It’s all over the news
‘The gay community is now liberated
whatever they want, they have
what more could they ask for, to kiss on the street-‘
No, I don’t want to kiss my love on the street,
not now,
not later, when homophobia exists through a backdoor,
when the state stops deciding how trans you are,
even when heteronormativity disappears like a rainbow in January or like fascism in 1945;
it doesn’t.
I can’t kiss my love on the street, because she might notice the bruises on my heart from beating too loud,
might notice I tremble too much,
night notice I’m bringing an earthquake on the pavement.
We’ve practiced for storerooms and cramped closets,
even when we are left with so much sky,
it might take a while for us to wring our legs and stand straight,
you see once there was a queer girl who’s house shrunk around her,
when she said, she wanted to kiss her love on the street,
how will we hide in so much light?
how do you feel safe in a place that once wanted you dead?
Do sidewalks not hold memories?
I can’t kiss my love on the street because the footpath still smells of blood,
can’t forget,
on another day, a body dismantled in the hands of hate,
and this spot went from grey to red to grey and no one noticed.
I want to kiss my love here, and I can’t even if I feel safe.
What is safe,
in the hands of a police,
that cages our trans sister for how they sparkle ,
that allows for pride, inside these chalklines and barricades,
what is pride if there is a time and venue to be proud?
If I kiss my love on the street
even when no one seems to mind,
I think I’ll still think of the decades old TV show,
where the gay couple on the street,
kiss to the sound of recorded laughter,
I don’t know how to wear off the feeling of being the joke,
these metro station cameras, still turn their plastic necks the other way when another queer body just disappears,
the railings of these monuments have never caught queer bodies falling to their deaths due to loneliness.
trust the streetlights to keep queer people in dark for all the desire they could have,
the roads to go every which way but home;
I think we need so much;
I think I want so much,
I want so much more,
than to just kiss my love on the street.
