Pulse: stories
Last Monday, I was wrapped in grief. I still am. That evening I went to Making Space: A Community Writing Group for Activists, Healers, and Everyday Heroes at Charis Books and More at the encouraging of a dear friend of mine. After doing a free write on my feelings surrounded the naming of the victims, I elected to go deeper, motivated the following quote by John Hodgman that was given to the entire group. For once stories were not a comfort.
ii. stories
“Stories make sense when so much around us is senseless, and perhaps what makes them most comforting is that while life goes on and pain goes on, stories do us the favor of ending.”
— John Hodgman
if stories do us the favor of ending,
i must be the storyless
because this hurt has no end
Alejandro
Tevin
Luis
will live
forever
in my mind,
bodies burning bright
in the Florida nightclub air
i can still smell
the smoke of the gun
i can still hear
the ring of the shot
i can still see
the bodies falling,
like dominoes,
puppets in a storyless game
i can still touch
her hips
KJ
Deonka
Mercedes
i can still sense
you
here
these gunshots never end
whether its Florida
or LA
yes,
they found an armed man there
a car full of explosives
and guns,
headed to LA Pride
as long as we have Pride,
our narratives will not have periods,
just commas,
floating
from page to page,
marking every queer body
that falls by the waste side of hate
Brenda
Akyra
Yilmary
i stopped counting
the gender non-confirming bodies
we have laid to rest
in 2016
and, they say,
don’t worry,
it will end
but we are not stories
we are the black,
brown,
yellow,
red,
blue of ellipses,
Gilberto
Jason
Enrique
trailing into the night,
reminding us of this,
our story,
caught in a barrel of
hate,
has not ended
in this america,
we are the story
that never ends
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