Oct 2019
A Word About Coming Out

So it's National Coming Out day.
A moment to get it off your chest and say
that you're transgender, bisexual, lesbian or gay.
A lot of my friends I know feel this way.

I have brothers and sisters within Church walls
who feel this way too, but are terrifed to be called
any of these labels, lest they lose their home
and get stripped of everything they've ever known

their desires are talked about like these diseases
creases on their soul for which they could never atone
or iron out with good behavior
or the most devout times of prayer

I think of this, and my heart breaks for you
because I admit, I've been there too
wanting for things I'm afraid to say
because of the way that I could be shamed

I’m not so sure about using a label
to define an experience so unstable
yet I can't help at times but be distracted
by the reality that I'm same-*** attracted

The church, I think, is too afraid
to face the fact that there are many who feel the same
we shame these desires from a distance,
talking like it's us VS them, as if that ecplises
the fact that this can happen to any of us

can we trust that Jesus is not afraid of this?
That his body is meant to be a safe haven
not a place where anyone fears being hated
for things they have no idea how how to change
as if anyone had a clue in the first place

There’s been too many to suffer in silence
Too many have succumbed to violence
Because of feelings they never asked to feel
and pain we don’t seem to think is real

I know what the Bible says, and I know it’s true
but Jesus never beat someone with it like we seem to
he calls us to repentance, but we act like we don’t need to
Yet our sin of silently allowing this abuse is something that made Christ bleed too.

So can we have a conversation, no debate
that we speak the truth in love, not hate
That we come forward with open arms
Repenting of our silent harm

Brother, sister, I’m so so sorry
That I wouldn’t have raised up an army
to fight for your right to exist with me
because my own secrets kept me hiding

So I’m deciding here and now
to let you know you’re loved, somehow
and I pray before life’s final breath
I can know Christ’s love stood the test.

20000 miles and all the wonders of the world behind you,  ahead the sparkle of love and tears in the eyes of those that have missed you most.

Another anniversary

Of my coming into this world.

Thoughts of the road I’ve traveled

Where I have yet to roam

Fill my heart with a song unfurled.

Sounding not just the cheers of my survival of life

However, the need to conquer the emptiness of lacking others you need

Successes you seek

And needed support to be given there.

It’s a weight in which we carry but warnings we never heed

To the usage of time

Past and present

I celebrate not just this anniversary of my coming into this world..

I celebrate those who stuck with me

Those we just stood and wished to be part of

The road with me that is life

Twists

Turns

Storms

Sun

Gifts

Hands held strongly onto your comrades

It’s a blessing of a needed mixture

To share

Until growing older

Holding our glasses to cheer our union

When the future brings a wife

Promises

Unseen unless youth

Survival of the harshest of burdens

Relief of the pains of judgement

And growing with life….

Such is a never challenged

Or forgotten truth.

You better practice.
The alacrity with which we crawl is grievous

We aren't laughing.
We're the ******* and you can not deceive us

We remember

We envelope the view of stolen streets
and only speak
to show the fury stoked beneath the yoke
and only speak until we don't

We know that it's enough.
We know that's all it takes.
To only speak.

For us to say that you are weak
and you rely on our feet
for what's involved in your deceit

That's all it takes for you to falter.
We chew the noose and loosen halter

But once the halter loosens your abuses,
still within the 'blood and soil',
boil over our brims and filter fire out
from within.

We're coming.
Contain us or try.
It won't matter.
We know the saints and the lies,
and you'll get fatter.
And you'll be food for the flies
and we won't choose to abide;
to let the bruises subside.
We're unhinged in every way we know can chew you inside.
It won't be talking.

We know that it's enough to scare you
But your fear won't be enough to spare you.

I tell myself that I’ll one day,
Have everything I’ve always wanted
And more.
But as life passes and my time on Earth
Grows shorter and shorter.
And my struggles only seem to get harder
And more trivial at the same time,
I wonder if it’s even worth losing my hair or if I have invested enough, or even at all.

Before it occurred to me to break things—

Before, when purity was paramount to *** and
Words and duty and the drink—

Before, when academics wagged from ivory
Thrones to never mime the masters—

To be content with being only me—

To sit in wood and ruminate upon the thoughts of
White men, drunk and dead—

To raise revision for our mankind
In merely muted measures—

To be right-handed rogue, forever plying “please”—

Why then—then—

I was Halfman in a wholeman’s body,
A fish without its gills—

A flapping Fop of scaling incongruities
With gurgled protestations seldom bubbled up—

A wily Portraiter, blinded since his birth—

An agnostic Abbott soaking up a season’s sins
Outside of habit and the church—

A boisterous Beat, a bouncing drum, and gongs
With two left feet—

A Farmer without a *** or seed or farm
Or Nature much in mind.

But, my curious greenhorns on the other
Side of life, don’t heed that—no! no!

You’re free; the world is completely broken now.