Through the skimming of a worn out book I found a garden.

Full of welcoming people, full of love.

All like me, all so different,

Recognition and understanding is what they thought of.


Among the blooming flowers, where they talked.

Under the buzzing of the trees, where they joked.

Bonding over what connected them,

their uniqueness among the stars.


I rose to find the garden, reading of our history.

Holding the answers in my hands like lilac skies and green earth.


As I read, the rotten leaves crunched under my feet.

Looking up, no person greeted me,

none were there to be found.


Smoke covered the trees, the silence overwhelming.

There was nothing to breath in, but blood and destruction.


Oh, I soon wished for the silence to wrap itself around me again.

Silence is better than spitting hot hate, when the quiet before the storm is all you can hope for.


They held the torches, standing in front of the still burning flowers.

A meaningless crusade for the innocents, a terror fueled by ignorance.


I am not ashamed for running.

I'm not ashamed until night falls,
until I think of all the souls that followed my path and decided to speak up,

a lost cause weighing them down so they could no longer stand upright.


Through the skimming of my book I found a garden.

Once beautiful and peaceful, now torn to shreds.

Full of welcoming people who had not burned alive,

who had not died.

I didn't see the walls set ablaze.

I didn't watch the doors lock.

I didn't hear the first scream.

I didn't smell the smoke.


I came to the town to find my people.

To bond and joke over what made us
special, unique
The same


I came to the town because I heard that within the kingdom, that's where I'll find the land they, too, had to claim.


Burn scars greeted me,
Silence at the doors.

Bloodied stones littered the streets,
Decaying flowers in their pots.


A gray plank nailed
on a barren door.

A last testimony
from the people who called it home.


Dear wanderer,

We have ran for the hills, we have scattered across the land.

One day we will return,
Demand our freedom and acceptance.

But for now, dear traveler, if you are one of us,
know there are people in the world, know that you're not alone.


I wiped my tears.
I walked away.

At the edge of town I turned around,

From the scorched ground, underneath the healing ancient tree,

a purple flower bloomed on fresh grass.


A promise for a second chance.