Sofia Rose Smith | Dance Floor | Pulsamos: LGBTQ Poets Respond to the Pulse Nightclub Shooting

August 3, 2016

Pulsamos
LGBTQ Poets Respond to the Pulse Nightclub Shooting

Sofia Rose Smith

Dance Floor

What washes away when the blood first bursts from the gun wound?

What part of the Body leaves first?

What cells say "yes it's time to go" because there's just too much blood leak for the organs of you to work.

Your heart, for example, will stop.

Even though it was

fluttering from his tongue on your ear lobe just a moment ago

even though you were building sandcastles in your mind of where his hands would touch you next

and what kinds of yeses

he would make with his breath

The sounds begin

to bang around you and

for a second you think

it's someone

putting off firecrackers in the street or on

the dance floor.

Your favorite song is playing

the one you imagine yourself

making dance videos to in the car

but you don't need a video

cuz you have the dance floor and

you have your people

and a place that

lets you be whole

Imagine you're the Sky

like beyond the Earth

your Body is just skin

but you're so much bigger

Imagine you move beyond the

flesh now, like sound waves, like sound itself

you break open

like a cherry tomato

being punctured with a

sharp knife and pop

the liquid spills out, the seeds and the water

and there's just skin left

you try and catch the liquid but it

smears against the counter

and you've lost it.

And you've lost it.

Can I gather the liquid of you?

The blood of you?

Where does your blood end and his begin?

Where does my blood end

and yours begin?

Where does our humanity end and

yours begin?

You are Beyond all this.

You always have been.

Today, I ate soup.

I put my make-up on.

I wrote a poem.

I drank water. I burned sage.

I let myself be held.

I let the tears come.

I let myself sing to

your favorite songs and

pretended I was on

the dance floor with a lover for you.

Sofia Rose Smith is a queer femme of color poet, healer, intuitive guide and coach. She believes in uplifting the needs of women of color, queers and Black folks. She also believes that "we are the ones we've been waiting for" {thank you June Jordan}, and that now is the time for everything. Orlando was not the first — nor will it be the last — violence to shake our communities. We need each other. We need places to hold one another, grieve together, scheme together, write together, hope together. I'm about it, are you? If you're into magic, liberation, self-love and collective care, find Sofia at her website sofiarosesmith.com