
I miss you:
but how do I tell you
when everything in your heart
makes you hate me
for loving you?
The following story that’s being shared here is that of a Middle Eastern 14-year-old effeminate boy who was viciously murdered by a heartless adult based on his appearance. I cannot… My heart breaks over and over reading about instances like this all over the world. Hate is too damn real and it needs to be extinguished. When you can put it in your mind to murder someone based on their appearance or any differences from you simply because you do not like those differences or appearances, you have no heart. YOU HAVE NO SOUL!
Hamoudi’s last words were, “I want my Mom.” Authoritative officials are not doing anything, conducting an investigation into this child’s senseless murder is on their back burner. Beliefs, patriarchy, old ways and traditions are their focus points, not the lives of human beings and the basic need for respect and acceptance.
A young boy died because a man thought that he was too effeminate to deserve to live. The man stabbed him repeatedly in the gut, and then taunted him while he bled to death.
I want to honor his memory and help infuse his short life with meaning, but I want to think about people closer to home too.
I write a lot about LGBTQ equality. I write a lot about violence committed in the US against LGBTQ people. I write a lot about how violence rates have been rising dramatically over the past two years — ever since Trump came to power.
I’ve been working hard to promote awareness and to educate people. Some of the responses I’ve received from fellow Americans are unspeakable. I’ve been told point blank (and repeatedly) that transgender women deserve to be raped in prison.
I’ve been told that murders of gay youth aren’t important. I’ve been told that rising rates of violence are funny. Fellow Americans have sent me animated gifs of cartoon characters laughing.
So please don’t anyone think I wrote this article to condemn violence in the Middle East in particular.
I Want My Mom by James Finn https://link.medium.com/2qhN5oa8lR
The link above will lead you directly to the full write-up about this travesty by James Finn, a fellow Medium Writer. James does not tire of fighting for equality and LGBTQ rights. Share this, please. If you believe that a person’s life means more than their sexuality, their beliefs, their appearance, and anything else that should not be a determining factor for hate and maliciousness, then please send your words out into the ether.
There are many instances happening right now in the States that are putting many connected to, affiliated, and associated with the LGBTQ community in grave danger, and causing many more to commit suicide.
THIS IS NOT LIFE!
Whatever happened to love? Where is it in these times? Why doesn’t it always show its head? Be love. Be open. Know that your ways are not the only ways.
You are not judge, jury, and executioner. You never will be.
pay me for the many bodies slain
in cold blood at the hand of their
protectors for simply being alive
for walking down an unfamiliar street
for pulling out a wallet
for covering his child with his body
for revealing a water gun
for breathing air that is free in
a country that charges me for water
in a plastic cup bound to kill
me twenty years from now
for a woman knowing her rights
and unafraid to back down when faced
by fake authority
for gentrification
for replacement of all things familiar
in a neighborhood that needs complacency
to build it up during its struggle
pay me for scheming my ancestors
moons ago with slanderish tongues
bathed in honey
for neverending lies
for belligerence
for bigotry
for disguises in broad daylight
for the Ku Klux Klan
that will burn my community by dawn’s early light.
oh, say can you see?
for i am owed,
much more than can be repaid!
therefore,
i have the right:
to take a knee on any new age plantation field
to reject the bullshit that white supremacy truly is
to dodge PEACEkeepers that have a badge to kill
they serve money and the news/poliTRICKS and corporations have quotas and dues/bait trucks filled with shoes?
my country tis’ of thee —
WE the people, will lose.
i have the right:
to be this color face
zero damns left to give
sacrifice this lie that’s become a goddamn disgrace
still it questions the I in ME?!
i have the right:
to choose an alternate reality
to love and live.
i have the right:
to be this black moon
these copper colored blues
to travel with these autumn colored leaves
decorated in this auburn flesh
skin tones thick with tribe
standing with bronze feet in gold suns
textures of faith armed with all this love
they said, i couldn’t have/i couldn’t be
this speech, touched by godS/moved by ancestors/guided by winds
like, trees/ocean bottoms/creation
i ain’t to be moved
I AM owed!
i have the right:
to not have my skin rigged
a weapon against me!
how can i be victim AND criminal?!
fuck this place as a nation!
i have the right,
to be this color of pride
pay me, nation of forgetfulness
for years of contemplation and misguided ways
for unearthed demons in positions of power
for silencers and AK-47s and Mac10s
and the nerve to say we asked for it
pay me for everything I am due
and increase it tenfold
but, how do you put a price
on a dwindling race in a nation
that wants to annihilate it?
©Tremaine L. Loadholt & Walker Jo Lee, 2018. All Rights Reserved
*No one else could have written this with me. It came to me when it did and I immediately sent the draft to Walker. Originally posted in A Cornered Gurl on Medium.
Thank you for reading.
Musical Selection–Location by Khalid
Last night, searching for
Photos, your picture snuck
Up
On
Me
Thought I’d deleted
All of them
Guess I was wrong
It caught me off guard
Pulled a deep sigh
From my abdomen
And buried itself
On my tongue
I tasted you
Your scent filled
My home
All the memories
Jumped into my
Mouth and bore down
In an oasis
Of want
A tear fell
Then another
And another
Soon —
I was drowning
In the essence of
A fake embrace
Remembering what it
Felt
Like
To be
Loved
By
You
Originally published on July 27, 2017, via Medium.
This heart
Aches when words
Of venom shoot through it.
Silence saunters in,
It makes half of me
Twist into a complex labyrinth.
You think, “but she’s usually
An angel. Mostly kind and polite.”
I am also human.
Daggers draw blood
And words
When used to cut
Into soft flesh
Can kill.
Instead of dying,
I fight back.
Armed with an arsenal
Of my own,
Each moment in regaining
My strength will cause
Me to empty a chamber.
I assure you…
You
Don’t
Want
That kind of death.