Indiana

To the girl with a heart large enough for many state populations; with a smile bright enough to outside the sun. Rest in Peace, my love.

Indiana

I never knew you.
I never saw your love spread bright enough to send sunshine hurtling
through window panes.
Never firsthand did I experience you,
lending your grace for free
to people who made you happy
to get out of bed in the morning.
I suppose I have Jack Dorsey and Kevin Systrom to thank
for the possibility of knowing anything about you at all.

Twitter.
That's how I learned
of your life.
An obituary carved in silicone,
preserved for generations
in a changing timeline;
I was there. Your smile called to me.
You know, it's amazing how some people can just smile with their whole face,
and girl, you mastered that.
Forget lighting up a room,
you could burn atmospheres.
That'd make a pretty great pickup line
in different circumstances.


I pondered your life, perused your instagram,
you know you looked so excited
when that girl at the Hozier show
threw that lesbian flag at the stage,
and Andrew John picked it up and hoisted it on the mic.
I felt your pain
when you told the world your family forced you
to dress masculine,
to be their little boy.
Their denial like stab wounds
in your beating heart.
That wound spoke to twelve-year-old me,
my mother couldn't see
what I never had the words for.

You turned me upside down in your departure,
from that smiling little child on page four,
to the beautiful person they grew up to be,
oh Indy,
you opened something in the deep recesses of my mind
that I could never find the words for
until now.
But if I could trade my insight for the opportunity to know you,
to dance and sing with you, to share a simple cup of coffee,
I'd bleed it out of my brain and let this revelation scatter
in red drops on the pavement waiting to be washed away.
A stranger's death has never moved me
to this sort of all-encompassing
relentlessly rapid
river running
rainstorm
of emotion.

Lane said that you left her silly and positive comments on her TikToks.
She said that she knew you were full of love, that the world lost an angel.
Lex recalled how your words of encouragement helped her continue her streaming career.
Your words inspired others to renew their dedication.
In your twenty-seven short years, you touched the lives
of all who knew you.

But your parents,
your parents said "he is gone."
Even in your death, their breath denied you, when
like God in Genesis,
that same breath
could’ve breathed new life
into your soft clay.
You wanted their love.
They chose, despite all that you were, to betray.
You were forced in their home to conform
to their ideas and their norms,
to their vision of who you were.
They refused to grant
their sweet-natured daughter
the same love they gave others.

I saw the hate too.
What malice flows through the minds of
Twitter trolls who decide
to wake up in the morning, open their eyes,
and see that Indiana Grayson died and
deride the life of one who smiled so wide,
who had so much light inside?
When learning that their parents misgendered them even in death,
the bastards say "They should've"
Probably the very same kinds who said
"It's disgusting to wish someone dead"
When 5.56x45 millimeters of hot lead
whizzed by the head of their orange calf.

The Fascist in Chief holds the belief
that Trans lives are not lives at all.
Project 2025 is a clear declaration,
for all of us in this Christian nation,
that being queer is an “ideology”
that sweeps the youth
into damnation.
That the only way to "cure" the country
is to rid us of ourselves,
strip away our healthcare,
and ignore the science.
There is no hate like Christian love.
The kind that shines from above in the form of
fire to immolate and burn away before their eyes
all that they despise.

It's obvious to me
that Jesus would see Indiana
and hear of their plight.
His eyes crying tears that flood away
the immolating fire of hate spewed in His name.
He would embrace them with a "Welcome home, daughter.
Walk with me for a while, if you please.
We've much to talk about."