"But why don't we have straight pride?"
"I don't mind them really, I'd just rather they didn't shove it down my throat".
"Did you see those lesbians holding hands?"
"Do you have a boyfriend?"

These moments are usually filled with silence. The room is suddenly so quiet, that I can almost hear my fear in the key holes, tucked away inside draws, behind laws, In the space between us.

I sit there and I swallow my pride. I swallow the thoughts of years of coming to terms with who I was and kissing boys to try and feel the way I was supposed to. I swallow walking down streets and staring at strangers, trying to figure out who I found the most attractive. I swallow every time I used to think to myself "It's not real. I'm making it all up. I'm not gay". I swallow the first time I said it out loud. I swallow the first time I was proud. I swallow the way I traced her freckles softly in the sunlight. I swallow the fights with my father and the tears behind closed doors. I swallow the stares in public and the glares and hushed whispers that stayed with me for days. I swallow every time someone would say "but you don't look gay". I swallow being told I can't take a joke. I swallow teachers talking about "homosexuals" as if there were none sitting in the room before them. I swallow being myself. I swallow the very essence of who I am. I swallow loving who I am. I swallow reclaiming the word lesbian, the word that used to sound like a slur. Like a ***** piece of language that only lived in **** videos and his wastepaper bin. I swallow falling in love with women. I swallow each time I stared at my body, and didn't recognise myself. I swallow all the shame in the world. I swallow my pride.

But then fifty voices are swallowed. One hundred loving hands. Two thousand threckles. 20 different countries. 1 million breaths. Fifty hearts whose beats echoed in pride.

And suddenly, I stop swallowing, and start living. For they can take our lives, but they will not take our pride.

A song in a cornfield
  Where corn begins to fall,
Where reapers are reaping,
  Reaping one, reaping all.
Sing pretty Lettice,
  Sing Rachel, sing May;
Only Marian cannot sing
  While her sweetheart's away.

Where is he gone to
  And why does he stay?
He came across the green sea
  But for a day,
Across the deep green sea
  To help with the hay.
His hair was curly yellow
  And his eyes were gray,
He laughed a merry laugh
  And said a sweet say.
Where is he gone to
  That he comes not home?
To-day or to-morrow
  He surely will come.
Let him haste to joy
  Lest he lag for sorrow,
For one weeps to-day
  Who'll not weep to-morrow:

To-day she must weep
  For gnawing sorrow,
To-night she may sleep
  And not wake to-morrow.

May sang with Rachel
  In the waxing warm weather,
Lettice sang with them,
  They sang all together:--

"Take the wheat in your arm
  Whilst day is broad above,
Take the wheat to your *****,
  But not a false false love.
  Out in the fields
    Summer heat gloweth,
  Out in the fields
    Summer wind bloweth,
  Out in the fields
    Summer friend showeth,
  Out in the fields
    Summer wheat groweth:
But in the winter
  When summer heat is dead
And summer wind has veered
  And summer friend has fled,
Only summer wheat remaineth,
  White cakes and bread.
Take the wheat, clasp the wheat
  That's food for maid and dove;
    Take the wheat to your *****,
      But not a false false love."

A silence of full noontide heat
  Grew on them at their toil:
The farmer's dog woke up from sleep,
  The green snake hid her coil
Where grass stood thickest; bird and beast
  Sought shadows as they could,
The reaping men and women paused
  And sat down where they stood;
They ate and drank and were refreshed,
  For rest from toil is good.

While the reapers took their ease,
  Their sickles lying by,
Rachel sang a second strain,
  And singing seemed to sigh:--

    "There goes the swallow,--
    Could we but follow!
      Hasty swallow stay,
      Point us out the way;
Look back swallow, turn back swallow, stop swallow.

    "There went the swallow,--
    Too late to follow:
      Lost our note of way,
      Lost our chance to-day;
Good by swallow, sunny swallow, wise swallow.

    "After the swallow
    All sweet things follow:
      All things go their way,
      Only we must stay,
Must not follow: good by swallow, good swallow."

Then listless Marian raised her head
  Among the nodding sheaves;
Her voice was sweeter than that voice;
  She sang like one who grieves:
Her voice was sweeter than its wont
  Among the nodding sheaves;
All wondered while they heard her sing
  Like one who hopes and grieves:--

  "Deeper than the hail can smite,
  Deeper than the frost can bite,
  Deep asleep through day and night,
    Our delight.

  "Now thy sleep no pang can break,
  No to-morrow bid thee wake,
  Not our sobs who sit and ache
    For thy sake.

  "Is it dark or light below?
  O, but is it cold like snow?
  Dost thou feel the green things grow
    Fast or slow?

  "Is it warm or cold beneath,
  O, but is it cold like death?
  Cold like death, without a breath,
    Cold like death?"

  If he comes to-day
    He will find her weeping;
  If he comes to-morrow
    He will find her sleeping;
  If he comes the next day
    He'll not find her at all,
  He may tear his curling hair,
    Beat his breast and call.

'. . . SWALLOW SWALLOW LITTLE SWALLOW.  .."

Winter melts into Spring
the swallows ignore the War
return...as they always do

It was early morning when she descended the steps
to the porch side, teacup in hand, dressed in her nightgown.
Steam billowed from her cup, and with a swallow
she examined her garden of weeds and unexpected peonies.
It was early for blooming peonies; frost, like glass,
still settled on the lawn, reflecting sunrise light of tangerine.

The radiant glow of tangerine
cast amber trails across steps
covered in an icy coating of glass.
Between her fingers she tucked her nightgown
and gingerly treaded the garden of peonies
that melted the frost in one great flower swallow.

The barn swallow,
perched not far from the path of tangerine,
must have also taken notice of the peonies
as he took the first steps
to nest-building. She imagined that his lady bird, also in her nightgown,
would enjoy the flowerbed of glass

that he chose for their home. Sipping her glass
of tea, she admired the familiar swallow
lover as she folded into her nightgown
bouquets of peonies that glistened in the tangerine
sunlight. She took the steps
back to the house, recalling her own swallow’s peonies:

Peonies
placed in vases of glass,
peonies lining the porch steps,
peonies presented over morning tea. With a swallow,
she carefully, methodically lined the tangerine
trail with the peonies from her nightgown.

Her nightgown,
stained with the rouge petals of peonies,
dragged along the tangerine
terrace of glass,
blood red with the memory of her swallow
lover’s peony-petaled steps.

The steps to the house creaked beneath her nightgown.
The barn swallow, quieted by the rouge of the peonies,
shut his glass eyes to the skies of tangerine.

O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South,
Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves,
And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee.

O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each,
That bright and fierce and fickle is the South,
And dark and true and tender is the North.

O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light
Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill,
And cheep and twitter twenty million loves.

O were I thou that she might take me in,
And lay me on her *****, and her heart
Would rock the snowy cradle till I died.

Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love,
Delaying as the tender ash delays
To clothe herself, when all the woods are green?

O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown:
Say to her, I do but wanton in the South,
But in the North long since my nest is made.

O tell her, brief is life but love is long,
And brief the sun of summer in the North,
And brief the moon of beauty in the South.

O Swallow, flying from the golden woods,
Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine,
And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee.

'. . . SWALLOW SWALLOW LITTLE SWALLOW. .."

Winter melts into Spring
the swallows ignore the War
return...as they always do

He called me 'little swallow'  
Dark kisses like planting seeds, dotting the bumps on my spine.
Breathe sweet with curry promises heat pools on the skin of my neck.
My ******* he holds in the dim light as if they were the most precious fragile china.
Urgency and endlessness twirl as drunken dancers in my stomach.
Infinite and the finite.
Little swallow, he begs. Little swallow.
Traces of invisible letters drawn on his dark skin with such a soft rake of my nails.
He arches his back in a bridge from delight to despair as he digest the pain of lust.
I could trace the map of India on his neck, the constellations on his back.
"Little swallow," a whisper that comes out as a groan.  
"You are flight of swallows, living cloud.
That I could hold you still
a thought in my head
"restless girl with her heart beating fast."
Now he roughly pulls my hair back
and my neck whips with it.
He has my arm in a lock beneath my chest, kissing the side of my neck.
'my little swallow' he entreats in a dry cough of sound
and i trace Calcutta with my feathery tongue.