For #pride:

We are not shadows -
not whispers at the edge of law.
We are bodies, breath, and battle cries
etched in morning's first defiant draw.

We walk through fire flung by tongues
too dull to name our truth,
but we have carved from ash and pain
a sharper blade.

We are not new.
We are the pulse in Marsha’s step,
the blood in Sylvia’s fists,
the ones that threw the first bricks
at Stonewall.

We are not a phase or plague,
not broken things to mend -
we are the future's architects,
for everyone.

You write us out - we write us back in.
You build a wall - we find the cracks.
You ban our books - we birth new myths
and carry each other on our backs.

For every law that aims to cage,
we open cages wide.
For every slur that stains the air,
we have fists, and bricks,

This is not a metaphor.
This is life, raw and exposed -
on streets, in schools, in courts, in care,
where every moment glows with danger
and with opportunity.

So hear us when we say:
We are not your silence anymore.
We are the coming day.

And we are not afraid to fight,
with voice, with hand, with soul;
until the world that we deserve
is free, and bright, and whole.