ed. note: linda will have one poem a day posted for the week of March 6, 2023.

how they are meant to
they say they want to protect children,
but from whom and what?
guns aren't regulated and purity culture
is running out of control,
victims are blamed instead of the people
who abused them;

being queer isn't inherently sexual but 
you act as if us being alive is inappropriate—

just because heteronormativity is a thing
doesn't make it right to oppress or villainize
people who are different from you,
being queer isn't a choice because no one would
choose to bullied and killed or oppressed like this;

we just want a world where we can be free
to display the rainbows of our hearts and be accepted
for who we are, a world where we don't have to live
in the closets just to survive—

don't tell me you're trying to protect children,
when all you're doing is upholding your biases;
also there are children that know they're queer 
so all you're doing is punishing people for existing
how they are meant to. 

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Linda M. Crate (she/her) is a Pennsylvanian writer whose works have been published widely both online and in print. She has twelve published poetry chapbooks, the latest being: Searching Stained Glass Windows For An Answer (Alien Buddha Press, December 2022).