A Series Of Queer Love Notes (Mod.) Poem by Twoey Grey

A series of queer love notes
Starting with Toronto Pride.
When you banned queers against Israeli apartheid,
What were you trying to say?
That no queers were killed in Gaza since Israel called itself pro-gay,
That on a tour group to the holy land trans people
Won't get stopped by the TSA.

It seems you only want to criminalize the trans girl street working to survive.
Show us that you want us with addiction, us with mental health, us with melanin alive.
So forgive me for rolling my eyes when you're there waving flags over on city-line.

When you invited the police to march
Were they surveilling us or keeping us safe?
Because I know some kids whose abusers are on the mic talking about safe space.
But when you moved the homeless out of downtown quarter for world pride
Did you even think to ask how these people identified?

Gayness measured in body parts and experience
Is like membership to the equality club predicated on some other exclusion
Reducing us to just naked bodies in the bedroom.
This is nothing foreign,
It's too familiar,
It's the transphobic roadkill that homophobia dragged in.

Dear allies, fruit flies
The "if you keep being mean to me I'm not gonna want to help you guys
But you still show up to pride parade like a yowey petting zoo
Teary-eyed saying
That "This is my gay best friend, my best friend who is gay, my gay shopping, gay lesbian queer best friend."

Can you chill for like a second, please!

Dear Media,
Why do we have to hurt to be real?
Why when Tammy's mom told her that she'd burn in hell,
Tammy told me that she finally felt like a real lesbian?

Dear community,
Why do we settle for this bullshit?
For when we're praying to Lady Gaga for our big gay salvation
Or worshipping at the altar of Katy Perry and Glee
Like it's good enough to be the token of someone else's appreciation.
We went from throwing bricks at stonewall
To throwing stones at one another.
Are we so oppressed here that we can never be the problem?
Do we want justice?
Or just another same-sex couple in the next ad for McDonald's?

Why are we still affirming the same issues that hate bred in?
Something is wrong when assault looks like initiation
When rainbow flags that hang in banks still ask for gender identification.
When queer and trans street youth could care less about legalization,
But the activists get their marriage license and hand in their resignation.