Survivor’s Guilt
—Bernadette Barton
Wrapping my head and heart around the murder of 49 queer people while they were dancing in a gay bar in Orlando, beneath the familiar numb feeling accompanying another story of loss, horror, and violence, is survivor’s guilt. I feel an enormous teary affection for all us struggling to digest the consequences of so many queer lives lost in the very place that is supposed to be our haven, and by someone who, had he allowed it, might so easily have been one of us.
