Straight as a Wall

My History book calls it The Gay Liberation Movement

An entire 4 sentences

Wedged between a paragraph on the Students for Democracy

And a fat page on Woodstock

My dad can tell you he was getting his masters

studying charts, configuring numbers

My mom was prom queen

painted nails, the captain of the drill team 

But no one will tell you an entire culture

Marginalized and stretched

Who snapped and stood up

Refused to sit down

Started to walk 

Started to run 

My sister learned about Dr. King

She can home with a handout

And a one page writing assignment

No one told her about the people

clasping each others shaking wrists

sweaty palms

the men beaten

the women kicked

the people shushed

the bricks thrown

the fires set ablaze 

so that I could love

so that I could walk

so that I could speak

no one asks 

and no one tells

the story of the movement

the people brushed under the carpet

the stories brushed under the carpet 

I will not be brushed under the carpet

into the closet

I refuse

I will ask

I will speak

And I will tell