QUEER QUOTES

A beautiful piece of art work in the form of a Poem

@dawnpoems

The Basement of the Symonds St Chapel is On Fire (and Covered in Drag Glitter)

I want to write a poem about queer love

the way my body collapses in on itself

becomes a prayer when she looks up at me

I do not want to write a poem about shame,

I do not want to write a poem about shame,

I do not want to write a poem about shame,

and somehow, I keep writing poems about shame,

I do not want to write a poem about sitting on

blue hands, in church pews, while warm-bodied

motherly figures brand me sin, shame,

serpent child, hellbound harlot, damned and dirty,

it is so hard to put into words how it feels

to be queer in a sacred place, how my body

is a flare that rips through the church attic,

is a burning thing I can so easily hide,

these hands rotting apples, spoiled soil

beneath fingernails cut short, a forbidden

corner, a genesis garden, a chapel, a quiet,

whispering thing, the walls of this church body

a skeletal heart thumping, lungs breathing in and

out and expanding and alive and still and a whisper

and my love is a steeple, is a quiet church on a hillside,

is a choir yelling loud, is a celebration, is a song,

is a poem, is a hymn, is a rosary. how it feels that

my body does not belong in the beautiful places

but I have never felt like I don't belong in beautiful

places and how if there is a god, she whispers through

my gasping, beating, holy body as I hold my partner's

palms in mine and kiss her freckled nose

I never tried to write about being queer, because I would

always end up writing about shame and holy sacrilegious

sin and burning church basements and priest's purple robes

and I really do not want to write another poem about shame

I want to write a poem about the first time she lay me

communion, one community swapped out for another

soggy paper wafer became kissing my friends on the lips,

wine stayed wine but a little less guilty. how I loved the

sacred routine, ritual of cross and wafer and wine, the quiet

of the big, old, carved up churches, how they told me so

many times; you are loved, you are loved, you are loved

as long as you do not love, as long as you do not love her

(what they really mean is) you are loved, you are loved,

you are loved, as long as you do not exist, as long as you

erase yourself, let your body become a blaze that eats itself up,

leaves nothing but charred ash in its place, smudged on

sweaty queer foreheads and fumbling fingers

if shame is an ocean we are all drowning in it

if shame is an ocean I want to split the red sea

and walk over it, I want to sit on the pier with a

long-haired man in a dress and talk about love

and talk about love and talk about love

and I would try to wash my hands clean in the dark

fountain at night and he would place my hands in his

and call them clean, say they could learn something

from us queers about loving,

and my love is a quiet church on a hillside

with a dark sky and a bright green grass,

one clementine star above and a crow that

sits on a fence nearby, singing a single song

into the night

Instagram - @dawnpoems