WE’LL ALL HOLD UP THE TRAFFIC FOR A FEW MINUTES SOMEDAY
We The People in order to form a semblance of life
with no more longevity than cumbersome pieces of
furniture, we built our beliefs in the guts of exhausted
band wagons, that could not possibly carry us through
our worst, or weather the writ of passing judgment.
We have worshipped the way the sun hangs over us,
giant burning white hot center of attention, we have
looked up to it knowing: this is gonna hurt, do not
stare directly into him, he will hurt you eventually—
I would be occupying a small moment in a crosswalk
when a big voice from the passenger of a loud car
turning a sharp right would call me a faggot.
I laughed with one breath. My heart sank with another.
My body slouched like a gutter ball wondering if I was
that obvious. Wondering if my past was showing reruns
of the skeletons I kept lying on the bathroom floor of my
childhood, holding a pair of scissors like a violin bow
trying to play my arm as if it had strings but I could not
play those notes. I did not know that song. I could not
see the instrument because my eyes sank into wells,
all flash flood and undertow and I have to wonder if next
time it will be a bullet that stops my pulse.
Forgive me,
I did not know I would need a copper torch to stand
on the welcome mat in your harbor, where on the inside
of my lungs it is written: give me your trans, your queer,
your gay huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
Turn open your arms, give me a hug.
We need all the love we can get—
this house
is transparent now.
You can see me. You can watch me jog my memory.
Watch me run in place. Watch me play hide and seek
with sticks and stones. Close my eyes, count to forty
nine, cry when I hear their names—as if I knew them.
Forgive me,
it's been a while since I stepped foot into a real church.
So it's scary to think the last mass I might ever attend
could be a shooting.
Dear passenger of car turning right, how long before
your tongue turns into a trigger? How long before you
empty the taut ammunition in your throat? I suspect
your father closed his arms like a bank vault when you
introduced yourself into a conversation about his son.
You wear that moment like a bungee cord.
He does not know how to be a bridge.
Dear every passenger of every car turning in any direction,
were I to kiss your tongue would it taste like a bullet?
Would I look any less vulnerable in this glass house?
Would I shatter any differently?
If you've got a stone to pick or a bone to throw,
if I am your target,
forgive me.
We can not keep pretending that this problem starts
somewhere else with some other worldly belief system
that we can not possibly understand, when this house
is not clean—these walls, these windows are stained
with a history we have been slow to correct.
This house, Frankie, this skin, Francis,
these walls, this body is not clean.
After years of learning to be ashamed of myself
the words “I’m gay" still get stuck in my throat
as if the g is a fishhook and I am being reeled in
to believing that I can swallow the truth.
This body, raised in The United States of America
knows without question that pride is temperamental,
pain is forever.
The way we gays feel an uprising
in our heels every time we stand
in our skin like a stained glass window.
The way a stained glass window
is only pretty from one side.
At a certain time of day.
The way we have to wonder
where people are standing
when they look at us.
The way some of us
have to beg just to be seen
in the light.
The way the sun will shine through
until it burns you
until it bleaches out the vibrance
of everything it touches.
Look at me
from outside the church
it can be difficult
to see the beauty of all the windows.
In this metaphor the church can be anything
but it's probably a man
trying to see outside of himself
where inside I feel
like an anthology of unanswered prayers.
Where outside I have this pale skin
and this last name
and the taste of blood on my tongue,
corrosive, licking my own wounds.
If the colors of a rainbow really got along,
we would see a pitch black nebulous painting
or an ivory white glowing light.
We could look directly into either
and find god. God, forgive me.
I can only think about the men I have kissed
and wonder if each kiss was worth
the _ lives it might cost.
I can only think of the hands I have held
and wonder
and wonder
and cry
until the room spins
until the closet turns open
toward all the furniture in the room,
looks to all the windows,
finds the nearest exit,
says nothing of its hangers.
Says, have you seen how much I've been holding onto?
For some of us the closet is the shape of a dance floor
or the size of casket
where it keeps us straight
jacket
tied
to our
own
self
hate
red
so blinding
it doubles
as the truth
reaching out to the peripheral tips of our eyesight
where we are colorblind and waiting for the rain
to cleanse this room—
this house knows too well that it hurts not to be honest
when the honesty inhabits you derogatory like someone
whispering through the best parts of a good film with no score.
Forgive me,
this body has been mistaken for a game of hide and seek
but from now on, I promise, all the closets are off limits.
07/02/2016