AUTHOR’S NOTE: The attack on Orlando’s Pulse nightclub on June 12, 2016, was the deadliest incidence of violence against the LGBT community since the UpStairs Lounge arson attack of 1973. In the aftermath, I vented all of my frustrations with our political climate as Congress refused to conduct an actual debate on gun reform. As I mentioned in a now, eerily prophetic article 48 hours ahead of the election results, also for Huffington Post: “I watched what very well could have been the aftermath of my own death play out on television screens.”
I wrote the poem below mere days after the attack. I wanted to give a voice to anyone who didn’t know how to articulate their suffering. I shared it, and received messages of love and encouragement. Likes. Facebook shares. Several of these people, who’ve claimed to be among staunchest supporters voted for Donald Trump. This poem was an appeal for listeners. Now it is an indictment. It is very much both.
As of this writing, the president-elect has appointed Ken Blackwell, the former secretary of state of Ohio, and current senior fellow of the Family Research Council, an officially designated anti-LGBT hate group, to his transition team. Blackwell will draft the “First 100 Days” of domestic policy under Trump’s leadership.
THINGS I HAVE BATTLED MY ENTIRE LIFE
your erasure
my self loathing
your attacks on my autonomy
the politicization of my entire life as a gay man as a common conservative talking point
the depoliticization of my eventual death as a gay man as a common conservative talking point
the stress of having to assess a room with the accuracy of a celebrated statistician before kissing someone or holding their hand
your unrealistic beauty standards
your fragile masculinity
your threatened femininity
the way both of these rot inside us like cancer
the way my people hurt each other
the destruction of my safe spaces
your ban on books, movies, art, anything by anyone who understands me so your children can understand you
your insistence that I understand
my horror when I do
the way I learned to put all of my dreams into a box until it was full
my doubt
your prayers
your God
-your reasons
your convoluted analogies
my mind, struggling so very hard not to believe you
your street harassment
the way I watch what I wear, how I act, how I talk, the way I think, the way I walk
the way I self-edit my conversations
your hazings.
your fear-mongering.
your hate speech.
your taunts.
your jeers.
your stares.
your suspicions.
your judgements.
my judgements.
my indecision.
your pleas that I "think of the children."
the absurd things you teach your children.
the absurd things I tell myself.
your son, who sees two men sitting together on a park bench and calls them both "faggots," when he's probably no more than five or six.
the policing of my body, attempts to legislate the sex I have.
the delegitimization of ANY love I have the capacity to give.
my fear to acknowledge my capacity to give it.
your indifference in the face of very real prejudice and violence.
my feeling that nothing I do will ever be enough.
your killings.
your beatings.
your rapes.
my memories.
my trauma.
your reduction of my trauma to casual drama.
your private messages.
your soundbites.
your tweets.
the feeling I can never be out in the streets.
your hate mail.
your gossip.
your rumors.
and, ironically, your silence.