I Got Hit By A Car

Friday, May 8, 2026

A lot of American exceptionalism and classist theology teaches us to side with the oppressor and always question the victim or the oppressed. With that being said, no, I was not at fault. I was riding my bike in New York City, around the lower part of Manhattan with my partner and friend, and we had not only the right of way, but were as visible as we could be with the amount of lights we had. The driver not only was blocking both the crosswalk and side street, but he also broke several traffic laws by being a hazard for folks not in cars. He initially backed his car up, and I interpreted that as him not only seeing us but giving us space to go in front of him, and our friend Ibrahim did actually ride in front of him. Alas, when it was my turn to ride in front of his car, he immediately accelerated into me, and I was launched off my bike, into the New York City streets where my forehead and asphalt made contact with each other, causing me to be severely concussed, and the driver eventually drove away. Ergo, a hit and run. He initially got out of his car to make sure I wasn't dead and that he didn't commit murder, and when he noticed I was breathing, and my partner told him to pull aside so we could get his information, he instead drove off, because, well, god forbid you hold yourself accountable for nearly killing someone.

If you ask me, he committed attempted murder. There were no cameras at this intersection, it was busy as fuck, car drivers in every corner caught in evening congestion, blasting their horns, and even the guy whose car who I was launched into, my frame hitting his rear light, made time to get out not to check on me but to CHECK HIS CAR, also dipped because, well, god forbid we care more about people than property.

No, we didn't take any pictures of the assailant. We had some hope for humanity that he'd pull over and provide his information. No, the police have yet to find him. No, I don't think he'll ever be found. My glasses were broken on the fall, and I have a concussion. My entire body is in pain, I have bruises everywhere, and I'm honestly fortunate enough to not be dead or have broken bones. Even if I did die, American society has developed such a violent malice towards the impoverished and those who are unable to drive or afford to drive that the likely response from car drivers would be, "Well, it's your fault for being on the road on a bike". Never does the status quo question itself. Never does society reflect onto itself and the standards that we have been given. I am genuinely grateful I am not dead. If I was, that'd make the authority's response to my death far easier because I am ultimately silenced and can be spoken for not by myself but another who can easily twist the entire situation against my favor.

The bike is fine. My front wheel is destroyed, but it's fine. It was a new wheel---pink Velocity rim---and so were my glasses, of which I had just received just two weeks prior to the crash (I initially typed accident because we are propagandized to call these crashes 'accidents', and that language therefore takes away ANY accountability from the assailant/murderer). My mind is all over the place. It's hard for me to keep a single thought. I've been increasingly more forgetful. It's hard to maintain conversation. I honestly am afraid I've developed a traumatic brain injury of some sort. I hate being vulnerable and weakened outside of my own accord. But I'm alive. Gods, I'm alive. And it's angering. It's angering that a hit-and-run can just occur with little impunity, and I am forced to continue my life as if nothing had happened. America is such a reactive society. If I died, then there'd be some sort of response that night to hold the man accountable. But since I survived, nothing occurred. "Oh, she's breathing". I'm still injured, though. I'm still bleeding. I'm still in pain. I'm still broken, mentally, emotionally. How many more times does the system think we'll allow injustice to pursue? There is a breaking point amongst these things where even the individual reaches their limit and demands accountability. When all is lost, there is nothing to lose.

Even after all of this, I still loved New York City. It's such a beautiful place. I don't care how stimulating it is for others. I felt so invisible, in the best way. There's a human saturation amongst every street that I just blend in. Save the street. In the streets I am the most visible. I am seen yet feel the most empowered. I am god on the streets, on my bike. It's so liberating. I think the reason why car drivers hate us so much is because they hate the system that has put them there, but they don't realize it. They want something visible to hate, and it's impossible to hate someone inside of a car because you can't even see them. But you can see the cyclist. You see how happy they are, how visible their emotions become, how exciting it is to see them be excited. And envy develops, and so on, and so on.

I hope they find the man. I do. And, yes, I will be suing. The guy did a hit-and-run. The guy almost killed me. And, if I have the choice, I want to see him behind bars for a long time. We need to stop letting attempted homicides like this slide just because America has taught us to blame the victim amongst every circumstance. No longer.

Free Palestine. Liberation for the working class. Tax the rich. Fuck the oppressors.

"Well, what were ya wearin'?"

Saturday, June 20, 2026

I'm staring at the sky on this small hill in Patterson Park. It smells of nothing. Cleanliness. Air. Absent of coal and tar filling my lungs. My lungs still refrain from a full breath given the years of damage they've taken. My asthma still remains, my respiration a fraction of the childhood full of forced inhalation of nicotine smoke and burning tea bags.

I digress. There is never such a thing as a deserved peace, it seems. Creator works in ways beyond my imagining and tests us when we believe we are safe, even in the quiet of daylight grass. On a bench of many. Aside a cement walkway shaded by the climbing tree I jumped from just minutes before. Refrain. Quiet. Cleanliness. All at a cost.

Men are aberrations from the construct of chaos. They sow machinations upon us that destroy, the patriarchal divinity of malice and undoing. I am sitting on this bench watching the sky meld with its clouds. I am sitting beneath the leafshade of the tree canopy, somber and absent, yet present and aware. All good things behave in balance. Bad, or perceived evil, that is, must also makes it appearance.

A man approaches in my peripheral. He looks like the street sleepers who deserve housing and mental health access. And food. And education. His skin is melanin-rich, a shade of soil like mine, before dirt is watered yet dewy, full of discoloration beneath clothing. I believe it's called a "farmer's tan". But he is like me. Latin, Spanish-speaking, yet a man. A man who perceives certain aspects of people as fruit to eat for his own accord. Misdirected, misrepresented, misallocated rage. He wears a sweaty navy t-shirt and long pants. He hunches as he walks, his backpack slipping into his thin frame and outward from his stressed back. Even as I stare into the sky, I can feel the familiar grin of a hungering wraith. A blackguard approaches, I hear the creator whisper into my ear.

"Hello," he says in that accented English, like my mother's brothers in Ecuador. Pervasive, though. Expecting.

I stare in the sky, nodding. I do not respond. I am somber right now. I want to be alone. In my own space. Away from everybody.

"Hello," he says again, and his neck is bending in a stare, his elbows against his knees, his legs spread eagle.

"I know you can hear me."

I nod, my body's subconscious mannerisms reacting as they've been propagandized to. Mannerly. Civilized. Womanly........

But I am not afraid. My somber is transmutating. It is appearing at the edifice of a hilltop, nay, mountaintop, where blood fuses into facial apparations and boils into that ever-equalizing rage. Why must he bother me? Why must he expect reverence? I stare into the sky, moreso, and the clouds are disappearing. I do not hear anyone around us, the teenagers sitting meters from us on their own bench, the butch black lady with headphones on is walking farther away, and I realize I was more absent than I wanted to be. I am alone right now. Alone with a god apparent.

"What's your name?" he asks, and he's thirsting, this man, this abomination of the creator, that demanding undertone, the offspring of domination. Blackguard. Bastard.

I start to undo. There are keys between my fingers that were there to unlock my bike beside me. A fickle finger play begins, and I twist them between the gloves I wear. Metal against metal, the ring of artifical urgency, yet I sit. This is but another game that I must win.

"I know you can hear me. What's your name?" he says, fickle, annoyed, still sitting on his own bench beside my own.

My skin is warm, my visage turning. I chuckle by the nonsense that is occuring, but it melds into a waiting smear. I am ready. Whatever is to happen, will happen by the supposed consequence of the creator. I am merely a facsimile of resistance, a stardust comet of rebellion, the spawn of my mother and our mothers before her. Fear is a tool of control, yes. But it is also a weapon to react. I am reacting. I am waiting. I am the godkiller.

There are keys between my fingers, and I tighten my grip. My subconscious knows to smile, but it also knows to scream. It knows to bleed. It knows how to kill.

"I am George. What is your name?" he asks again. He waits. I shake my head slowly, and the smile returns, my smile, yet it is twisted, a mimicry of his own, reactive, countering, a mirror of insanity.

He stands. "Can I sit next you?" he asks, pointing to the empty space beside me. Closer he comes. Sterile. Scentless. Empty.

There is a moment when every transgender woman must come to her own conclusion of reality that we live in a country that wants us to die in whichever way we can. It is a convenience to the government and the authority as our very existence is resistance and our freedoms are an evolution for all others. Suicide, murder, disappearances. These are all preferred conclusions to our ends. Yet there is a moment when a transgender woman must also realize that no one will come to save her, no matter the circumstance, no matter the creator's whims. We are the godkillers in our reality. We must slay the slayer. And here, I tell her, a god approaches.

He walks forward, closer, and I turn my head from the sky for the very first time and stare at him through my black sunglasses and say, "No, por favor. Sale de aqui, por favor." How mannerly, everpresent.

She is human, he thinks. An echo of revelation occurs to him. Dark skin is seen as a fetish to the white man. And the white man teaches our fathers what is considered appropriate, no matter how damning. We are seen as a consumption of sorts, with how our bodies have been related to delicacies for the tasting. But when a Spanish man who speaks like my uncles and talks like my cousins assumes a doll is simply a doll to play with with no ability or capacity of self-thought, he is, in and of itself, vulnerable.

She speaks. Yes, I do. And I speak your language. My language. Our language. A connection is made with this god and godkiller, and he leaves. He nods and is in fear. It is likely he thought I was a sex worker waiting for a client, or, maybe he wanted to steal my bike with threats. I didn't include that bit of dialogue for the narrative, but he did complement my bike several times. No, no, no. Truthfully, though, I wanted him to attack. I wanted to retaliate to the highest of my power, no matter how relatively small my physical prowess was to his. I wanted to beat the man. I wanted to watch him bleed or die trying. I wanted to release my anger on such a foul copy of a man. Bitter thing that walked away.

I pity the fool for missing the discovery of my fire. I would've burned every bit of his flesh just to enact whatever justice I saw fit. And there I was again. Missing the movement of the sky. Wind bleeding through branches and tree leaves. The great giant covering me in its shade. The creator reminded me that my voice has power. My silence was my weakness. My shout, a weapon to fell a god.

Yet, still, I remain unsatisfied.