Pride Month is a protest! It is an honoring of the legacy of those who came before us, a reminder that our dynamism is to be celebrated and protected, and that wherever on the spectrum of gender, sexuality, and identity you live, you are to be loved and cherished as a human being, including the varying facets of you. This Pride Month, I am reminded of Pikuach Nefesh, the Jewish principle that preservation of human life overrides virtually any other rule or commandment. I think of those who have lost their lives for being who they are, and those who work tirelessly to ensure that Queer and Trans lives are preserved and protected. I am reminded that we will all be ancestors someday, and it is time that we start behaving in such a manner. May this Pride Month bring you a celebration of life, love, community, self-knowing, and being known. -Chess Jakobs
Ode to the Siblings
After Yusef Komunyakaa
by Chess Jakobs
Queerdo of wonder
Sibling of hope
Sister of magnificence
Brother of joy,
Lover of growth, evolution, and return
You are the curricula for gathering, resilience, and definition.
Indeed
It is you
the one who was once
the shunned
the avant-garde
the not-fully-known
and the fearing,
that is now the template for being unbound.
The rubrik for self-knowing and world-loving.
Ancestrally-covered.
Proud.
Forever becoming.
Holy.
You are the vine that gave us laughs,
fruit, and something to hold on to.
Both the rainbow and the pot of gold.
The girl with a w (gworl).
The boy with an I (boi).
The earthseed.
The lifeblood that was once fearfully coursing is now the course itself.
Twirl! Live out loud, as if it is a mitzvah.
Be yourself as if it were a commandment.
Exist in flannel and pleated skirts.
Guy talk and glitter.
Girl talk and dirty sneakers.
Oonts oonts and prayer.
You are the somebody who loves you.
You are on the twenty-first night of September.
You are the room where it happens.
Let your music shuffle you into a Lenny Kravitz and Barbara Streisand affair.
It ain’t over until it’s over!
And even if they do rain on your parade…
You better keep marching anyway, Bubbelah.
