Seeing these men
who never find themselves,
save in these sacred gay spaces,
who often actually lose themselves
in the overwhelming tide of acceptance…
That story, often read, was never truly mine;
a disconnect, which likely saved my life…
but perhaps, although I did the smartest things,
memorizing all of the rules
to this deathly game of life…
perhaps after all that I’ve done (or not)
I simply have survivor’s guilt?
I found my Fire Island / Castro,
found my Stonewall / found my Eagle,
found my Saugatuck and Folsom,
found my Pride in my reflection.
In the after wrath of AIDS
amidst the slaughter of my peers.
In the aftermath crusades
I came of age and faced my fears.
A generation’s gurney
closure fighting to be free.
A journey overwriting
what my story yearned to be.
Free to live a lonely man;
this glut tricked out obsession.
Free to be the homo man;
the slut without protection.
Free to be the ones in hell
about to hearse to college.
Free to be the ones who fell
without the curse of knowledge.
Free to pluck the pain from hearts
of seedy sly arrivals.
Free to fuck the pain apart
with no need for survival.
Written by Jason Wright
July 24, 2018