~forget me not~

for you, being so unapologetically
Black, queer and trans
is a synonym of terrorism
and gender essentialism

because we have been feeding
white cis hetero patriarchal supremacy
without a pause. we have been eroding
any sense of humanity, in the same way
we have been pouring oil into the sea

in 2020 you passed away,
we blamed the virus and isolation
without acknowledging that in the past this
had already happened. because the world
wasn’t created for people like you,
my beloved friend

then how can we forget that the race relations act
was signed in 1965 and the disabilities act in 1970.
decades later, everything remains the same, we
have learned and discovered many things while
ignoring most of them again

setting up new workhouses and
sweatshops in the colonies
given them local heroes names
to wash the homophobia and genocide away

an outstanding legacy of sodomy laws
around the world since the 1860s
to then shame them
for their closed minds and savagery
from an indifferent pond

somewhere in the present future
being like you, so unapologetically
Black, queer and trans
is a synonym of
happiness and freedom,
love and acknowledgement