June 12th came and went yesterday…I imagine to most people it was just another date.
But like birthdays, anniversaries and holidays it’s a day we should all celebrate.
This day’s history began in Virginia with Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving who fell in love and thought it would be great to marry and spend their life together…but this was 1958.
Back then it was against the law in Virginia for them to marry…Yes, Virginia law said they didn’t have the right…because Mildred…well she was black…and Richard…he was white.
So they got married in Washington D.C…you see…it was legal over there…but when they returned to Virginia they were arrested…and knowing it wasn’t fair…
they pleaded their case to a judge in Virginia…alas…to no avail…the judge found them guilty and sentenced them to spend the next three years in jail.
But the judge did give them a choice…which wan’t as just as it appears…they could serve their three years in jail…or leave Virginia for 25 years.
Given the choice of imprisonment or banishment it wasn’t hard to see why Mildred and Richard decided to stay married…and moved to Washington D. C.
Although they were legally married in Washington D. C…legally husband and wife…they missed their families, faced discrimination and wanted a better life.
So Mildred wrote a letter explaining their predicament…their particular point of view…and sent it off to Bobby Kennedy (our Attorney General) who gave it to the ACLU.
The ACLU decided to take up the Loving’s cause and lend the Loving’s their voice…for they believed, as many still do, who we marry and where we live should be every American’s choice.
After a nine year struggle through the courts Mildred and Richard finally had a victory to savor when on June 12, 1967 every Supreme Court Justice decided in their favor.
Which is why June 12th every year I find it appropriate to say…with Mildred and Richard in my heart…Happy Loving Day.
Happy Loving Day…it has such a nice ring to it…let me say it again…Happy Loving Day…the day our Supreme Court decided all Americans can be married…
unless…of course…you were gay.
That day would come on June 26th…it would have been nice if there were only two weeks in between…but the Supreme Court didn’t make that decision…until 2015!
In light of recent decisions…it is more important than ever we celebrate every day as Loving Day…and ensure that this Supreme Court doesn’t take these choices away.
Paper trails troll troubling trends into contempt of the truth.
Discount viscounts will turn a rogue rat to a mouse.
No cheese, just smoke them out.
Blow them away with a flash sale.
Beyond the veil is a marriage of malcontent and a desire to fix.
Every troll has a bridge.
Who will hang who with the rope used to support it?
Will you pay per trail that you choose to follow even if it brings sorrow?
Will you step on old branches and leaves in the forest of tomorrow?
To scuttle as a borrower or play possum?
Stiff as the floorboards that formed your house.
Are you leader or louse?
Docile or doused in gangster or grouch?
Is it a straight fight for what you have inside or what you put out?
Sometimes those with those with the most beef will claim vegan for clout?
Sometimes we claim our walls are full of beauty yet we paint them with doubt.
Then we redecorate them and redecorate them until the paint tinge is all we are
So much more
I don’t think you want me to answer,
if I do you will leave me behind,
you have the world to play and I only have one piano.
I can frame what I feel for you with my fists,
love with only half a hand
when you’re looking down at me.
I can smoke you like I’ll never be sober,
risk it all when I fall apart,
keep half of your serenity.
I can only make your face fall when I answer,
give too much when I’m not enough,
leave you in the sky when I’m standing still.
I could want a road that doesn’t end,
I don’t know what I want, too heavy
when you’re looking down at me.
Tangled
messy
choices
your fingers mend with mine
your lips are my addiction
Can’t help
needing this
more than
I want to walk straight
Too many bridges
we can’t burn them down
we have so much fire
and no gasoline to keep us smoothed over,
we will cross this line
again and again
Tangled
messy
choices
I swallow you like the truth I can’t stop pushing off
If this is selfish
I never want to be selfless again.
Smother me in sanity
I never thought I had,
reach the line I didn’t dare to cross
I can stumble,
loathe this halfway
and still love it like my own,
stand on the ledge and keep myself from leaping
Leave my heart attacks at the door,
I can’t afford them
when I need the nervous,
the beats that sprint when I’m pressed close to you
Sin
ought to be something
this exquisite,
something bitingly sweet when I open my mouth,
something heartwrenching
that makes my heels
pound on the pavement
when you’re standing motionless-
I don’t know how long I can do this
without falling or
pretending to fall.
I used to think the chill in the air pulled at my lungs
and brought out the shivers
but we are warm and tangled,
this blanket is more than enough
and my chest is still icy
when you touch me like that.
if you are here it means I am moving,
I can’t sit still when you keep slipping,
please stay no matter how your temperature rises,
we have a cave to mold our secrets.
yesterday there were
bad decisions shoved under the welcome mat,
today I have unrolled them and swallowed the key,
we can’t get back in,
we are unknown.
you move one hand
up and I disintegrate,
it’s all I can do not to lean back and break down.
you move one hand
to mine and I am collapsing,
somehow you can love me with just your fingertips.
You can fuck me up, you can fuck me down
You can feed my closed mouth to the ground
You can give me light or pitch black sidewalks
But you can’t take back all the lines I’ve crossed
You can tell me exactly what you want me to be
Put words in my mouth and make them a memory
You can take it all back and I won’t refuse
I’ll look at any mirror and still choose you
You can fuck me up, you can fuck me down
You can feed my closed mouth to the ground
You can give me light or pitch black sidewalks
But you can’t take back all the lines I’ve crossed
Holding back and holding out so I can’t face no
Should have started, ended, fell apart so long ago
Maybe is a halfway and it doesn’t need brave
But I need you to ask so we can be saved
You can fuck me up, you can fuck me down
You can feed my closed mouth to the ground
You can give me light or pitch black sidewalks
But you can’t take back all the lines I’ve crossed
You’ve built the reasons for this nocturnal mind
I know you can be a liar but you’re not this kind
So I scrape your smile against all I’ve ever been
Try to find fire with imagination and a pen
Blood runs rivers like some sort of paradise
I can see it on screen, drenched in sacrifice
All your innocence swirling down the drain
It’s okay, looks like you made it through the rain
I’d rather have stories to tell than a clean slate
You can mutter or scream and I’ll still stay up late
I don’t know how we still have things to say
but I’ll listen at dawn and ride this till it breaks
Minds run wild, I can’t see past my scars
I run in so many circles to find where you are
My innocence cracks your silhouette just to mend
It’s okay, looks like I made it to the end
All this innocence is blinding half a heart
Sitting here when we don’t know where to start
Second-guessing, all the stars aligned instead
I’d rather have stories to tell than a promise unsaid
Across the desert the wind storms through. Grains of sand cloud the air, hazing over the endless plain. Tiny in size, they unite to form an obliterating deadly force. They swirl, each in their own direction, but still maintain unanimity. Indistinguishable yet individual. Some grains travel miles with a single gust and others never budge. All are unique, which is to say that none of them are.
Once again the wind storms through. I feel the sand begin to prick the back of my neck. Voyaging through the desert, I must choose my own path. Where will the wind take me?