Still, We Come

My brother is a stranger to me

until he is home again

jaw first, then the way

he stands against a wall

deciding.

🌈

I have loved men

the way drought loves rain

without grace,

without mercy,

without end.

🌈

There is a boy who finds

his own beauty

only late at night

only alone

only when no one

is keeping score.

🌈

That finding is everything.

🌈

You ask what we want.

I want to eat a meal

and say nothing to the table.

I want my mother's mouth

to form around my life

and stay.

🌈

We made words for ourselves

in the dark,

on scraps,

in code,

passed hand to hand

like water in a dry season.

🌈

We have buried so many

who only wanted

to grow old and difficult,

to embarrass their grandchildren,

to forget where they left

their keys.

🌈

That is the inheritance we carry.

Their interrupted ordinary.

🌈

Silence never protected anyone.

I know because I swallowed it

for years

and grew sick on the saving.

So I spoke.

To no one.

To myself first,

which is where

all true things begin.

🌈

And still, we come to this,

a man reaching for another man's face

on a street that has seen worse.

A body refusing

the only two choices given

and making a third.

A soul stepping forward

into its own true name.

🌈

This is the day.

This is survival so practiced

it starts to look like living.

And some days

it is.