(Hey, Alex? Maybe if people who've known you for almost a decade decide that, after all that, after all this, they've more sympathy and understanding and compassion for a violent politics that dehumanises you, there's nothing you can do. Maybe there's no magic way you can be good enough, no magic thing to say, that you can say, that will convince them. Maybe you get to let go of trying, of that desperate driving sense of responsibility. Maybe you get to mourn them and move on. Maybe you'r'e still valid and valuable and worthwhile even if you can't convince them of that. They've had a decade; one last conversation isn't going to do it.)