Giver of Light

Our history stains us.

Taints us. Reigns us

in, and reigns over us.

The classrooms are coded, screens night-mode-ed

Blue and red and black and white on every side a firefight and who am I

To try. To breathe. Becase we live- no. We survive in a world

The claws to crawl up the backs of others- of children with no mothers,

like me. Like you, maybe.

In a world that shines spotlights, when in reality, it’s not bright,

Just back lights, silhouettes saying he, she, they didn’t act right

It’s shadows. Is that right? Strangers telling my time, my life, I can’t shine?

But it’s my pride. It’s the tide’s time. But who do I provide

Truth for, in a world war over—

it’s never over.

Then I look at my name.

The candle’s burning, that’s me, Elena.

The no-namer no-brainer with no brain

But are you, like, gay or something?

Hallways meant no way could I say

Yes. When really I didn’t know this. I didn’t know then.

I told myself the lie

I was really something else, if you cut me open

Deep enough on the inside.

And now I look at my name. It’s mine, in ink it’s pressed:

Giver of Light. And it’s been tested by the best

A team of societies and civil unrests scrutinize the puzzle

That sits in my chest, patiently.

But I take their burning torches and the burning beams of their scorn

I am a lesson of a heart to be worn

So read me.

And I will refract.

The sun’s rays of sons’ saying on signs

There’s no place in heaven for my kind. Repent.

Guess again.

From within me pours the blood of rainbows.

Centuries of tears amongst forbidden kisses form the river

that roars around me. Let it rumble.

I keep taking and taking the sparks and the flames

after all: it is my name.

How am I to be a torch for others if I do not first take it.

So I look at my name,

And I begin.

To paint and draw for the voices unseen,

to fill in the picture for others like me.

To water and bloom, to cultivate a culture, a meadow,

Of every shade, and free.

Free to love. Free to be.

For all the hallways and neigh-sayers and hate-cravers,

I will be there to take the world and its wrath

and break it. Change it.

Let it shatter and scatter. Let those minds be forgiven for their matter.

And let their words all collide, arise, and shine through my eyes

Into a wash, a gradient, that’s kinder.

Let one person’s ignorance be spared from you.

Look at my name.

Let it soak the blows that never show so it can be

a path for others to then glow and see

the sunrises otherwise a dream.

When I am almost beaten on the streets

For holding the hand of my radiant queen,

Let them next time break inside my heart to uncover

my bisexual crime and weep

at the colors taken in

The love, then given,

And at the colors that we bleed.