#lgbt poetry

Do I just spill my fucking guts?
I’m only good at either complete subtlety
Or wearing my heart like a tattoo sleeve

Maybe I’ll go be naked on stage
Then go into witness protection
And never be heard from again 

You have quite a funny way of expressing adoration
Or maybe I’m just imagining things
Bored and lonely with nothing better to do
Than pine for your adoration!

I love the way they exist.
They have chaos in their mind but
they’re vibrant in their soul.

They are as powerful as a forest fire!
They think that they destroy everything in their path
But really, they are creating a new path
Creating a new path…
They are the strongest person I know.

She grounded my chaos
Saw the storm and said 
“I am not afraid!”

Told her that it might suck her in
She said “I won’t let it.”

Was worried she’d try to tame it
Instead, she grabbed my hand
She held it as we watched the storm go by 

“You are not alone in this.”

Whenever something good happens, 
I wanna tell you!
Whenever I feel blue, I wanna tell you!
Spill my guts
Meanwhile, I don’t let anyone else know I have organs 

Queer love is
taking all of
the wishes
that were written
out for you
in baby books,
on birth certificates,
sewn into the
pink and blue
of baby blankets
and pulling the string
to watch them come

a   p   a   r  t,

and trying to catch
whatever threads
fall into your hands
to knit a pocket
to keep your heart
inside.

Queer love is
held in palms,
prayers slipping
between church pews
staring down the eyes
of Jesus on the cross
wishing not to be
the shape that
his father
made you into
that his priests
call damned just so
they can ignore
holiness that he
instilled.

Queer love is
learning how to
keep a secret,
how to be a secret,
how scratches in paint
in bathroom stalls
and confessionals
inside of bedroom walls
are rushed with
fingers pressed to
lips begging to caress,
seething to speak
no longer to the
ear of the night but
fearing the face of
the sun and the way
that its rays
would bleach you
to your bones.

Queer love is
coming out like
a torch to a pyre;
like a Viking funeral
marching precession
to setting yourself
ablaze,
pushing yourself
off a coastline
burning through
the hull of your
heaving chest
waiting to capsize
and be swallowed
and doused
and be whole
in the ocean.

Queer love is
not having to
explain the
overlapping scars
between your lover’s
pressed body,
not needing
drag out history
and trace these
lines like maps
on your skin
to draw the hands
that formed them
because you’re both
covered in the same
fingerprints.

Queer love is
knowing
and having been known,
a truth so indelible
that your mouth
is a permanent marker
and it only redacts
the lies you’ve told
to keep yourself
still written in the
classified pages
of your own
double agent
life.

Queer love is
in how she holds me.
It’s in the gaps
she’s found in
my lines,
in my past,
in the ocean.

Queer love is
the light of day,
it’s a pinkie promise
and an answer to
a prayer.

It’s the pocket
I keep my
heart inside
that makes me born
again.

Let Me Join You, Fellow Bisexual {Poem}

Let me join you, for there is no comfort in walking alone.

Far behind is an alley made of stolen stones.

We built this path of our own and refused to pick a side,

But ridicule follows and strips us of our pride.

We are not gay or straight enough for either community.

The home we had has become an oppression pageantry.

Let me join you, for there is no support in fighting alone.

We weep and scream for the sooth to be known.

Call it panphobia but I am not afraid of all things,

Nor of their deception, though it may sting.

For the sake of the activists who paved this road,

We must march on and demand truth be told.

Let me join you, for there is no pressure in resisting alone.

Only in unity is this community able to grow.

Those at Stonewall did not submit to the police,

So we will not yield in the name of silencing peace.

Nor will we make war with those of us led astray,

For this road has too many bricks to all be carried away.

Let me join you, for there is no comfort in walking alone.

These well-traveled bricks will found a home,

So we never need be on our own.

— Riley Idalia Lord

The Battle of Seattle - Issue #2 by me

a mayfly hatched at night