Face and tattoos update

I went to a vigil for ClubQ on Wednesday, it was a wonderful and moving experience but has left me with a lot of fears, anger, and lingering thoughts over my queerness and place in the community. I can’t find the right words to explain it but I did write a poem to get some of it out, it ended up being more of a train of thought rambling but I ended up quite liking it.

My city has a gay district

I’ve never had a community so close

Missing my chance behind a closet door

It still feels so far away

On Sunday 5 are dead

Wednesday is the vigil

We’re used to putting them together

My mom is on the phone

As I wait for my Uber

Not wanting to risk having to worry about my car in a possibly aftermath

Just in case

We’re going over exit strategies

Basic first aid

How to stop bleeding

Mostly for her benefit

I’m too numb to be concerned

Eventually I’m out the door

A drag queen plays the violin

We sing together

An activist read slam poetry

The crowd yells in agreement

To statements of basic human decency

That so many refuse to hear

Tomorrow is thanksgiving

I can’t take going back to my empty apartment

I go to a lesbian bar

But don’t tell my mom

Who doesn’t need more worry

I pass through the safety check points

Empty my bag and pull up my sleeves

The guard apologizes

I say I understand

Within minutes of arrival I’m no longer alone

Taken in by those in a community I still feel outside of

Who knew I needed a home

I drink and dance and live

My mom asks if I made it home

I tell her where I am

She says she loves me and I say it back

For the first time in months

I screenshot the text as the DJ changes songs

I hate dancing

But I can

I can move freely and exist openly

Even if just in that moment

Like they tried to

Like they should have been able to

Like so many people don’t want us to be able to

They can’t dance but I can

So I do

I become a living memorial

To thousands I’ve never met

Who fought for me to have this moment

Whose work is still far from done

I wonder if it ever will be finished

I am surrounded by odd girls and twilight lovers

I am home

And I am dancing

But I am still looking over my shoulder at the guard at the door

Would he be enough

For someone else who reaches their own enough tonight

And decides we are problem they must solve

After hours listening to Jonathan Shelley

Giving sermons on how to shoot us

Lined up facing a wall

Of burning books they never read

Of reading hashtags

Crying “over the children”

Who were taken away by bullets

And the words of families and strangers

Who will never truly know who the child are speaking in front of

And politicians playing preacher, doctor, and therapist

But not by queens

They never bother to think of the people in that room

Us as children once

Fighting to survive and accept and be accepted

A battle too many lost

They don’t us

They don’t see our children

Only seeing the future we work towards for the youth

As a direct threat to their supremacy

To fight hate you must expose our differences

But if our differences no longer divide us

How will they fear monger to gain power

What hot takes will they tweet out

What talking points will they spew on cable news and the New York Times

Between thoughts and Prayers

What power is greater than hate

Nothing they have ever felt in their lives

They may have known love

But they lost it along the way

They will never walk into a lesbian bar

Unsure, alone, and lost

Only for strangers to pick them up

Dust them off

Tell them what a lovely sweater they have

And welcome them not as a stranger but as a person who matters

In a community who needs you

They have never danced as an outlet

As a form of anger and resilience

As a community gathering

But they have seen it’s power

And they are scared

So I will dance

For Kelly

For Raymond

For Ashley

For Daniel

For Derrick

And for everyone who lost or never had the chance to feel the music

To feel the unified strength

To feel free and welcomed and loved

Because there is a power stronger than hate

And I found it dancing in a lesbian bar

Feeling flirty and fiesty