hello, my name is francis.
well, my birth name is francis.
you can call me frankie.
my name is lynn, massachusetts.
well, my birthplace is lynn, massachusetts.
you can call it boston.

my name doesn't matter, it's just a label; just an identifier,
and my birthplace is just proof that some things never change,

like these two nostrils and this mouth and how they still process oxygen,
how i can still be a pedestrian and that's still the sky,
how when i'm not being honest that's still called a lie,
how the ground beneath our feet is still the earth,
how you can't sneeze with your eyes open,
how the majority of dust is just dead skin,
how bed bugs -- are real
and how some things never change,
like the fact that every time we debate sexuality
you still wanna revert back to two things:
religion & choice.

so, let's get at least one thing straight,
we don't want the acceptance and recognition of your church,
we want the acceptance and recognition of our state and our country;
i hope you are listening. florida. arizona. california.
i hope you are listening because we are your children and you have disowned us,

you want to talk about choice,
let's talk about a parent so blinded by faith that they disown their own flesh and blood,

i'm tired of talking with folks who see through twenty-twenty tunnel vision,
who keep their blinders on,
who lead their chariots into the unknown the same way god supposedly said, "love thy neighbor"

i know we aren't born as visionaries, we are barely born with vision,
but things develop and we learn to see
and everything falls in or out of focus,

i think we can all agree that we'd love to live in a civil union
but i don't think we know what that really is
we're all in pursuit of something and we are all deserving
and my country should be able to stand beside me,
proudly,
because i am one in every ten,
i am a statistic and a stereotype,

i didn't choose these rights
this right arm, this right eye, this right ear
always knowing what my left is doing, seeing and hearing,
i didn't choose these,
i did not choose my vernacular or the pitch of this voice,
i did not choose the heart in this chest or my position in the universe,
i was born unto a country that tells all of her children the same story from the day they're born,
i was born unto a country that whispers in our ears just before we fall asleep,
when she says, "we the people"
when she says, "we hold these truths to be self evident,"
she says these things and she never blinks and she never falters,
every night for the entirety of my life she cradles me in her arms
and she tells me a true story that she refers to as the declaration of independence,
some nights she reads from a book she calls the constitution.

if we can agree that this physical form, that out idiosyncrasies,
that these bodies are not choice,
that our existence is not choice,
than we must be able to agree that the only real choice we have
is where we lay our trust, where we place our faith and who we choose to follow,

that being the case,
you can keep your discriminating, bigoted and bitter god,
i'll choose love -- i'll choose love any day
because i was birthed unto a country that loved me for all the things i couldn't choose,
when she said, "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

she said it - not me.

11/12/2008

Author's Note: phrankie says | "With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do? With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate... this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness—this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness—share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." - Keith Olbermann

Posted on 11/12/2008
Copyright © 2024 Frankie Sanchez