Stefan / Katie - 2619 - Gay Lesbian Bi Trans News

A quiet old man with heavy eyes framed by lines of wrinkles set as if in a perpetual frown, sits across from me at restaurant table, folding his hands slowly into a clasp. His deep voice breaks like a phonograph as he stares at the pink triangle patch I received yesterday at Chicago's Pride Parade. He hasn't seen one this close since 1945 and I just let him go at his own pace…

i can't listen to that song anymore -

the one about the Christmas tree.

i can't hear it without seeing

eight bodies swaying in the wind,

dangled from the branches of some

massive tree in the parade ground

where every day we'd line up.

all blocks together – the living and the dead -

the corpses just piled at the end of the group.

corpses who just hours ago were men,

men like me.

now just rotted, blistered hacked feet of flesh,

roll call came and the only difference was

my flesh still crawled with life.

i detest the scent of burning now –

burning anything, just incendiary fumes.

I can't smell it without seeing

haggard men dragging themselves

half burned, half dead, and naked

out of the flames of that carcinerator.

bodies amassed and shoveled into the flames,

the ones still alive shoved back in

back in back in back in

with long poles by drunk prisoners,

too drunk to understand;

too glad it's not them.

back in the flames

these men burn until no one drags themselves out.

i hate the encroachment of cold nights –

cold air keeping company with cold dark silence.

i can't sleep without seeing

his limbs were shackled with chains

suspended naked above the dormitory floorboards.

pulled tight, no slack to recoil against

as they dragged a feather across his broken, chapped

body, taught and straining to make no sound

until yielding a raucous laughter exploding into tears.

seething hot tears streaking down his face,

his bare chest streaked with wetness -

no -

it was weakness and he cried it out.

louder when they soaked his balls.

boiled them first

then 'cooled off the hot brother',

excruciating shards of ice clinging to scrotal

skin now hanging in shreds, disintegrating with every

bowl of water, hot then cold then hot then cold then they

dumped a bucket of water and the ice clanged off his corpse.

he hung there limp and slowly conscious,

'you asshole, you butt-fucker, you cocksucker'

'you'll like this'

a broomstick handle maniacally thrusted into his anus,

rammed further and further with no regard

flesh giving way to wood.

and his body writhed with each plunge,

shaking the chains to resonate the pain his voice could no longer expel.

they stopped and stripped the chains from the walls.

he collapsed in a drenched bloody mess on the floor,

his limbs crushed at wrong angles under his back.

a shudder escaped his violated body.

they looked down.

they threw a stool into his head.

i can't talk about this anymore.

i can't talk about things there are no words for.

Katie:

Dirty blond hair cropped around my face, just enough there to pull back into my signature ponytail, I brush my teeth and stare at myself in the cabinet mirror. My own blue eyes look harsh today as if they are seeing something I'm not conscious of … I shake my shoulders and grab my backpack and keys, throwing it across my shoulders and thrusting them into my pocket. Stumbling down the stairs, I'm exhausted and a slight headache seeps around the corners of my temples. It's going to be a long day …

I've never been asthmatic or felt

constrictive pressure clamp my chest,

the way it now turns and twists to tighten

without the intention of grip, I can't get a grip

and I'd gasp if it weren't such a waste of breath.

Eyes open

over-stimulated,

I try to focus on just the steps.

And distract my mind from my compressed chest

now pounded by my heart as it pumps pumps pumps

blood to feed the senses. My bloodshot eyes turn and

fix upon you,