In his memoir, Revolutionary Suicide, Huey P. Newton wrote that people in the fight for liberation “have such a strong desire to live with hope and human dignity that existence without them is impossible.” He said this in reference to the concept of “revolutionary suicide” that he coined as a sort of acceptance and embracing of the possibility of death (and all other negative consequences) when undertaking revolutionary action. It is in this vein that I would like to offer an apology— an apology to the self that I once envisioned, and an apology to the life that it originally seems my existence would culminate in. It is an apology to my family, myself, and my old dreams.
Dear Mikaylah, the Doctor, the Mathematician, the Scientist, the Teacher, the Broadcaster, the Mother, the Sister, and the Wife:
I’m sorry. I’m sorry for obstructing the path that was created for you. I’m sorry for deviating from the programme; I’m sorry for apparently blowing the entire structure of what you envisioned quite nearly to heaven high. I’m sorry that I couldn’t protect you. I’m sorry that I will never see you.
Whenever I am asked about how or what I am doing in my life, I tend to respond with a similar refrain that life is life-ing, and in the spirit of specificity, I believe that I should define what exactly that phrase means. Because fundamentally, life is not life-ing as was previously intended.
As of right now, February 2026, I am a student at Loyola University New Orleans, and every previous femtosecond of my life has lead me to this point. I have studied and cried and healed and been damaged more. I have built up community and blown it up more times than I can even think to understand. And all to be here, in this moment, in this seat writing a letter to you. You see, the original intentions of all of these billions of trillions of femtoseconds leading up to this moment was to become you. The sole cognitional and practical purpose of my activities was to shape my destiny— to elevate my social status.
I dreamed for years of being many things. I pontificated on degrees and titles. I made up companies and organizations and groups and the like. I spent hours daydreaming to sit exactly where you stand. I was going to be the doctor; I was going to be the mathematician, the scientist, teacher, wife, and sister. I was going to be the mother. I suppose that I’ve rambled for enough that that I should approach the thesis of this piece.
The truth of the matter is that I do live with such a strong desire to live with hope and human dignity that existence without them is impossible. I have fought and battled to shape my destiny and if you take nothing else from this letter let it be that I am not stoping now. I cannot come to meet you— cannot become you, because now more than ever before I am not pontificating on life, but I am living it. I am in the midst of a radical transformation, and if I were to be back in 2022 or 2017 or even 2012 and be asked if I could be you or have the life that I live: I would pull the lever without hesitation.
Organizing among the masses of the people, writing on their struggle, and theorizing on the sciences of society— of people, all the while floating in an endless high of the satisfaction of serving said people, is a gift that heavier than Mount Paektu and shines brighter than the red sun in the sky.
Another truth worth saying is that I am knowledgeable of statistics. I am a Black transgender woman who is loudly, proudly, and publicly an advocate for every creature on this Earth, and with that I know that my time here is limited. I have half-joked— if I was joking at all— that at my ripe age of almost 19 years old, I am roughly middle aged for people of similar experiences and revolutionary consciousness. I say this not with the depression or solipsism of my youth, nor with the adventurist maniacal craze of some;— I say this with the strong, everlasting hope in my eyes that I will be free at last. I say this with the idea that you are not me— that you are my sister, my brother, my cousins from the first degree of separation to the eighteenth generation.
So when life is life-ing what do we say? When the strength is dwindling? When the assignments pile up, and the economy has collapsed? When I finally accept that life is different and requires new methods?
It will be what is always has been:
“If you dare to struggle, you dare to win. If you dare not struggle, then damn it, you don't deserve to win.” – Fredrick A. Hampton
With Regards and Love,
M. R. D. Victorian-Framboise.
