05/28/2026
Join us June 6th at 10:30 am, at 3747 Church Street for our Pride themed Twin Waters Gathering at Courageous Community. All are welcome!
Happy Pride
when i say, “Happy Pride!” i mean:
see how strangely beautiful we are?
how gorgeously divine?
see how practiced we are at transforming fear into courage?
watch while we make magic wands of the weapons you wield;
your slurs, your bans, your every attempt to shame, denounce, obliterate:
we will laugh in your face,
love louder than any of your fire and brimstone,
dance on the graves of your hatred so vile, so shallow, so silly, so deadly.
when i say, “Happy Pride!” i mean:
Free Palestine.
and abolish ICE.
and defund the police.
and let’s keep each other safe:
sheltering each other from state violence,
from being disappeared or detained;
safe from individualism, too,
and the isolation that accentuates any – every – threat;
safe from the security ideologies of threat, punishment, and control;
willing to risk it all, because we can imagine so much more.
when i say, “Happy Pride!” i mean:
let’s remake the world:
without oligarchs and power-drunk tech bros
without Christian nationalism and US imperialism
without billionaires and bombs and border walls
without tanks and drones and genocide
without occupation, without surveillance
refusing every insipid promise made by power, sameness, or assimilation,
and the intoxicating lure of inclusion, or justifying amassing profit and fame.
when i say, “Happy Pride!” i mean:
while remaking the world let’s also remake Pride:
without pinkwashing and rainbow capitalism
without anti-Blackness and anti-transness
without corporate sponsorships and their countless strings
without CEOs and big banks and law enforcement and toxic masculinity
let’s remake Pride – People’s Pride!
in honor of our ancestors and elders, our radical lineages
of STAR and ACT UP and the Gay Liberation Front,
of Stonewall, yes, but even more so Gene Compton’s Cafeteria,
of unorthodox belonging and creative kinship and joyful defiance.
when i say, “Happy Pride!” i mean:
i still believe in you and me and we.
don’t give up on this world, sweetheart.
let’s not give up on each other, either.
weep and wail and rage and rest, but don’t give up
to numbness or despair or revenge.
i will fight for you. please fight for me, too. let’s fight for each other.
there’s sweetness and softness, still here to share.
there’s beauty and sacred aliveness, rooting and germinating.
there’s pleasure and possibility, yet to come.
please, please: want us to survive, until
we have each other, and until we all
have what we need, to flourish, and live free.
anna blaedel
