It’s one of those days when my mind goes spinning, spinning, holding onto the rails by the edge of one rim, but my heart is still and slowly dripping, a drop then a drop at a time onto the floor, spreading through the emptied casings and broken glass.

Maybe tomorrow, next week, it will be back in parallel lines, less of a ricochet and more of a clear track, able to talk policy and politics. Today, though, I’m choking on love. That’s all. So many in my life, adding so many different kinds of light and texture, my closer-than-friends, my family. So a part of my bone structure that I can’t disentangle enough to begin to isolate what it is that there could be to hate.

I could always kiss my lovers on a street corner without fear of turning the stomach of a man with a gun, but I was there too, drinking a tall glass of blue liquor in the strobe lights. It was always the safe haven, even with the shady dark corners and the drugs in the drinks, it was always the place to not to have to ask the question of what it will cost to hold hands walking past that porch of frat boys, to not to have to gauge who to trust, to not to have to, to just not to have to.

Today is a shattered-glass mess of rage and sorrow, but mostly love. Today my prayers are with my family, and that our queens wear their heels just a couple inches taller, that our lovers hold each other just that much tighter, and that we breathe together through the day and through the night.

These are their names. Rest in love and rest in power.