Abe Louise Young

Don’t decide to die without consulting me
(for queer youth everywhere)

So yes,
some young activists,
artists & queers
lose relatives
in layers
& sometimes
walk around
naked
from stare
to stare.

First, grandparents
resist, then uncles
& fathers
fade, siblings
cease to radio in,
mothers fumble,
anthills rise
over roads
home

but

lily, lady, lad,
lass, listen:
the radio
of love
is on, you’re live,
don’t go silent yet.

We can fix any
emergency,
you can cocoon,
rewrite the rules,
fuck indiscriminately,
sob or strip in class,
but please don’t decide
to die without
consulting me.

Please
inform your friends
& deities,
read runes,
let us feed you
whipped cream
& berries
on a silver
baby spoon,

try
a change
of latitude,
charter a unicorn,
style your hair
with new warrior
attitude,

remember
that in every country,
laundromat,
café, hamlet,
cell or paradise
on earth
someone gorgeous,
someone honest & wonderful
is probably waiting nearby,
idly reading
the funnies,
their heart filled
with peonies,

thumbs hooked
in belt loops, waiting
with a big mysterious
smile to welcome
you home.





Abe Louise Young is an independent writer, educator and social justice activist. She's the author of two chapbooks of poetry, Heaven to Me (Headmistress Press) and Ammonite (Magnolia Press Collective). A lifelong social justice advocate, she's also the author/editor of numerous guides, including Queer Youth Advice for Educators: How to Respect and Protect Your LGBTQ Students; Hip Deep: Opinion, Essays, and Vision from American Teenagers; and an archive of oral histories with Hurricane Katrina survivors, Alive in Truth: The New Orleans Disaster Oral History Project.