The first lesson I ever learned from my great aunt Charlotte is love won’t save me
On the tenth anniversary of Charlotte’s commitment to her one true love
 Nazis knocked on her doorÂ
and dragged her away
Charlotte’s partner Toni spent the next year trying to save her
And Toni saved her
And Charlotte was deported rather than killedÂ
And they never saw each other againÂ
Charlotte died 20 years later all alone
My family pretended Charlotte never existed
My family pretended this love story never existed
And no wonder
Because the way my family remembers it
The only part of a love story that is important is how it ends
On my worst days I thinkÂ
the only possible ending of Charlotte’s storyÂ
was horror was Nazis was time catching up
As Jews that’s what history has taught us to predictÂ
As queer people that’s what our lives have too often taught us to expectÂ
As both of these identitiesÂ
I grew up learning a whole lot about disaster
About the inevitability of apocalypseÂ
As a member of my bio familyÂ
I grew up learning nothing whatsoever about love
But let me tell you about my great aunt Charlotte and what she knew about love
Charlotte moved back to Germany in 1930Â
She worked at the Hirschfeld Institute and was one of the first women in Western civilization
 to have gender affirming surgeryÂ
She met her love Toni
And Toni converted to JudaismÂ
and they were happyÂ
And then there were Nazis
I mean this woman crossed an ocean to find a place where she could be herselfÂ
And she found a home and she found her partnerÂ
And then they spent the next decadeÂ
Trying to find just one safe placeÂ
What I am saying is love won’t spare us
From the apocalypseÂ
No matter how much we have been throughÂ
No matter how much we have earned it
Life will break us every timeÂ
Our love stories will be broken stories every timeÂ
I am learning to love brokenÂ
In myself and everyone elseÂ
That’s who I want to be from now on
I have a legacy to live up to
See I was taught Charlotte’s story backwardsÂ
I was told my own history all wrong
Charlotte lived courageouslyÂ
Charlotte fell in love as courageously as she couldÂ
 She built a refuge for her loveÂ
in the midst of the apocalypse of her time
And she fought for herself and her love
And she survivedÂ
And she was beautifulÂ
And she was dignifiedÂ
And love cannot defeat the apocalypseÂ
True
But love can still do so much
Love can give us a reason to fight for life
Even when the doomsday clock has run out
The way the doomsday clock has run out right now
I believe the apocalypse we face now
Is what we have prepared for our whole livesÂ
Many of us have lived through apocalypses
 just to stand here today
I still wonder if anything I love can be spared
But our story is so much bigger than this
We are so much bigger than the worst thing to ever happen to us
And so my definition of love is changingÂ
I am no longer willing to believeÂ
I am too broken to ever be worthy
I will not sacrifice myself on the altar of martyrdom and call it redemption
I am giving up my fantasy that loving will ever be that easy
Instead I will make my love story a masterpiece and an example
My love story will be about why I am fighting so hard to stay aliveÂ
Knowing I am living to be broken again tomorrow and the next day and the nextÂ
So no
Charlotte’s story is not a tragedy
Neither is mine
I am not going to live in despairÂ
Even though these are indeed desperate times
Charlotte’s story is a love story
All our stories are love storiesÂ
For ourselves and for our communityÂ
That’s what being queer means to me
We are the love story humanity is telling ourselvesÂ
And we are beautifulÂ
And we are dignifiedÂ
And we are here to teach each otherÂ
That we have always always been worthy
