I WEEP FOR YOU
For the 50 dead and 53 injured at Pulse
Orlando, the land of bees & honey
white & black wales, princes & princesses
taking pictures w/ Mickey Mouse,
Orlando, rainbow flags flying flawlessly
outside bars & clubs, your eyes
of glass & glee & glitter,
Orlando! Get up from bloody floors
from hiding indoors
from republicans calling us whores,
get up w/ your bullet wounds
your black eyes, broken hearts,
Orlando, love is love is love is love is love
& no gun can shoot it away, no hate
can break what God has made:
We are praying praying praying.
IT COULD HAVE BEEN ME
For those lost in the Orlando shooting on June 12, 2016
Running out of who knows where
wearing God who knows what,
my lungs zippering shut:
Tonight we weep. We reek of status updates,
“Pray for Orlando” “We are Orlando”
“50 DEAD, 53 INJURED.”
It could have been me.
Tonight I smoke a Camel Crush
and improvise a love letter to the sky,
to the butterflies floating above Pulse
floating above cold red bodies:
bones are cheese not stone, more air than marrow.
It could have been me.
Bullets puncturing my heart and knees,
Lady Gaga on the screens, gin and tonic in my right.
It could have been me, a bleeding mouth for cameras to see,
Florida Police yelling at me, “Keep running! Go! Go! Go!”
It could have been me.
Brothers, I know you are dead
and your mothers with ripped wombs wounds
grab your pictures and crumple them in their hands,
and the last amen is uttered:
stars shooting wildly into the night, into you
as you danced danced danced, away.
It could have been me.
SPARKLE on the Face of Darkness
For the victims of the Orlando Massacre, 6.12.16
Do not erase
my queerness
in your silence,
in your lighting
of candles and
attending vigils,
Tweeting and
Facebooking
status updates,
do not erase
my color
in your taking
taking it off,
always peeling
it from mí,
pretending
I don’t exist,
do not erase
the 50 names
with last names
you cannot
pronounce correctly,
cannot seem
to whisper a simple
prayer or an
I love you
I miss you
I wish I knew you:
Don’t scrape
my glitter off,
the only glint
of hope left
in this dark
dark night.
STOP KILLING US
For Orlando 6.12.16
Like cattle, the way you
cover your children’s eyes
when you spot a rainbow flag
when you see two men kissing,
like cattle, the way you
pray pray pray the gay away
blame your failures
on our short shorts
on our cucumber facials
on our tattooed smiles,
the way you Tweet
“they had it coming”
“God condemned homosexuality”
like cattle, the way you
want Straight Pride
to be a thing, the way you
ban us from bathrooms
for being somewhere in the middle:
like cattle, you kill kill kill us
when you feel like it
when you don’t feel like it
when you need more milk.
THE FACE OF GRIEF, 6.12.16
For my brothers and sisters
Maybe there is a God above
Maybe 53 of me have to be shot
Maybe 50 of me need to be killed
Maybe Mother Mary is on sabbatical
Maybe there is an explanation for it all
The victims identified so far in the Orlando shooting:
Stanley Almodovar III, 23
Amanda Alvear, 25
Darryl Roman Burt II, 29
Deonka Deidra Drayton, 32
Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22
Mercedes Marisol Flores, 26
Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22
Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, 30
Anthony Luis Laureanodisla, 25
Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21
Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, 25
Kimberly Morris, 37
Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20
Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35
Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36
Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35
Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34
Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez, 50
Luis S. Vielma, 22
Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37
Luis Damian Lopez-Maldonado, 31
*Many many more
Whisper their names into the wind
Say a prayer or two to La Virgen De Guadalupe
Light a candle in their memory
Because there has to be more to this
Than hate, than guns guns guns
Maybe there is nothing up there after all
Maybe all there is, is right here infront of us
Maybe all we gotta do is love:
Love is love is love is love, islove.
When Two Men Kissed
For Orlando
There are 7 flies
in the living room today,
windows open
Washington Heights up & alive
siempre revolucionando
always walk walking in crews,
but you see: tonight
south of us a whole community
will disappear, brown & black bodies
will hit the floors like dominos
& bullet bullet holes will penetrate
limbs & hearts & walls ,
You killed us.
I cross out names & it’s poetry.
God does the same thing &
You’re all dead. 50 times,
You killed us.
Can you hear our pulse?
Can you see our commitment to you?
Can you feel our tired tired hearts?
You killed us.
Don’t give us your prayers
Don’t give us your Facebook likes
Don’t give us lit candles & salty tears
Don’t give us rainbow lighting on buildings
Don’t give us your pity,
You killed us.
Give us a hug
Give us our basic human rights
Give us acceptance,
You killed us.
50 times.
Luis Lopez-Maldonado is a Xicano poet born and raised in Orange County, California. He has a Masters in Dance from Florida State University and is currently a Master of Fine Arts candidate for Creative Writing at the University of Notre Dame. His work has been seen in The American Poetry Review, The Packing House Review, and As/Us, among many others.