Our pages are torn and tarnished,
our past is vandalised and hunted,
and so we grasp at every colour of the rainbow,
holding tight with wounded hands,
to bruised chests,
with broken hearts.
We are a family,
related by our rejection,
meeting once a year,
all over the world,
some bursting with pride,
some in a necessary disguise,
but each of us knows that we are connected by our colours,
sewn together by the shadows of the ones who came before us.
Their shadows are beautiful but tortured,
taken from us too soon,
persecuted,
left to die in lonely hospital rooms,
locked from the ones who love them,
by the prejudice of bureaucracy and the hate that fuels it.
They are our pages now,
pages we should memorise, memorialise,
make bright with love and kindness,
building a better world,
where our pages will never be torn again.
Sincerely, Jennifer x 