When the first responders entered the Pulse Nightclub
After the massacre in Orlando
They walked through the horrific scene of bodies and called out
"If you are alive, raise your hand."
I was sleeping in a hotel in the Midwest at the time
But I imagine in that exact moment, my hand twitched in my sleep
Some unconscious part of me aware that I had a pulse, that I was alive
The next day, I woke to the news that an assault rifle had fired
202 bullets through a gay bar, on Latin Night
In one of the worst massacres in US history
A massacre of people
Who did not leave the dance floor when they heard gunshots
Because they thought they were just the beats of a song
Everyone around me spent that day grieving and
Every tear was someone's dance sweat, drying in the morgue
Later that night, I was on stage
Performing for an audience that had spent two hours in line
Waiting to get to the metal detectors
I couldn't keep my hand from covering my heart
I kept scouring the club for the fastest route to every exit
I knew the person working security was in a text war
And wasn't keeping his eyes on the door
I knew there was a man in the fifth row
Picking at the seams of his duffel bag
Every few seconds, I'd eye the balcony
For the glint of whatever might aim
To tear the bodies off of the spirits of the boys holding hands
Or the girls with their hair cut short as my temper
When rage is a decibal I can actually get to
When I not just grieve sick and ruined
Watching history not be history, watching the music not be music
Knowing someone having the best night of her whole life said
"This is my favorite song."
And then a rifle lifted over a bathroom stall and emptied
A magazine into the kidneys of a grown man texting
"Mommy, I'm gonna die."
His hand prints in blood on the walls
Reaching for people dying in the fetal position
People covered in their friend's blood
Sobbing too hard to hide from their own deaths
While people outside pushed bandannas into bullet wounds
It's true, what they say about the gays being so fashionable
Their ghosts, they never go out of style
Even life, it's like funeral practice
Half of us already dead to our families before we die
Half of us on our knees trying to crawl
Into the family photo that night
On stage I kept remembering being fifteen at Disneyland
Wearing my best friend's hoodie like it was my boyfriend's class ring
How many years it took me to just touch her face
How many years I spent praying my heart could play dead
Till the threat was gone, till the world changed
Till history was history, but history
It just keeps coming for the high
Keeps shooting up bodies
Keeps drumming up reasons to have metal detectors at
Poetry readings where the poems
They're just unanswered calls
To people who claim their God
Or their apathy, is unwilling to accept the charges
Dear God, how broke do you have to be, to not buy people time
To get out the door when the song goes to fucking hell
When this world drunk on hate
Decides blood is wine and drinks its fill
In the only place they ever thought was safe
In the only place they thought they did not have to hide
In the only place they were wanted because
Because of who they loved and how they loved and how they loved
Till someone walked through their bodies and asked who was still alive
And hardly anyone put their hand up