A Poem for the Loving/Living – Inspired by Qwo-li Driskill

A Poem for the Loving Living
Inspired by Qwo-li Driskill

Here’s to all the shady queens and bull dykes
The radical faeries and radical theorists,
The queer and now,
To the past, present, and future of queer history theory lives

Give us our flowers while we are still here, instead of the thorns
Drawing scarlet blood from wounds not deep enough to prick,
But deep enough to scar.

We put on our lipstick, red, like war paint, and dance to the cries of change.
“It’s not my revolution if I can’t dance” and oh, the battle cries are singing
songs of melancholy joy,
echoing.
A whisper in the wind reverberates

“Never again”
Never again
Never again… until the next time

And then it’s a shame
A tragedy, they died too soon
As the crocodile tears roll down
the faces of those who pushed them off the bridge into the Hudson,
the real mourning goes on
behind the scenes.

The performance isn’t a show, but a life
lost to the cruel powers that be.
It hurts, searing like a knife,
stabbing the scab half healed,
breaking open old wounds and killing hope

Yet, change is brewing,
Strong enough to break the walls of their stoney hearts.

We remain.
We will remember.
We will mourn.
We will laugh.
We will love.
We will live,
in spite of and to spite those who want us dead.

Published by

Emrys

An Ember in the Wind - They/Them or Fae/Faer pronouns - Here, Queer, and my Joint Pain is Moderate to Severe - :)