I am no longer interested

by Darrell Grizzle in Poetry & Fiction

I am no longer interested in your condemnations of me.

I am no longer interested in your anger

 or your pity
 or your guilt trips
 or your judgments that my sexuality is wrong or unnatural.

I am no longer interested in your clippings about how homosexuality can be cured.
I do not view myself as a disorder to be healed

 or a political argument to be refuted
 or a theological position to be debated.

I am no longer interested in responding to your arguments

 or your Bible verses
 or your propaganda downloaded from < billygraham.org >.

I have moved beyond grief at the way you exclude me.
I have moved beyond anger at the way you condemn me.

Now all I feel is sadness:

 sadness that you will never know me (this is your loss);
 sadness that you will never know the wonderful others who love me;
 sadness that you are held captive by your fears;
 sadness at the joys you’ll never know;
 sadness that you live in a black-and-white world
 and will never know the vivid and wonder-filled technicolor world in which I live.

Welcome

Welcome to the ranks of those who feel
deeply. This is not an easy path.
You will be subject to both anxiety attacks
and random attacks of grace.
You will have days when everything is crystal clear
and days when everything is murky grey.
You will have days when you will feel such joy
you’ll think you might explode.
And you will have days when you will feel despair
so deeply you’ll long to be shallow again
and wonder if you can ever return to normal.
The answer is no.
Your capacity for love — the depths of your compassion —
your ability to experience the emotions that make life worth living —
these are directly proportionate to your ability to feel pain.
This is your blessing and this is your curse.
Welcome.

The Job

Buddhist monks in long robes drumming handdrums chanting

 na mu myo ho renge kyo

carrying banners for peace as their pilgrimage
leads them through another small-town square

and the townfolk gather to stare at them
with amazement and confusion
as if they were alien beings from a distant shining planet

and a cashier sees them through the window

 over the rows of carton cigarettes

and shakes her head with disgust and says
if those assholes had jobs they wouldn’t have time for all this shit

as if the job of peace were not important

as if the job of prayer were not what holds this world together