Existence is Not Opinion

By Wesley Orion

Match and Flame 

I am the truth that they tried to erase.

Living off the notion of false

redemption, and pure grit

determination. 

By running my hands along the pavement I signaled–

I am here.  

To rewrite their contaminated history as sincere

unapologetic honesty. 

If a tree falls, I am there to hear it–

to count its rings like ripples on ponds  

and spread the stories–

Of damnables,  

Of throwaways,  

Of counter-narratives,  

Of the deviant,  

Of the naked,  

Of the afraid,  

Of the strong,  

Of the broken,  

I stare into a broken reflection of myself,  

my reality shattered, the picket fence blown aflame.  

When history fractures, where does it start?  

When I look at myself in these stories where do they end and I begin? 

Our stories carry the weight of corpses.  

Justice against a culture that smothers us in closets

along with their old winter coats.  

Where children are remembered by their dead names

and murderers and rapists are remembered as heroes. 

I was robust in my studies but never learned  

this history–

followed a little amount of news but never saw past the headline–

Put an ear to the world and a tongue to page and said  

I will listen and write your stories.  

But never sought the silenced,  

malnourished,  

dying.  

I am left hungry for the stories of the survivors; 

the 'we-did-it's, with freedoms licking them like holy flames. 

I have just woken up  

and seen the world set aflame.  

Little did I know  

I was carrying the match  

and was being taught how to strike it. 

---

Hear Our Cry 

Crying cleanses you – Sometimes  

I’ve sat in between the confiding bathroom stall walls  

In a place I did not belong and wept out my closeted trans soul  

Twinkling lights of miniature infernos on my lashes  

A gas leak that could explode everything I held dear  

But I am not dangerous, I have no fuse  

I am just fueled by the intolerance around me  

Tears gulping for fresh air as they flooded themselves 

The White-washed, Cis-centric, don’t say the 'G' word unless it has 'don’t be'

in front of it  

Not to mention all the other words that adults throw around in front of children

I refuse to give voice into listing them because  

It will tear open the stitches  

That children, children, had to mend themselves  

Sterilize the lies that infected their hearts  

The necrosis of their hope settling in and making a home in the soft  

tissue between their skull and their brain  

Which whispers to them, horrible things  

Opening pandora’s closet of fears  

What awaits you when you open the door?  

When all you’ve known is walk straight, cut shallow and cry hard  

Invisible, I am sick of being invisible  

It’s sickening  

Another human life experience to dissect and dilute  

To be palatable  

We are a controversy that gets under conservative’s skin  

Some people can strip their morals and step away from the table  

I can’t, we can’t – These are our lives  

As we sit and stew in the laws, bills, actions, rulings that tie us  

down to other people’s comfort levels  

What about our comfort levels  

What about my comfort levels  

I never got to be comfortable  

I was too busy trying to stay alive  

Trapped in what they considered to be acceptable  

Listen very carefully–

These children don’t deserve to be treated like the enemy  

In the war you are choosing to wage  

You don’t wage wars against children  

You fear our 'gay agenda' but you don’t even know what’s on it  

The agenda is a mission to find peace  

Peace for the children who never have any  

Peace for those those who have died trying  

Peace for the ones who were lost along the way  

Our hearts are as unrelenting as our pain  

We will scar and come back stronger  

How old were you when you realized  

Sat down and realized  

You were different 

But in our world, different always means dangerous or wrong or dirty  

As if the word gay would stain your teeth and rot your gums by being held on your lips

That the pacification and sterilization of different brings unity  

This isn’t unity this is supremacy  

So hear our cry–

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Wesley Orion (he/him) is a Queer, Trans, and neurodiverse writer who lives and works in the Columbus area. He writes to empower his voice and the voices of others with a focus on fostering a space of pure ambition, representations of adversity, and the unity of storykeepers. Follow Wesley on Instagram: @WesleyOrionWrites