#raye hendrix

[geryone]

What Good Is Heaven, Raye Hendrix

[rayehendrix]

This poem of mine is going around again on Twitter, so I figured I'd share it here too. Queer joy is queer survival. We will win.

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for John  Southern summer at the drive-thru, hotlong past 3 AM, glitter from some drag show queen’s plastic tits stuck to our cheekswith swe

[fluttering-slips]

Home

           the elusive dark : slow curve of a mother’s spine : riverbank            solid enough to stand : home a starsilver river of arms

           my mother’s riverbend is subtle & soft : her arms wet firefly            light : home the far shore of her heart & i : the traveler boatless

                       / /

           a green fish rises from my mother’s water : shows me how to take apart            my bones : how to break & reposition them to make of me a boat :

           ribcage hull : femur mast : scaffolding of tibia & spine : if i leak i fill the gaps            with teeth : the fish says if i use my skin for sails i won’t need my mother’s body :

           yes i say but who                        will brush my hair

RAYE HENDRIX

[geryone]

What Good Is Heaven, Raye Hendrix

[geryone]

What Good Is Heaven, Raye Hendrix

[geryone]

What Good Is Heaven, Raye Hendrix

[geryone]

What Good Is Heaven, Raye Hendrix

[rayehendrix]

Sharing this poem from years ago because it's horrifically relevant. Again. I'm so tired.

AFTER ORLANDO

​The week after the shooting             every shower feels like violent baptism—symbolic rebirth             performed too literally—water too hot, skin too red. I let it blister             peel it off in layers until I can’t until my body is not a body             I recognize—becomes a diagram of the bruised blue threads             of nervous systems, bloody and exposed—and then             I ask you to hold me. We don’t know any of the dead             but when they read out the names on the evening news             we take turns weighing them on our tongues, marvel             at how something spoken can be so heavy, can choke             into throat. After that, we shower together. Say their names against             each other’s pruning skin. Say our own with the same reverence—as if             for the first time, or the last.

AFTER ORLANDO

​The week after the shooting             every shower feels like violent   baptism—symbolic rebirth             performed too literally—wate