– For Abra –
I wanted to wait a few days to write this, to allow everyone time to process, and due to the overlap of my own personal struggles of health and family.
I first encountered Abra in late 2003, in my time as a young gothling of barely 17, haunting the fabled floors of The Big Bop, where she at the time was working as a regular bar back. She was an avatar of both aspects that drew me into the alternative club scene, someone who was able to have as much fun and enjoyment in that role as she was able to deliver the hard work required to maintain its existence.
Through those early years, I admired her in so many ways; in her charismatic energy as she moved through the various spaces of the club, as a hard worker in the community that I had come to call home, as a powerful feminine energy that could be wild and wonderful without being conformed by the restrictions of the traditional sense of “normal” . She exuded that special and captivating power of spirit, never compromising her passion for who she was and what she wanted to be.
These years later, when encountering her through my brief time spent at her beloved Swan Dive, I was again humbled by that juxtaposition of both hard work and enjoyment that she continued to maintain, and by the uncompromising values that she held in how it functioned as an institution. I was proud to share in the wild and eclectic environment that she had created, proud to be even a small part of that corner of our community that she had worked so hard to build.
She was a beacon of inspiration, a force that filled whatever space she inhabited. Her ability to find joy and happiness even in the final stages of her illness was a further testament to her positive energy and unbreakable spirit. Watching how she moved through those challenges gave me the strength to keep pushing through the red tape of our broken medical system to find my own way back to health.
During her housing crisis, I was so moved by her fight both against the housing system and her progressive illness that I wrote a poem dedicated to her, which in my own insecurity, and in a wish to not potentially upset her during such a critical time, I unfortunately never shared with her. I now carry that as a deep regret, in the revelation through others of exactly what kind of person she was, someone who not only treasured her own life journey, but the life journey of everyone else around her. And so I share that poem with you all now, in the hope that it may in a small way reflect what love, strength and generosity that she represented to so many of us, and the love and strength that she inspired in us to carry forward in her name.
With love, always
– Torches Burning Cities –
The world is harsher now,
the ideals of our rights defiled,
and privilege given first
to those who claim the most
in keeping of their rights
in property upon us.
So many of us are fighting
for our dignity and freedom,
for our right to love and live.
I will stand behind you
and hold you higher.
I will hold space for you,
and for all of those
who have been forced
to face these odds alone.
I will take up your torch
and let it burn ever brighter,
that the rest of us may be seen
within the darkness that remains
when you are gone.
-For Abra-
