I watch and read with angry eyes,
Glaring at their poisonous lies
‘Their love is wrong, it corrupts our youth!’
Small-minded speech is what affronts my mind,
With venomous words spat by the blind.
He deserves love,
Something more than the tiresome shove
We call for freedom, a new kind of peace!
Something we all wish for,
Where acceptance for all washes to the shore.
Who is to say their love is a sin?
That they are not to be loved as one of God’s kin?
Is two men being wed so vile, so wrong?
Is it truly that bad to take the hand of another man
Just as others so rightfully can?
They love each other, let them be!
Let them know there are others who see.
Allow them to have a lawful marriage,
And give them faith for equal rights,
For this dream should soon be in our sights.
Written by Jess Wilmot
Jess is a writer, performer and superhero enthusiast. Her passion for the pen was realised in Year Two, when Jess wrote ‘The Three Little Pigs’ in the mother’s point of view, in which Mother Pig was in the midst of a passionate affair with the Big Bad Wolf. She’s currently developing her performance poetry passion in the Leicester/Nottingham scenes.
Contact her using JessWillmott_Writer@outlook.com
"I wrote it the day after my grandad died, when I was twelve. In school, after my teacher let me spend the hour alone in the computer room rather than have to remain in a class full of those who were insensitive to the pain I felt at the time.
I hid it away, due to its contents. The lack of straightforward correlation between the words and the Grandad and who I, seemingly, was to the world.
I knew I was gay. I knew I was gay when I was in primary school. And no matter who I told, I was given excuse, after excuse, after excuse for why my gayness was 'a phase'. Held accountable for crushes I had in year 2, 'thinking you want to look like another girl because they're pretty is normal'.
So I hid the poem away, afraid of what the reaction would be from the world if the loss of life had produced something so silly, so selfish, so queer.
Of course, I get now that the poem was a reaction to the thought that a man I love, share blood with, the inner, hard-wiring of my brain wouldn't accept me.
I got more brave, changed the words, added a verse and submitted it in to a national competition and won. Reading it back, I still sound scared, tip-toeing into a world full of Gay that seemed underground, illegal. I refused the labels onto myself with ever-so exclusionary 'they'. Hid behind the word 'man' because that could never apply to me, so therefore could be mistaken to be about me.
I'm still proud of it, it's my first ever *poem*. But I wonder what it'll show about me in another year, another five years, in sixty years.'
