poem for my uncle about amendment 1

John lennon wrote the song  imagine in 1971

he meant for it to stand taller than the statues we have today that symbolize “freedom”

but i talked to a friend during a writing assignment.

we had to write about an american landmark

he chose the statue of liberty

he said

it was the place my family first tasted freedom in america

we were interrogated and questioned, checked for drugs and disease, and given a temporary visa

but that piece of paper meant the world to my father

i laughed awkwardly and said...yeah...i did the white house because it symbolizes freedom and democracy... he smiled and said it’s okay. when you have my roots that go all the way back to guatemala, you learn that freedom is anything but free

that was 5 years ago.

a 10 year old kid with wisdom beyond his age

he didn't realize how right he could be as the state i then called home passed an amendment saying: gay marriage is illegal. gay rights are non-existent. marriage is the only acceptable manner and that marriage has to be between a man and woman who hide behind bible passages screaming hate but whispering because they are scared of the unknown

i had a reason to remember that these rights weren’t privileges, they were promised to those who live in america

so i guess you are saying gay people aren't people

they don't have rights

treat them like aliens

then i guess my uncle came from outer space

born to a family of 5

4 sons and a daughter

he knew pretty fast he fit in somewhere else

you know what?

maybe he was from outer space

because i like to imagine he could see just a little farther into the night sky past the bigots hazy sight lines and saw that with a whole big universe out there, someone has to be tolerant

my uncle was a star. shone brighter in the night sky he led me home every night even when i hadn't met him yet

i guess that is why when i talk to him, he always says your “estranged” uncle

maybe something sounded strange in his mind about the word uncle because it seemed to tether him to the places he so longed to escape

my uncle lives in new york

i have met him a few times but i could spot his smile like a billboard a mile away

he is happy even in pain because it shows he is still living

and his teeth are whiter than the stars on the american flag he doesn't seem to want to wave anymore

on the night of may 8th i imagined what would have happened had my uncle been living in North Carolina

he would have went to bed with rights

and woken up stripped of them like an animal who was just skinned

i imagine it would have looked like a falling star

so i got angry when i thought of it and promised if i ever saw a shooting star i would try to keep it in my pocket and give it to my uncle so he could wish for a better world.

I read the amendment before it passed

it had fine print crying “don’t ask. don’t tell”

the amendment was written in the shadows of a KKK costume and a bible

because if you ever saw an interview with the wife of Mr. Peter Brunstetter who wrote this amendment to “purify” the state

you would see his wife tell voters “it is for the sake of preserving the caucasian race”

there was a man who videotaped her digging a grave shallow enough so her bones could be seen but deep enough to be forgotten when she tried to explain “well we running out of white people”

i am pretty sure she’s a vampire

stone cold and scared she can only come out at night.

plus she just really sucks

and i sent an email to 2 people

i sent an email to my uncle

and an email to my 10 year old friend

who responded: if they don't overturn it, i want you to make sure they don't put a flag near my grave unless it has every color on the rainbow

i want to go to bed and wake up somewhere else

i want to show america that freedom isn’t a discernibly white woman bronzed and painted green holding a torch

because that looks a lot like a threat to me”

he said he wanted to go away

so i asked him if he wanted to grab a rocketship

because i hear space is real nice this time of year

and i have been holding on to this shooting star for a special occasion