Because…
You are sent to share a word, a song, balm, an anthem, a queer call for revolution…
Because…
You are the light of the world.
Because…
A trans light
cannot be hidden.
Because…
We lit.
Because…
We have always been lit.
Because…
We are the utility company.
Have always been of value.
Have always been of service.
Have always had a function.
Have always been a source.
Have always been an oil.
Have always been a lamp.
Because…
Queerness has always been a turn on.
Queerness has always been
just a cord pull away from the
Light bulb-going-off-moment.
One cord pull away
From understanding that queerness
Does not mean we are in a love shortage
One cord pull away
From dispelling once and for all that,
“we are a waste of time and energy”
Because…
Being gay is not what we always lead with,
but it is also not a requirement that we follow with it either.
Because…
We have been taught to believe
that we have been left in the dark
And there is no way out.
And Because Beloved…
It is a lie,
And the system that uses
our creative, erotic, political,
and healing powers---
Coopts, appropriates, and repackages it---
Through capitalism, through patriarchy,
through white supremacy,
Through biblical and religious violence---
And then erases from it,
us---?
The system that waits years
to respond to HIV, AIDS and Cancer,
See us sicken and die---
Then price gauges medicines and advances
For the living---
That system---
is not a guiding light,
It is a lie.
The system that creates
And intubates
Homophobia,
Transphobia,
Racism,
Misogyny,
And Ableism,
Are blocking
the one true illuminating
Fact of the universe---
That we are love.
Have always been loved.
Will always be loved.
Because…
It will take us all,
all of us,
Coming back into that understanding that
“we are whole and glitter-ing-ly made.”
It will take all of us,
Understanding that our history of
Transforming the darkest times,
Into acts of art, and faith, and resilience,
Are needed now,
Are of service now.
Because…
It Means that we have always been beacons
And always been lighthouses to one another!
Because…
It will take all of us
To remember
Our “Carry On!”
And our ability to celebrate
through restrictive laws,
through “overturning’s,”
through reversals,
and through appeals.
Because…
We have always had our hands on our switch
Always been a turn on
Because…
we have always kept the party going.
Even when the dancefloors of the Pendulum,
Cables Reef, and the Bella Napoli,
were cleared out of the queerest
and bestest and brightest of us.
Because…
we have always declared that a dance floor
Is an altar,
And an altar is a bar,
And a bar is a church,
And a church
Is a dance floor.
Because…
We are laser light
In The darkest hour,
We are light bulb going off moment,
In The darkest club,
We are the stars lighting up the sky,
In the darkest night,
And today,
We are equipped to lead this world
Out of its careening course
Towards the culture ending cliff,
That it is on.
We can bring this world out…
Out into the break.
Out into the new dawn.
Out into the flipped script and switch.
Where we allow
everything we have saved up:
our love, our genius, our innovation,
Our advance, our iteration,
All of our traditional
And non-traditional gifts,
And we finally decide to
Let them take root.
We finally decide
That the dark is not the place of relegation,
But it is where we have gone deep
Where we have gone
And pulled into our selves,
All that we need to empower ourselves
To be the generators of ourselves,
The reactors of ourselves,
The fusion of ourselves,
To spring forth and fully and wholly bloom
Into the world.
So that one day,
Future generations of LGBTQ,
Will know that we were here,
Have always been here,
Because…
WE
LEFT
THE
LIGHT
ON
FOR
THEM.
