by Aimee Herman
“Yeah.”
“I know that some people think that people who commit suicide go directly to hell. But for so many of them—”
“Hell is being alive,” I interrupted.
“Yeah. Death is death. And it’s no less tragic or forgiving whether it’s by disease or self-inflicted.”
“Oh, Aggie . . .”
She squeezed my hand; I squeezed back.
“T’nea said I’m too young to be thinking so much about who I am. And maybe she’s right. Maybe I need to just forget about what’s been haunting my mind.”
Aggie turned toward me. “What haunts you, Eleanor?
“My insides.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Like . . . I think about something Reigh said to me. She was talking about her gender. And you know, there is no age to it. I mean, she said that she knew even when she was little. But it’s like . . . we’re given these things to wear and toys to play with. And sometimes it’s just easier to go with the flow. She was putting on her mom’s dresses and trying on her make-up, having all these intense feelings just by putting them on. Knowing. It’s so weird. I feel like I’m not using the right words.”
“I’m listening, El. I’ll keep listening until they feel . . . until they feel like the right ones.”
“Why are you so amazing?”
“Because you are. And because I get it. I get feeling like something is wrong and the desire to fix it.”
“I’m not sure what to call this . . . this feeling. But yeah, it’s more than liking girls. It’s more than just being gay. I’m . . .” And here is where I paused. Because even in the dark of evening, I noticed what looked exactly like that finger just lying on the sidewalk beside a blue post box. The streetlight illuminated it like a theatrical spotlight, darkening everything else around it.
I felt my words—the ones I let go of and the ones still struggling to be spoken—float above me, as I bent down to see it up close. Aggie stood beside me in silence as I dropped my fingers to the ground to touched it. It was cold or I was cold and suddenly I couldn’t tell if I was touching it or it was touching me. When I tried picking it up, it just broke away, as though it were made of ash or smoke or my imagination.
“Weird,” I said out loud.
“You okay? What was that?”
“It’s just . . . I thought it was . . . I thought maybe I dropped something,” I said.
“Oh.”
“I lost something awhile back . . . I mean, I found something a bunch of years ago and this looked just like . . . it.”
Maybe there was no finger. Maybe I never lost anything, and I’ve just been carrying this something around with me. Not lost, just waiting to be discovered. Not lost, just waiting to be named.
Dear Eleanor,
This could be the year you have waited your whole life for. Maybe you will get all As. Or maybe you will make a new friend or travel to a new place or learn to play an instrument. Who knows? I’m not like Greta, who can stare into the mirror for hours and probably has all sorts of nice things to say about herself. I’ve never written a love letter and couldn’t ever imagine writing one to myself. Do I give myself a compliment? I like my eyes and the way they turn green sometimes. I think I’m nice. I can be smart sometimes. I definitely have a lot of questions about myself.
Anyway, I love you I guess.
Love,
Eleanor
MY BOOK LIST FOR JAMES (AND SOME POEMS TOO).
Oh, and it’s alphabetized because Ms. Raimondo loves that sort of thing.
BALDWIN, JAMES: Giovanni’s Room, “Sonny’s Blues,” The Giver
BARNES, DJUNA: “From Third Avenue On”
BLUME, JUDY: Are you There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, Forever
BROWN, RITA MAE: Rubyfruit Jungle
GUY, ROSA: Ruby
KERR, M.E.: Deliver Us from Evie
LORDE, AUDRE: “Movement Song,” Sister Outsider, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
MORAGA, CHERRÍE AND GLORIA ANZALDUA: This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color
RICH, ADRIENNE: “Dreamwood”
SALINGER, J.D.: The Catcher in the Rye
WHITE, EDMUND: A Boy’s Own Story, The Beautiful Room is Empty
WHITMAN, WALT: Leaves of Grass
By Eleanor Eler Fromme
acknowledgements
WHEN DOES A STORY BEGIN? PERHAPS all along, we carry these humans, these heartaches, these love stories beneath our skin, cradling our bones. They grow as we grow. Maybe Eleanor was somehow what (barely) got me through high school. Maybe Eleanor is what kept me alive through my own suicide attempts. Maybe Eleanor helped project my voice as I came out as lesbian to my family at nineteen, and then as queer later on.
These stories are never singular. I wrote this through state lines and relationships and break up and between college classes and when I thought I had nothing left to say but somehow found the sounds for.
Thank you to early readers such as Tina Barry, Jessica Hagedorn, Brett Burns, Nicole Smith, and Meagan Brothers. Thank you to Constance Renfrow—an incredible editor who patiently guided me toward this final draft. To my dad who churns out his own novels like breaths. You have traveled hours just to hear me read two poems. To Rebecca Diaz who is a salve to my heart. All these years, you teach me the magnificent richness of friendship. To Daniel Dissinger, my accountability partner and true mentor. To Art Farm’s writing residency in Marquette, Nebraska where much of this story was written. More specifically: Raluca Albu, Lindsay Peyton, Selina Josephs, Laura Rubeck, Ed Dadey, and that family of raccoons. To Max Wolf Valerio: When I first read The Testosterone Files, I felt like cupboards in my body opened up. And now, I get to call you friend. Thank you for your openness and wisdom.
To the writers I have never met (beyond the page), yet fuel my own imagination: Audre Lorde, Richard Brautigan, Kathy Acker, Sylvia Plath, Sandra Cisneros, and Joy Harjo.
To The Trevor Project, an incredible suicide prevention resource for LGBTQ youth. Reach out reach out reach out.
Thank you to my ukulele, which has brought music into my life, and helped me to find a little more of my voice. And to my music partner, David Lawton. Hydrogen Junkbox has become my oxygen.
For the ones who could not make it but tried.
For Trae, my pen pal. You me every day how to be a warrior in mind, body, and spirit.
about the author
AIMEE HERMAN IS A TWO-TIME PUSHCART Prize-nominated novelist, poet, and performance artist based in Brooklyn, looking to disembowel the architecture of gender and what it means to queer the body. Aimee is the author of two poetry collections, to go without blinking (BlazeVOX books) and meant to wake up feeling (great weather for MEDIA). Her work has been widely published in the U.S. and internationally in literary journals including Lavender Review, EDUCE, Sous Les Pave, and the Lambda Awardwinning anthology Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics (Nightboat Books). Aimee currently teaches at Bronx Community College. She sings and plays ukelele in the poetryband Hydrogen Junkbox. To learn more about Aimee, visit her website at www.aimeeherman.wordpress.com.
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