The Weight of Breathing

The basement smells like Della's blackened catfish and something else tonight—fear, maybe, or that particular electric tension that comes when the world outside presses against sanctuary walls with more force than usual. Genesis bleeds through the ancient speakers, "Land of Confusion" cutting through conversations about confusion becoming the only fucking constant left in 2026. I'm perched on my usual stool, titanium plates in my leg singing their nightly aria of electric fire, watching Miguel's hands move with surgical precision behind the bar.

Mom, you look like you've been chewing glass all day, Ezra calls from their beanbag throne, blue hair catching the warm crimson light like electric silk against gathering storm. What's eating you?

The usual buffet of bullshit, I say, but my voice sounds tired even to my own ears. International clusterfucks, environmental collapse, the slow-motion train wreck of democracy. You know, Wednesday.

Miguel slides a rocks glass across the bar—bourbon, the good stuff from the back shelf that smells like oak and time and promises someone actually kept. The liquid catches light like amber holding prehistoric secrets, that particular copper-gold that makes you believe for a moment that beauty still exists in the world.

This batch, Miguel says, his sultry voice carrying that childlike tone I've come to associate with comfort, has been aging in my heart since Denmark started looking at troop deployments and wondering if America finally lost its fucking mind completely.

I take the bourbon without comment, let it burn down my throat like truth nobody wants to swallow. Across the room, Grubby sits in their usual corner booth, present but silent, eyes tracking conversations with the intensity of someone who learned early that surviving means paying attention to everything. They're one of the few who rarely speaks, but when they do, words carry weight earned through being erased systematically by systems that can't comprehend bodies outside rigid categories

The kitchen doors swing open with Della's signature violence, and she emerges carrying plates that smell like Louisiana and look like sin. Blackened catfish for those who can handle some fucking flavor, she announces, and quesadillas for the delicate flowers.

I'll take both, Elaine says from the bar, her sixty-year-old voice carrying that particular gravel earned through decades of not giving a shit what people think. And another rum collins. Make it a Flor de Caña this time—I want to taste something that reminds me the world's still capable of producing beauty even when everything else tastes like ashes.

Onyx sits near the stage, loose-leaf tea steaming in front of them—never alcohol, always tea, always that particular care they take with themselves like they're still learning that their body deserves gentleness. They're writing in their journal, probably poetry about intersectional existence or the particular violence of being seen and unseen simultaneously. Their dark skin catches the warm light, and I watch them cry quietly while Heart's "Barracuda" thunders through speakers about survival through teeth.

You good over there? I call.

Just thinking about breathing, Onyx says, voice thick. How we take it for granted until we can't. How some people literally can't breathe clean air anymore. How my grandmother used to say the air in Atlanta smelled like industry and progress, but progress is just another word for poison when you're on the wrong end of it.

Brandon looks up from his notebook—he's been scribbling furiously all evening, probably another essay that'll get published while mine collect rejection slips. I read something today about European cities, he says carefully. About how the air there is literally killing people. Hundreds of thousands every year. Just breathing becomes this act of slowly dying.

Isn't that everywhere? Gus asks. He's twenty-one and still learning how to exist without flinching, still adjusting to city life where being gay doesn't automatically mean violence. He's sitting close to Grubby tonight, drawn to their quiet wisdom like moth to flame that won't burn him. I mean, back home in rural whatever-the-fuck, we just called it living. You breathe, you work, you die. That's the cycle.

The cycle's supposed to take longer than thirty or forty years, Miranda says, her voice carrying that poetic weight she brings to every observation. She's curled into the corner booth with a glass of wine, watching conversations like they're performance art. We're supposed to have time to become ourselves before the world poisons us into early graves. But that's the thing about systems built on exploitation—they don't care if the breathing kills you, as long as you keep breathing long enough to be useful first.

The Moody Blues shift into "Nights in White Satin," and I watch Keira look up from her book. She's been reading all evening, that particular presence she has where she seems detached but is absorbing everything. When her eyes find mine across the basement, something passes between us—acknowledgment of shared fear, shared hope, shared exhaustion at watching the world implode while trying to keep our chosen family intact.

Mom, Ezra says, and their voice cracks slightly. Is it always going to feel like this? Like we're constantly bracing for the next attack, the next crisis, the next fucking catastrophe?

Before I can answer, Elaine barks a laugh that sounds like gravel through a woodchipper. Kid, I've been queer for sixty years. It's always felt like this. The specifics change—first it was police raids and psychiatric hospitals, then it was AIDS and Reagan's fucking indifference, then it was marriage equality and bathroom bills. Now it's whatever fresh hell 2026's serving. But here's the thing— she pauses to drain half her rum collins in one swallow, —we're still fucking here. They keep trying to erase us, legislate us out of existence, convince the world we're the problem. And we keep surviving. That's the real victory they can't stand.

I heard something today, Brandon says quietly. About how all those political campaigns targeting trans kids? They failed. Spectacularly. Millions spent on hate, and they lost anyway. People saw through the bullshit.

Ezra's face transforms—that particular joy that cuts through exhaustion like sunrise through storm clouds. Wait, seriously?

Seriously, Brandon confirms. Virginia, New Jersey, multiple races where they bet everything on transphobia and voters said fuck you right back. Turns out most people don't actually want to spend their energy hating teenagers just trying to exist.

I watch Onyx's shoulders shake with silent tears—happy ones this time, I think. Grubby's hand reaches across the table to rest near theirs, not quite touching but close enough to communicate presence. These small gestures of witnessing, of holding space for each other's pain and joy simultaneously—this is what sanctuary actually means.

Miguel brings me another pour, this time from a bottle I don't recognize. Woodford Reserve Double Oaked, he explains. For when the world feels too heavy and regular bourbon doesn't cut through the bullshit thick enough.

The liquid is darker than the first pour, richer, carrying notes of caramel and char and something that tastes like defiance fermented into proof. I let it sit on my tongue, feeling the way heat spreads through chest cavity where my brother's hands once crushed my windpipe seventy percent closed.

You know what's fucked up? Gus says suddenly. Back home, they told us the world was falling apart because of people like us. Because gay people and trans people and everyone who didn't fit their boxes were destroying civilization. But then you get out here, and you realize— he gestures around the basement, —this is civilization. This is people actually giving a shit about each other. The other thing, that's just control dressed up as morality.

Kid's learning, Della calls from the kitchen doorway, spatula in hand like a weapon. Took me thirty years to figure out that the people screaming loudest about moral decay are usually the ones causing it.

The Clash kicks in with "Should I Stay or Should I Go," and the irony isn't lost on anyone. This question we all face constantly—stay and fight, or go somewhere safer, if safer even exists anymore. Ezra starts dancing in their beanbag, that particular full-body enthusiasm they bring to existence like every moment might be their last so they'd better fucking enjoy it.

I was thinking today, Miranda says, voice carrying that philosophical weight, about faith. Not religious faith necessarily, but the act of believing that resistance matters. That showing up matters. That bearing witness matters even when you can't stop the harm.

You mean like those clergy in Minnesota? Brandon asks. The ones patrolling neighborhoods to document ICE raids? The ones who disrupted that church service after finding out the pastor moonlights as an ICE director?

Exactly like that, Miranda confirms. Faith leaders not just praying but acting. Putting bodies between the vulnerable and the violence. That's what faith should always have meant—not belief in doctrine, but commitment to protection.

My mama used to say that, Onyx whispers. She said faith without action is just performance. That God—whatever God is—doesn't live in buildings or books. God lives in the spaces between people caring for each other when everything else has gone to shit.

Keira finally speaks, her voice cutting through conversations with that scalpel precision she brings to everything. The thing about resistance is it doesn't have to be grand. It doesn't have to be protests or disruptions or dramatic confrontations. Sometimes resistance is just continuing to exist. Coming to this basement. Claiming space. Refusing to be erased.

Fuck yes, Ezra shouts, throwing a fist in the air. Existing while queer is resistance. Existing while trans is resistance. Existing while not fitting into their neat little categories is the most revolutionary shit we can do.

I sip my bourbon and watch my chosen family hold space for each other's fear and hope simultaneously. Genesis shifts to "Follow You Follow Me," and I think about following each other through darkness, about how survival is always collective even when suffering feels individual.

Mom, Grubby says—one of the few times they've spoken all evening—how do you keep going? When everything feels like it's falling apart?

The question hangs in basement air thick with smoke and trust and that particular intimacy that comes from people who've stopped pretending they have their shit together. Everyone's looking at me now, waiting for maternal wisdom I'm not sure I possess.

Honestly? I say, bourbon making my tongue loose. I don't fucking know most days. I just... keep showing up. Keep writing things down. Keep creating space for people who need it. I think about my daughter 2 hours away, learning to navigate a world that hates her just for who her parent is. I think about my brother in his apartment trying to remember why he tried to kill me. I think about every person who didn't make it to forty, who didn't get to see things maybe, possibly, getting incrementally less horrifying.

I pause, take another sip, let the burn ground me in the present moment. And then I remember you all. This basement. This beautiful chosen family. The fact that despite everything—despite international clusterfucks and environmental collapse and systems designed to destroy us—we're still here. Still breathing. Still refusing to fucking disappear just because they'd prefer we didn't exist.

That's not nothing, Elaine says quietly. That's everything, actually.

The mood in the basement shifts slightly, like tectonic plates adjusting to accommodate new weight. The Moody Blues come back with "Question," asking what we're searching for, and I realize we're all searching for the same thing—proof that our existence matters, that resistance counts, that surviving with dignity intact is victory enough when the alternative is erasure.

I read something today too, I say, surprising myself. About how culture shifts. How it's not always governments or militaries or grand political movements. Sometimes it's just... people creating things that resonate. Art that speaks truth. Music that makes you feel less alone. Stories that witness what actually happened instead of the sanitized version power wants recorded.

Like what you're doing, Brandon says, gesturing to my notebook.

Like what we're all doing, I correct. You with your essays. Onyx with their writing. Miranda with her lyricals. Ezra with their joy that refuses to be dimmed. Every person in this basement who keeps existing loud enough that the world can't pretend we were never here.

Miguel slides another pour across the bar—this time a double, neat, no explanation necessary. The bourbon tastes like oak and rebellion and that particular sweetness that comes from proof you survived another day the world tried to kill you.

To breathing, Onyx says suddenly, raising their tea. To taking up space. To poisoning our own lungs with cigarette smoke and dive bar air instead of letting systems do it for us.

That's dark as fuck, Ezra says, but they're grinning. I love it.

We don't toast—Onyx's comment hangs in the air like truth nobody wants to acknowledge but everyone recognizes. Instead, conversations fragment into smaller exchanges. Gus asks Grubby about navigating the city. Brandon and Miranda discuss writing craft. Elaine launches into a story about her ex-girlfriend that makes Della laugh so hard she has to sit down.

I finish my bourbon and watch them all, my titanium leg throbbing its nightly reminder that survival comes at a cost but the cost is worth paying if it means you get to witness moments like this. Where fear transforms into defiance, where grief becomes fuel, where love manifests through simply showing up when disappearing would be easier.

Keira's hand finds my shoulder—rare public touch that communicates everything words can't hold. Her fingers squeeze once, gentle pressure that says I see you, I've got you, we're doing this together.

The basement air is thick with smoke and hope and that particular electric charge that comes when people refuse to accept that the world's ending just because someone said so. The speakers crackle, and Heart comes back with "These Dreams," Ann Wilson's voice cutting through the chaos like a promise that dreams matter even when reality tries to destroy them.

Miguel cleans glasses with practiced precision, Della curses at something in the kitchen, Ezra bounces between conversations like blue-haired lightning connecting different parts of our chosen family circuit. This basement sanctuary, this ridiculous pocket universe where marginalized souls can breathe—maybe not clean air, but air that belongs to us—holds us all in its crimson-painted embrace.