Wake up

You cannot put a price tag on love
And you cannot live your life based on principles that promote only economic growth

Your dollar won’t make up for
all the rights you vote away…
The kind of votes promoting people, promoting laws that would deny the love you feel for the person laying next to you

Do you consider those facts in those moments
when you paint yourself red?

When you batten down to go to war for those ideals
Do you recognize the way the red runs when your lips touch one anothers?
The way it thins and becomes clear?

And in those moments are your philosophies as deep as those kisses feel?

Every day it’s a struggle
It’s concrete in your shoes up a steep hill kind of battle
Just to hold hands
Just to sit in a restaurant
without a dirty look.

Is it because you’re…
Upper-class… and privileged enough
to keep your false sense of security up?
To think those lack of rights won’t affect you?

The phonies you vote for…
The tax return you base your votes on…
and the money you vote to protect…
Won’t protect your right to kiss who you care for

It’s a war

It’s a to-the-death brawl for love
One that you’ve decided isn’t as important
as your property line…

When you approach that booth
When you make your decision to rock the vote…

Please remember that our right to love who we love is an inherent right
and remember that the oppression of that love fuels hate, even at it’s basis

Remember Brandon Tina
Remember Matthew Sheppard
Remember Stonewall and Harvey Milk—
Remember Sasha Fleischman

Remember that 40 years ago your love was a mental disorder

Remember that in certain countries across the world
your love is a death sentence…

Remember that you have an obligation as part of an oppressed community

Remember…
just how soft those lips are when they meet
and how the beauty in that kiss is the same beauty… for every kind of kiss.

Wake up
and vote for that

 

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Author: Sarah Frances Moran

Editor: Catherine Monkman

Photo: Edwin Lee/Flickr