This month is a time to celebrate
The joyful, beautiful, hopeful, delicious paradigm
Of being absolutely oneself, even when it goes against
Lead-heavy grains of what's "acceptable", considered
To be typical, mainstream, or whatever ill-conceived
Notion of normal may have devolved from the past
This month is a time to honor, to bless
The royalty, history, inspiring, uplifting heroism
Of being utterly expressive, even when fingerprints
May be unceremoniously erased, finger-paints
Fueled by love's irrepressible muse washed away
Only to re-ignite new visions of resilience, hearts afire
My most passion-driven decades may be behind me
But Pride is something I nonetheless get excited about
I remember what it meant to finally feel confident
Enough to walk city streets elated by the naming of
A thing I'd learned to soul-repress each aching cell
Of love's yearning in various states of precipice
I was so brave in my 20's I was Out at 24
Standing on shoulders of all who came before
Now I may stand more ambivalently in my body
Having spiraled through a kind of post-
Pandemic restitution war (cancer continuing
To mock time's ability to restore identity's flame)
But one thing by which I'll live and die
Is the willingness to stand up for Pride
And to wail, always, against ignorance's shame
