my community and the person I love. As we look at each other and speak with dance, another portal appears and takes us elsewhere.

If I knew my ancestors, if I read their stories, I would feel like I belong. Our stories would be so interesting, never a moment of boredom.

Gender shall flow like a river and one can swim as they wish to

“…but every space is like an infinity chamber. I could also see other people, but I could not talk to them.”

I don't think we go into the future alone, we carry our ancestors with us. I wonder with tech as it changes, even with the threat of surveillance, a virtual world that closely mimics our present reality; if we can create new possibilities. The future is trans, and because the future is trans, the past is trans and our timelines are intricately woven, tangled together. Where I am, I carry my elders with me. I am because they were.

“I saw 200 years in the future and everyone I know is alive, because our life spans are much longer and we are still in the prime of our youth and are finally getting to live the lives we want to. I see Lady Gaga having released her 20th album and is now going through her queer phase...I finally see a world where queer is normal. People who are queerphobic and transphobic get ostracised by society. I also saw a more evolved version of dolphins as a parallel species to humans, and we are not the dominant species. Dolphins and cats run the world alongside humans and they communicate with us through drives.”

“I was stuck in an infinity chamber where I could only see bed bunks after bed bunks all the way to the horizon…”

I saw myself as a fairy that had huge wings who can travel the world. I also own a space shuttle with which I can go to multiverses, and I can see the sky is purple with a lot of stars and affirming constellations.

“Directly from the gate, a thing goes down and people can go underwater, and I can see other people in the sky running, and scooters in the air. All the transport happens in the sky and underwater, but nothing happens on land.”

I have too many questions and not enough answers. Questions like how many of my ancestors were queer? How many of my ancestors had to hide? How long will I reside in the limbo between being out and not? What if my closet is limitless? What if my closet is my body is my room is this city? What if thriving in liminal spaces isn't enough? What if I engulf the world and swallow it whole, what then?