I insist on survival every day I stay in Texas.
Let me explain. A friend came over today
& boom: joy shone from our fingertips.
While the moon transitioned from waxing to waning,
my bro got a top surgery letter. We get by
with bitterness & rage. Home is no refuge
from pain. Home is a state where all my homies
share best remedies for sads acquired during
our new winter. Acquired from a legislative session
where our rights are chopped-n-screwed like songs.
We shake hades away at Tuezgayz,
melancholy in a city without transit, so
I must sit idly on I-35, call my mother
while my blood pressure subsides.
Richard Wright once escaped to the north,
a place where cold awaited him.
I understand his urge to float to a land
with less waves but water nonetheless. All I need
is a couple baddies with yeehaw slang
to South Dallas Swag in the ocean;
no body of water can tame the sweetness living
in my gold-toothed bro from H-town.
Everything’s bigger in Texas. Even the aching hearts.
Love is wrapped up in a land that wants me
more than the news lets on, so I run to it
quicker than a governing body says get out;
I rodeo to it
on the back of a smiling Longhorn
holding a Texas flag with tampons doused in blood,
the phrase come and take it surrounded
by an exodus of rainbow
The post Texas, No Exodus appeared first on The Texas Observer.
This post was originally authored and published by KB Brookins from the , a nonprofit investigative news outlet and magazine. Sign up for their , or follow them on and .
