Still Pulse

Written after Pulse nightclub 
shooting

For 2 days

I have been walking around "on edge".

Holding back the pain, the outrage, the broken heartedness.

The confusion of it all

The madness of it all

The "we've been here before" of it all

I tried to hold my numb

My regularity

My composure

But I could feel my unfolding

The quiet angst--- attempting to move out into the world

The resistance to tears --revealed as sarcasm

The terror--embodied as futile gesturing

But

Then

I

Read. The. Names.

Every moniker

Signifying

Tan. Amber. Almond. Cocoa. Brown

Same gender loving

And I could no longer

Pretend

That life was as it has always been.

It was in the naming...

That a truth emerged

that I could no longer deny.

If we are truly made in the image of the holy

Then 49,

divine, angelic, sacred, creations

49

living on the margins because of who they loved

49

dancing into the night

49

believing they were safe

49

lovers of sound, and life, and love


We're violently pulled from this earth

As the percussive sounds of freedom was snuffed out by the percussive sound of death


Death hiding within automatic weapons

Death hiding within bullets

Death hiding within a two legged creature

Death hiding within a culture of violence

Death hiding within gender labels

Death hiding within limits of sexual expression

Death hiding within political agendas

Came to wield it's ugly

There is so much God damn death

That I feel damned by God

And I have begun to damn god for gods creation that has damned us all by its damning behavior

But then I heard the names


And I fell

And

tears fell

And

truth fell

And

angels fell to the earth

To catch my breaking heart

And I knew in that moment

That the spirit of life. And love.

Needed to be ALIVE

more than ever

MY LOVE for life

was needed more than ever

My trust.

My faith

My belief in humanity

was needed more than ever.

My vulnerability.

My forgiveness.

My courage.

My compassion.

Needed...more than ever

Needed

So that 49.

Forty-nine

Souls....

Could remain free...in their divine return.

And so I cried

And I felt

And I yearned.

Yearned

For us to be better

More loving

more --in the image

And I knew that my anger was not enough

Bitterness

sorrow not enough

Not sufficient --

so it could only linger for a moment

Insufficient

For this hour. This day.

the only sufficiency

the balm

for such a time like this

is

LOVE.

Doc Rain