Pride||Silence
When the heat roils in the summer
The asphalt shimmering and singing
A congestive cluster of rainbow drunken Pride
Rolls into the city like a July thunderstorm
Thick, sweltering, electric
Promising an unrelenting and percussive
Release of static and tension
Batten down the hatches
Reinforce your foundations
You cannot weather this storm
For a part of it lives in your house
Rattling your roof from within
Pride breaking down archaic walls
Thunder on their breath
Every year when I see this happening
I seek to ride the air
Get swept into that intoxicating throng
Chanting, marching, celebrating
Freedom, freedom, we will not be ignored!
Freedom, freedom, we’re worth so much more!
And every time I’m stopped
The last time I did something like this
I had a stalker follow me home
Tell me about all the things he wanted to do to me
Talk about wanting to murder his father
About how I was item 1-9 on the list
Of people in the world he wouldn't kill
And he was number 10
I remember the time I was told
“You can’t be ace, you’re not a plant”
“You just haven’t rode my dick yet”
“When I’m done with you,
You’ll need chapstick on both sets of lips”
As if that weren’t already my biggest fear
And the reason I stayed in the closet up until college
I remember the time my best friend’s father
Tried to molest me, so I told him I’d call the police
I remember the time someone grabbed me
On the school bus in eighth grade and I was frozen
Now, I wish I’d turned around
And slapped him so hard I’d have broken
His stupid Rayban glasses
I remember the time I was called a faggot
For wearing a boy’s shirt
For not wearing makeup
For cutting my hair
For having a girlfriend
For being gender fluid
For being a tomboy
What have I learned from my pride
Except shame
“Go back into the closet
Because you don’t look gay
You’re just a bitch
You’re not butch
And you’re not a good femme either.”
I have a boyfriend
So that obviously means I’m not queer
Not like pano-romanticism is a thing
Where you can just love people
Not caring what they identify as
Because you’re so drunk on the security
Of being wrapped in their arms
My queerness is weird
But it’s real regardless of a lack of label
It’s stayed with me, in me, as me
And I keep crawling back to it
Scared and hiding
My mom doesn’t believe it
My brothers don’t think it’s true
So I sit in the darkness
Confined in a closet 21 years too small
And watch as another thunderstorm
Overtakes our city
Rainbow lightning flashing and flying
Sparking and arching and screeching
Joyous release
One day
I will
Join them
For I
Am of
Cloud and
Lighting, too
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