“Queer Kids” by Nic Alea

i wish i was open apothecary fluid solution
graced across your forehead,

i could have watched you grow
like the backbone to a raven,

a summertime storm brought raging
into square shaped bedroom,

grandfather clocks gone ancient
fox tails wrapped up in your gloves,

i do not know what you did to your hands
but your arms were all cut up

every inch open up
like you needed all the secrets to seep through,

shape shifter you,

you know, child,
it’s easy to rip open,

no intention of getting sewn back together
blind folded coffin and a stack of letters

to be burnt by the writer of your eulogy,
no one should have been at your funeral this young,

this year, this age, too young,
before queer could turn golden,

before faggot could turn reclamation,
before pink triangle was a prison symbol,

before it all,
you were gone before it all,

you were just a baby
with a key hole mouth,

spit on and shoved out,
stampede and a body full of live organs,

i saw a woman with all your names tattooed onto the back
of her legs, buzzer but no ink

just scarification of you and you and you,
and the way they preyed on your bodies

prayed like the forest was howling
your coming out story,

while they grew teeth
to rip at your throat,

often i didn’t know
often i couldn’t have told you that,

you are not safe just because it’s san francisco,
you are not safe even if you wrap your growing limbs

around the base of their violence,
i can’t summon anyone here to save you,

they need to rewrite the textbooks
with clean cursive and a method of action,

you were young with skeleton closet already
dust caught all up in your throat,

you weren’t taught in school
that there are others like you,

we weren’t taught in school
that there are others like us,

i wasn’t taught in school
that there are others like me,

they don’t teach the queer kids
how to be brave in school,

they teach the queer kids
how to hang themselves from
creaking rafters in their parents houses,

they teach the bullies how to sharpen
their weapons, vocal chords and

how to tie noose knots for
the soft part of your neck,

they need to rewrite the textbooks
to include all the invisibility,

they need to teach
that there is no reason to think

we are any different, they need to show us that
being bent isn’t an open invitation to get beat up,

because our hearts are still all full of blood,
doesn’t that account for anything?

i’m going to try to come to you
bearing thread and a pocket of thimbles,

i can’t promise you anything,
not even red roses to make your swollen lips smile

as you pull wilted hawk feathers
like the silence that’s still shoved down your throat.