What Happens Next: A Gallimaufry

melancholic romantic comic cynic. bi & genderqueer. fantasy writer. sysrae on ao3.

orlando

For loss like this, I have no point of reference.

I am undone.

Grief overwhelms every defence,

like bile in the throat

or blood in a lung  

 .

as raw tongues fumble the crumbling vellum of liturgy,

such prayers prayed in parallel

with those in need

and those afraid

and those who wish us dead as well.

 .

The opposite of Pride is shame.

You leach-bleached Stonewall,

turned its colours lone-wolf white

as the gunman wasn’t:

now you name

 .

him terrorist, and act as if

the circle of his bullets stretched

to menace anyone who retched

like he did, when he saw men kiss.

 .

(Your hate patrols bathrooms.

Mister or miss? We’ll tick a box and bring ID,

and if you ever catch on fire

we’ll formally decline to piss.)

 .

And meanwhile, you plant bombs in Kmart,

argue it’s an hour of need

as though such shrapnel as stops a heart

is only an incidental wrong; as though there’s ever room to plead

we didn’t want you dead, just gone.

 .

You’d rather mourn and see us shrived

than let us help or live our lives.

The same blood shed is blood refused.

But what you fear is not our blood

and cannot be transfused.

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