#llgbtq

If words could describe the euphoria of her touch, I would only lay crouched at the tip of my pen.

If songs could sing her beauty and her love, I would conjure up choirs for selfish desires.

If the beautiful crystal silver dewdrops fell from her petals and thorns, I would rest my head on soil just to taste the depths of lust.

Therein lays the difference in loving her. The drops and touch and music. The serenity of her clasp, she holds on as we’re slowly rollicking.

Therein lays the wonder of her skin, its tenderness a cliché. For it resembles the peach that eve was to eat and risk hiding in the bushes.

Therein lies the words from her mouth, questioning every man made logic. Why can’t it be when it comes so natural to feel and glide between her floes.

Stories and taboos of her curves, her truth and how she left this woman broken. Longing for the liberty to live more like her I dived willingly in the oubliette. Her mother’s love was too hard for her, her father’s never came. So she mastered how to beguile and inveigle the mondaine. It was a dance with a spin that engulfed me in the distressed winds of her soul and yes I fell within the tornadoes.

It was a darkness framed with dim candle lights, with a moistness and warmth I could not leave behind. It was a key to the lock of this caged society. It was something freeing when from across a room she saw me. Her eyes penetrated into the hidden enclave and as if galvanized by her glare I rose to her.

If ladies, maids and dancing babes told stories, taboos and tales, and savants question her wonder, may my testimony hold the orgiastic burst of verity?

In 1950s - 1960s, homosexuality was illegal in 49 states, and members of LGBTQ community were harassed, imprisoned, fined, and targeted for violence and discrimination. The Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street in New York City was a bar where gays, lesbians, and people with a wide range of gender identities gathered together and found refuge, though not without harassment. Police often raided the Stonewall and other gay bars and arrested patrons.

During the early morning of June 28, 1969, nine police officers raided the Stonewall Inn once again. Already fed up after decades of harassment, patrons resisted by pushing through barricades, throwing bottles, and finally, setting fire to the bar. Meanwhile, the crowd grew bigger outside the bar as the hours passed. Hundreds of people chanted “Gay Power,” “We Want Freedom,” and “We Shall Overcome.”

The uprising against unjust treatment and violence by police lasted until July 1st and marked a watershed moment for the LGBTQ rights movement. It sparked the establishment of the Gay Liberation Front, the first activist group to publicly advocate for gay rights.

June is Pride Month. We must remember this history, and continue educating people and fighting for equal rights for all people.

We also recommend the film, “Stonewall Uprising” on PBS:

Image 1: Cover with a jacket Image 2: Right: Sunil Gupta, “Untitled #8 from Christopher Street” 1976 Image 3: Left: Avram Finkelstein, “Journal Notes, Sketches for Posters” 1986, Right: “Silence=Death Project, Silence=Death” 1987

Art after Stonewall : 1969-1989 edited by Jonathan Weinberg with Tyler Cann, Anastasia Kinigopoulo, and Drew Sawyer. Published: Columbus, Ohio : CMOA, Columbus Museum of Art ; New York, New York : Rizzoli Electa, 2019. 304 pages : illustrations (some color), portraits, photographs ; 27 cm

Explores the impact of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender civil rights movement on the art world of the period. It focuses on openly LGBTQ artists like Nan Goldin, Harmony Hammond, Lyle Ashton Harris, Greer Lankton, Glenn Ligon, Robert Mapplethorpe, Catherine Opie, and Andy Warhol, as well as the practices of such artists as Diane Arbus, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Karen Finley in terms of their engagement with queer subcultures.

Beneath The Surface (on Wattpad) https://my.w.tt/6u1mEs5P24