6.1.2023 - Proud

6.1.2023
Proud

They say the first Pride was a riot.
Bricks flew and wigs were trampled.
That brought the march from underground,
And into living rooms across middle America.
The wide places in razor-straight highways,
Blowing wind and the dust of corn,
Bare bulbs in the street lights,
Screen porch with a sagging roof.
The rural kids heard and it sounded strange,
A rumor of the wide ocean,
In a landlocked sea of green crops,
Baking in the sun.
Cicadas calling to the wildness,
Defying the sun to set,
Or the seasons to ever turn.
They took the first bus they found,
To meet someone who they had only seen,
Reflected in the bathroom mirror at 3 AM.
How do you explain that deep pull,
To a person who woke, ate, and dreamed,
In their buttoned-up normal life,
Cis and status quo?
If all your life you felt like a different species,
What would you give to meet,
Another traveler from forgotten lands?
The damp darkness of the closet,
A hell you hid your hopes inside.
Crumbling in the dry rot,
Like broken gilded ottomans,
And batty maiden aunts,
And funny uncles.
Such a twisted legacy,
Pain and loneliness,
Defeat and the hard slap of parental disgust,
What else could shine forth,
Than a brilliant gleaming rainbow?
When they ask why you are proud,
Remember to stand tall,
Hold your battered hard-won respect,
Together like the shattered spokes,
Of the rack that nearly broke you.
Keep your chin up,
When you tell them,
That you’re not proud of being queer,
You’re proud to be alive.
To be dancing in the sun,
Instead of decaying in a closet,
Under the heavy weight of alienation,
That adds fresh bodies,
To its straight-edge kill count
Each year like clockwork.
This year, the sun is fighting,
To break through the oppressive clouds,
Swirling forth from courts and black-robed politicians.
The howling mob trying to beat the tides back,
To bury the colors so far behind the winter things,
That all these fairies will warp into Narnia,
And we will scatter like gossamer bugs,
Crushed back into the boxes they dig for us.
Buried alive under dead names,
And the polite hate crimes at family dinners.
But I’m still here,
I will shriek my pride from my core,
Hurl the concrete reality,
Of my life like a brightly painted cobblestone,
To deny the benign smiles and stupid cruelty,
Of the “common sense” of never minding your own business,
And shatter each bit of false glass and lies,
Until all the facade falls into shards,
And the bare twisted metal is revealed.
I will still be there,
Panting and prying another stone free.
This is Pride,
If it’s a war,
At least my battle flag is pretty.