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