Pulse

we have always been precious, sacred,
eggshell breastplates cradling pumping hearts
met with bullets
and our blood, our beautiful purple blood
filling Florida swamps now
staining gator teeth now

we have always been too hard for them to hold
in their calloused fingers,
we who curl together in the night
unashamed
because sometimes it is the only time we can be unashamed
we have always been too pure, too perfect

so they shatter us

but we have always held tempests in our skin, too
stretched maelstroms of monsoon tides underneath our shoulder blades
and we are ready and waiting to clap like thunder
together, together, together

and so to the Queer, the Brown, the Trans, the Other, I say,
you are perfect, we are perfect
let us blind them with our sacredness
let us burn their retinas with our silhouettes
let us rain down hell and heaven and peace and everything that we are
on this scorched earth

and to the rest of you, I say,
will you protect our precious bodies while we are alive
or is it only when we are dead that you see us