Let There Be Pride

by Richard Blanco

PC: Agustin Paullier/AFP via Getty Images

Let There Be Pride

by Richard Blanco

To remember every stone thrown by our mother-fathers at Stonewall, to keep applauding their kick lines that fired-up our fight for freedom, to hear their voices still singing against the nightsticks of hate. Let there be Pride.

To unfold our AIDS quilts again over the lawn of our memory, to read aloud the names of our lost souls still stitched in our souls, to wrap ourselves in the colors of their lives that still color ours, to give thanks for their fight that let us survive to remember them. Let there be Pride.

To keep loving the queer child in all of us who grew up like me, terrified of our own beautiful selves, knowing home was a place we had yet to find, to keep the faith we found on that long journey we took toward that somewhere over the rainbow. Let there be Pride.

To never let Matthew Shepard die again, to raise-up every teenager high on our shoulders and let them see the parades of their kind celebrating their worthy lives, nevermore to be taken by others or by themselves. Let there be Pride.

To kiss again our first kiss against lips the same as ours exploding like a star in us, to walk again hand-in hand with our first loves the first time we dared to strut our tenderness down sidewalks, to never again be the shamed selves we let die, to be reborn unashamed as a full moon. Let there be Pride.

To keep silencing the words that keep trying to silence us, to keep renaming ourselves as she/he/them, to keep spreading our language of love is love, and always will be love, to keep our right at the altar to say: I do, I do, I do. Let there be Pride.

To praise our hands brushing away life’s dark anguish onto brilliant canvases, to laud our ears listening to strangers’ sorrows in the mirror until they see their truth in ours, to revere our minds thinking from our hearts, to forgive the unforgivable in ourselves and others. Let there be Pride.

To go on flaunting our fierce feather boas and strapping on our butch toolbelts, slip on our Marie Antoinette wigs and paint our leather pants on, to dust gold glitter over our breasts and beards, to keep our confetti guns firing. Let there be Pride.

To keep alive the selves we lost at Pulse still pulsing through us, to never stop dancing with their souls to the soul of our songs’ proverbs: I am what I am…I’m coming out…I will survive…we got nothing to be guilty of…constant craving…voulez-vous coucher avec moi…R-E-S-P-E-C-T…we are family…we are the champions…we’ll keep on fighting ’til the end. Let there be music. Let there be lights. Let there be us. Let there be Pride. Cheers-amen!

Writing Prompt:

I love this poem, not simply in honor of Pride month, but how it’s a love song, a blessing, and an anthem for a marginalized population.

For this week’s prompt, write your own “Let There Be…” poem. Consider a marginalized community or social cause(s) you believe in. It can even be a sticky mash-up of many. Using the cadence of “To ____(verb)…” and to this and to that, see if you can write into the promise and the wish and the freedom vision you have for equal rights. Bookend this dedication with the words “Let there be ________.”