“Who cares?”

She was trying to be progressive. It sounded less accepting and more ‘I don’t see colour’ when the topic of race came up.

My gaze dragged towards her. There was a couple on the other side of the road. They were chatting over the head of their baby and I had been thinking aloud as I tried to figure out if they were queer when she spoke up: who cares?

The wrongness of it hummed behind my ribcage, but the reply didn’t come until later.

Who cares-

During orientation, the professor was using his new students to make up a story to prove a point. He pointed towards two in the front row, got them to introduce themselves, then elaborated on Judy and Tristan’s imaginary relationship. The next couple he invented were in the second row and were called Kumar and Jason, and the professor laughed along with most of the class. It pushed tiny blunt barbs under my skin: why was the suggestion of our existence a joke?

Who cares-

For a long time, the only books I could find with characters like me centred solely around Being Gay. They had no sprawling trysts in rainforests, no magical lands called to them for a saviour: their journey started and ended with Being Gay. It was their uphill struggle, their only  epic quest. It was as if Being Gay was enough of a hardship that they never bothered to entertain the possibility that gay people might want their main struggle to revolve around space adventures.
Who cares-

I keep an eye out on the bus, watching windows and passengers. They collect in my chest: boys crossing the road with their fingers entwined. Last week, two girls exchanged a goodbye kiss several seats in front of me before one of them got off at her stop.

Who cares-

I once spent twenty minutes trying not to stare at a pair of high schoolers: one girl in particular kept finding excuses to lean on her friend’s shoulder, touch her wrist as she gestured, coax grins onto her face. More than once, the girl’s eyes flickered to me and I looked away because I didn’t know how to communicate ‘it’s okay, me too’ through a glance.

Who cares-

I watch for badges tucked into backpacks, bumper stickers smoothed 
onto rickety cars. They spark kinship with strangers I only ever see once. Small acts of rebellion, of solidarity. They resonate soft and solid in my chest, conjuring whispers: I see you. I’m like you. We exist.

Who cares-

We have to dig to find people like us on screens or books. Even then, we hold our breath- our history in media is fraught with bodies.

(Our history anywhere is fraught with bodies.)

When another is killed off or shunted away, surprise is not on the list of emotions that gear up. Weariness often clamours to be first in line.

Who cares-

What we are is never the default.
We search for mirrors only to find ourselves looking in windows.

Who cares-

The simple act of walking along, queer and in love and holding a child between them- it was a small spark in an ever-burning fire.

It conjured whispers:

I see you.
Me, too.
Thank you for reminding me of our existence in a world that would erase us.