June 1, 2021

just remember, folx,
in this epoch of rainbow capitalism
that wearing your Pride is encouraging,
exciting,
exceptional,
try (if you can) to buy queer-made
so that our money funds our community,
and so that the big businesses know
they can’t obfuscate our memories
with shiny color spectrums;
we remember when they funded hate speech against us,
(and we know they have never formally apologized,
just realized they could take our money as well as our humanity
at the same damn time),
and we know the true meaning of Pride
is against the man
against the machine
against the culture of conformity.

our ancestors fought hard fights
for us to live out loud today.
let us honor their memories
by fucking with the system
that holds anyone down.

June 28

our walking tour of the historic sites of stonewall and gay Greenwich Village
was postponed, likely to be canceled, without notice
for a Lady Gaga concert scheduled to begin
in seven and a half hours

and if that isn’t the perfect metaphor
for the commercialization and lost history
of Pride

i don’t know what is.