Voice of Consciousness

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 rin...

I lived in Florida for four years as an undergraduate at the University of Florida, from August 2001 until July 2005. Pulse was barely celebrating its 1 year anniversary when I left Florida; I never went. But, I partied in Orlando’s black gay and lesbian clubs many of times. Finding them in the pre-Facebook era was difficult, a task only for the most dedicated and the most desperate. Pride month was especially special for us because there were pop-up parties all over any city. It was queer folks' time to celebrate, to dance, connect, and hopefully meet that special someone (or, at least, someone to play with). As a wandering poet and an organizer with the Pride Community Center of North Central Florida and for my own personal gain, I regularly went to Prides in Jacksonville and Tallahassee, and I attended Pride and Black Pride in Orlando at least once. To say the least, in my college years, I was a club "head" to the fullest. I spent 2-3 nights a week in a club, somew...