Thursday
Here’s a belated post in honor of National Coming Out Day, which was this past Monday. This awareness day, which encourages closeted members of the LGBTQ community to emerge into the daylight, hopes to encourage acceptance. After all, once people realize that there are far more in that community than previously thought—including friends and family members—then a new norm can be established.
Poet Audre Lorde’s “A Litany for Survival” applies to LGBTQ folk along with others who have been marginalized. As “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet” (so she described herself), Lorde understood well what it means to be marginalized. In her poem, she sees herself “at the shoreline/ standing upon the constant edges of decision/ crucial and alone.”
The marginalized, Lorde says, often do not have choices in what we do (“cannot indulge the passing dreams of choice”). We must take what life offers to live our lives. Even as our own dreams die, however, we do what they can to keep our children’s hopes alive.
Unfortunately, Lorde continues, what this means is that our fear controls us. At first this fear, learnt at the mother’s breast, seems to be a friend because it appears to keep us safe. If we stay silent, then perhaps we will survive. And for a moment, that survival seems to validate the behavior. For one who was “never meant to survive,” this represents a temporary triumph.
Fear turns out to be a false friend, however, dominating and ruining every aspect of our lives. Although we stay silent on the belief that their words “will not be heard nor welcomed,” the fear remains with us even in our silence.
And if that’s the case, we may as well speak out. If it is indeed that case that “we were never meant to survive,” then we can draw strength from that. Those who have nothing to lose have nothing to fear.
As millions have discovered when they came out, the relief that comes from that act is far preferable to lives governed by fear. And by coming out as they have, members of the LGBTQ community have radically changed society’s beliefs. We are not home free yet—that’s why it’s important to continue observing National Coming Out Day—but the change in public perception has been remarkable.
A Litany for Survival
For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children’s mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours;
For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.
And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.