They come in the night.
They come in the quiet.
They come in the shifting of laws, in the stillness, in the dark.
With hands folded in prayer and lips curled in claws.
They come whispering peace.
They come preaching order.
They come with light so bright it blinds, so bright it burns,
So bright it scorches every name from the page.
They rewrite the story.
They erase the names.
They turn rainbow to grayscale, turn pride into shame.
They think if they whisper, if they silence, if they hide,
That we’ll fold like paper, that we’ll wither inside.
But hear me now—
I was here before your world was built.
Before your pulpits turned to steel.
Before your justice turned to guilt.
Before your prayers turned to chains.
Before your mercy turned to dust.
I have danced in the dark.
I have sung with the stars.
I have carried my love through a thousand scars.
I have wept.
I have bled.
I have burned.
And still, I rise.
Erase me?
Erase us?
Try it.
Try it again.
Try it a hundred times.
Try it a thousand times.
Watch as we return.
Because I am in the ink of the poets you burned.
I am in the echoes of laughter from lessons unlearned.
I am carved into stone.
I am whispered in wind.
I am written in the veins of a lover, a friend.
I am here.
I am here.
I am here.
Not a question.
Not a phase.
Not a footnote in time.
I am history.
I am future.
I am body.
I am mind.
And when the new world comes—
Let it come.
Let it try.
Let it rise up with its laws, its silence, its light that blinds.
Because for every one of us silenced, a hundred will rise.
A thousand will rise.
A million will rise.
With voices like thunder.
With fire in their eyes.
With names you tried to erase written in the sky.
And you will know—
That we are not afraid.
That we are not alone.
That we have always been.
And we will always be.
