See me

In the 1950s the US government was facing a war against it's own people.

America figured he was tired of fighting overseas so the ship of it's mouth turned it's cannons onto its own people.

McCarthyism became the new genocide.

However, a lavender orchid overtook the rose petals enveloping the eyes of the American people,

Queerness became synonymous with "Commie Bastard" and in that moment my mother who was not born yet and I a freshly charged gunshot became a chamber of a family tree.

The US government was the perfect place for my parents to plant seeds while the soil of it displaced 5000 queer bodies not 50 years prior to my parents toes touching the west coast.

The headlines became infatuated with stories not of mine but of Russias and Chinas and Vietnams and Koreas and Indias and Pakistans and Germanys and of international mass graves and not homegrown governmental terrorism against those fighting for liberation.

See, the 1950s feels like a perfect place for my churning pot belly to rebecome a field of daffodils for my 5 year old self to play in. The time before the radical in me sprang out of the hollow hall of my chest onto my phone screen to join a movement.

This queer body has to ask. What about my love is so radical that it has to have bills passed into laws for it to be validated? Why does it have to be painted as crazed when all it wants are equal rights?

This queer body feels like it has a scarlet letter  imprinted onto itself, an indication for the unwinding of it's runaway sylables yelling "fuck the police" yelling "stopasianhate" yelling "black lives matter" yelling "free palestine" yelling "protect trans kids" yelling "protect queer kids" yelling "protect me" protect the only part of me which actually has the capability to redeclare a corpse's unresolved tongue.

20 year old me saw one of your people say, “ Welcome to Joe Biden's America! Now I thought when radical leftist Joseph Robinette Biden was appointed President my days of hunting the gays were over, but boy oh boy was I wrong! Remember y’all, nothing will fundamentally change!”

People like that make me feel the canvas of me never faced brushstrokes ingrained with "crazytalk" because I ain't crazy for wanting liberation or rights or a country void of oppression or love. I am not crazy for wanting to be more than chains.

See the 1950s was never meant for men who love other men.

BUT AMERICA, your chains can't hold me.

Shackle of the mind becomes a wrecking ball swinging for your prisons, becomes a swift summer sun ready to melt away the presidency. America you are built on so much hatred for the radical in me making love to gay man and for once I am tired of all of your unwarrented outrage.

When will I be allowed to sleep, America?

When will this lavender boy rejoin his rainbow splattered ancestors slick with honey and blood and sweat and sparkles and joy and pain and love?

How long America?

This war has been going on for so long.

So I say, your move.