A Wounded Pride

Our pride has been wounded

Our pride has been hurt

But by God it will NOT be destroyed

The Stonewall riots were our birthing 

Into the cubs that begot African lions and lionesses

And in as much as we have been poached and prodded

For sport or a humanity eroded

Our pride has held strong 

Will live long 

But on a holy night 

In a land far from us

To the depths of our hearts and souls

12th June 

Our pride was deeply wounded.

Hunted like helpless animals 

In our own habitat

The place where we want to feel we belong

The one space where we felt at home 

Where our loved felt that love

Where we went to find ‘the one’

Where we gathered in camaraderie with more of our kind

Yet the world simply shrugs our pain away

It is inconsequential after all,

We are a whole other species of human depravity they claim

But we bled red blood

We cried salty tears on warm skin

We felt our peace run scared like a child in the dark

The terror we thought was now foreign 

It grew with the speed of a suddenly inflated balloon

Aren’t we safe anymore?

If our lives can be taken so senselessly

So swiftly that we have no time to save that last kiss

Ask ‘the one’ for another date

One we will never see again

Will our pride ever be spared?

Our pride has been tormented

It has been severed almost at it’s root

But we swear this

Love will ALWAYS conquer

And if it is all it takes to unravel a heart so devastatingly

The reverse is also true

 Our love will be what gives us back to ourselves

Love will liberate our pride

Love will heal our pride

Love will BE the pride

Gone but will never ever be forgotten

Are the 49 souls that dared to live and love

Rest in eternal peace 

#weareorlando