Page 13 - FMH9

a love letter to the departed// when everyone everywhere has endless
reasons to want to die:
suicide is an ultimate in self determination,
simultaneously occupies a void of agency;
i’m sorry this world didn’t deserve you.
i will use the tools, the space, the wreckage you left behind;
to build a home for our descendants.
i’m sorry that leaving was more appealing than staying.
i wish i could follow. i’m still mad.
i’m mad as condos rise our lifetimes shrink;
the lifetimes of queer and trans people of color recede as the rich
thrive.
i pledge allegiance to old age;
our lack of role models or examples of aging
queer and trans black and brown elders nest
the hopelessness of “i never thought i’d be this old”
and “i can’t imagine life past twenty five.”
i will rise from my sorrow on the wings of the angels
that took their own lives.
i will march into the future and beckon others to follow.
i carry a baseball bat with my head held high;
lord have mercy on those agents of the state,
those social orders,
those systems of violence,
those craigslist johns and truck stop death threats,
for i have none.
i stiffen my body and fall back,
as i learned as a child in the pit,
so that there might be more space for others to breathe,
to dance or to stand, without violence closing in.
i stiffen my body and fall back,
as i did as a child,
against skin heads, groping hands,
against cops and onto knives,
so that we might have space to see the sun.
i stiffen my body and fall back,
to open the pit,
so that from the stars where you sit,
you might see in the life that was too painful to stay,
you live on.