[morning pages on LGBTQGNCTS love] letter to my brown outs (draft 1.65).

this is for matea who dances the bomba
with hands that crest moonhips

and kisses harder than she loves herself.
every trans, genderqueer, futchie, fairy, AG,
anything with roots arches toward her, their arms like petals
soaking up her light.

and this is for hard ass krystal who doesn’t want anything
to do with brasso or that jrotc uniform, but just
wants 3 meals a day for his brother
and a brand new binder for his chest.

for Javi who takes his tequila quick.

for aqua starr black.
because they had the bravery to re-name
themselves: aqua. starr. black.
sometimes you just gotta call out your power
cuz no one else is gonna do it for you.

maria is a dancer clasping onto hardwood by the heels
but serves our coffee at the diner always w/ a smile.

she’s pissed off cuz her wife cannot afford to go to the hospital.
although, you can’t see it her heart breaks
because no papers or government can explain how
this person in the bed makes her laugh
like a gutteral fool.

for JP who draws sketches sneaking them in your purse.

for Celi whose calibur demands that
the very least of her lovers have the following traits:
dexterity, initiative, and someone who can put it down.

for jessie whose gotta worry about people respecting her pronouns
and about finding a place to sleep and yet, doesn’t hesitate to
remind you that she loves you.

for every son shaped in bullets, your heart as compact as
a trigger, your voice a sharp wind song that wants to lay a forehead
down on the chest of your boyfriend.

let your letters survive the wars, jail cells,
let the meter of your words swoon your lover back to the bed,
as you take turns turning off the alarm on the nightstand with
your toes, elbows, orgasms, and  in between kisses.

for that lonely Korean guy Jake who found me in a group of
500 white people in the frenzy of the Sugar Club in Dublin, Ireland.
I make due, he said. & we can still see him shrugging in the strobe lights,
hungry for somewhere else. 

this is for you this afternoon, spring cleaning your blues away,
maybe in your favorite t-shirt, maybe you called in sick,
maybe missing your family back home, maybe your voice is hoarse
from asking strangers for food, maybe you lost a lover or
are losing yourself, lost in the whimsy of musical notes.
the rhythms can consume the sadness, if you let it.

for my dear sarwat who sat on a hill, held up the sun,
looking at all the fiiiine womyn and queers of color
and said without saying,
mm mmm I deserve this.

for español, pangalatog, patois, pidgeon, mandarin
love poems you write.

for those babydykes and trans youth
who sprout out from the neighborhoods
described to tourists as, don’t go there. its dangerous. 
rolling up their windows from our existence.

for you who fights for our rights,
for you who laughs too loud,
for you who eats too much,
for you who twists wrists by paintbrush,
for you who will not let your spirit pass up a sunset or a protest
even when you think you deserve less sometimes.

for you
because there’s a brown out right now
and by that I mean there is no electricity,
which means life is crashing and pouring down

and by that I mean I am lonely,

which really means
that we are brown and queer and out
and we’ve been told too many times that all of those
cannot belong all at once. that based on those odds,
we equal death.

for you / for us / for we
because without explanation, we exist
and you, you like all of our ancestors before,
you live it so fiercely that even when injustice sets in,

this rumbling sky houses your breath and
that is better than any survival story,
that, that is joy being born.

—————-

kaybarrett.net