salutations jules' no.1: August 2025
- yannick-robin eike mirko
- Aug 24
- 3 min read
cw: csa, estrangement, indigenous lateral violence
Salutations, Jules', plural. If the dead one's watching, I haven't seen you in almost two years.
If you're alive,
I haven't seen you in a year and a half.
Either way, miss you.
If you're wondering why I'm not in your life anymore, maybe when you're older, you can ask your mom. If you see this first, know that:
You, like me, are Taíno and I, like our ancestors,
Some of them, am Two Spirit.
And this is what your grandmother had to say about that:
This is what your aunt had to say about that:
This is what your mom had to say about that:
Your grandmother is also crazy in the head.
The story of how your mom came to be is based on lies. In Puerto Rico, where your family is from, where I'm from, when your grandmother was in her 20s, there was a law where if you were under 21 years old, whoever you wanted to get married with, had to get your parents to go to court with them to sign over you as property (because women unfortunately are seen as property). My mother, your grandmother saw that your grandfather, so your mother's dad, was not a good person. And when asked to sign her child off, she said no. So your grandmother took your great grandfather (my father) and behind my mom's back had him sign her off. And your (biological, maternal) grandparents were married without telling anyone. My mom, your great grandmother, packed her stuff--all her clothes she needed for work--and stood in the door frame of the house and thought about leaving.
She went back in, but she stopped having a physical
relationship with her husband. And it ruined their marriage. My dad died. Your great-grandfather, Jules. And my mom regretted that she could never find the way to be physical with him again. Your grandmother, my estranged mother, your mother's mother, has never told anyone this. I don't even know if she knows that my mom knows because someone else told her.
And so, if you're wondering why in the pictures of your grandmother's marriage that she's divorced from now, why my mom in the pictures is wearing a t-shirt and like housework clothes. That's why...she was betrayed. I found out a couple of years ago. I told your mom. I wonder what she did with the info. Maybe nothing.
I also found out last year back home that…
I wasn't the only one who was sexually harmed, by my estranged father. Your mother also and other family members saw and knew and did nothing. I tried to tell her before she did what she did, ("Yes-manning" me) and I didn't get to. So, I'm sorry if you end up in a room with your biological grandfather, because you aren't safe.
And I can't help. I'm sorry.
I really tried.
The trees don't want me to share the truth.
Maybe I should go for now. Maybe this is where I stop. For now.
There's a lot more. I'm settling in with becoming deaf as an adult. I'm learning sign (poorly). I'm dancing and choreographing now, instead of acting. And I'm in a band. I make music now more than I did when I knew you.
You would hold on to the back of my wheelchair (Jasper) and I would go fast.
I wonder if you remember that.
Feels good to let go. Maybe I'll keep talking with you like this. Maybe one day you'll see it. Maybe one day we'll know each other again.
If not and you're the dead one watching, miss you. Love you. If you're the living one,
I'm here.
If you need me, I didn't leave you.
Sorry.
I love you.
- y.r.
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