Every day, my community makes me impressed.

We mill around like ants with our specific jobs, helping the colony as a whole.

Some are hiding in plainclothes

and work at a desk.

Some wear a uniform for their profession.

Some are loud

and proud

flaunting their love and life and vibrancy.

Others do not like us. Trying to isolate

those of us that just want our community to thrive.

Our identities, or the idea of them, threatening.

So they poison us with conformity:

a pesticide that does not leave anyone untouched.

Rights chipped away, under the guise of protecting the whole.

When one ant falls, others can smell them.

They drag them to the burial ground where their other brethren lie

Leaving scent trails that disappear too soon.

So many innocents lost to the plague that is intolerance.

When too many fall, the colony struggles.

They become exhausted,

losing the foundational beams of those lost to the plague.

And yet they carry on. They grab the little crumbs of happiness

and bring them back to share.

Through art, through stories, through kinship.

In the small back rooms of work or the loud and proud clubs.

They keep carrying on, built on dreams for the future.

Every day my community makes me impressed. They inspire me to persevere.