Pride 2023
Pride 2023
by Carl Bettis
I'm pansexual. Normally I don't go out of my way to announce the fact, but this year I feel the need. Pride Month is upon us, and the LGBTQIA+ community is under attack on several fronts. In the USA, trans people and drag queens are being demonized. The Supreme Court's Obergefell decision is vulnerable. The list goes on.
I'll be posting now and then during Pride Month. I'm not going to try for every day, but at least once or twice a week. You can follow my Pride posts by:
- checking the index for blog entries tagged pride at https://blog.carlbettis.com/tag/pride.html
- checking the index for blog entries tagged pride2023 at https://blog.carlbettis.com/tag/pride2023.html
- checking the index for this blog's Pride category at https://blog.carlbettis.com/category/pride.html
- or subscribing to the RSS feed at https://blog.carlbettis.com/feeds/pride.rss.xml
- or subscribing to the Atom feed at https://blog.carlbettis.com/feeds/pride.atom.xml
For today, a poem. This was originally published in Thorny Locust.
The Sty
to a long lost friend
You thought our love was your addiction:
you a craving shade,
me the hidden stash whispering
lurid words under your dutiful day
until light dried up and night thrills came.
You a hog delighting in filth,
me the muck you rolled in.
You asked your Jesus to cast me out
and held me by every hold,
and prayed and kissed, and kissed and prayed,
and somebody heard you.
I disappeared into the world
of swine, you got clean. Friends said
I deserved better. True.
But though you shrank from the mud and reek,
this sty's less lovely without you.
-- Carl Bettis
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