Visibility 2025

before the world called us

wrong

we were stars in the sky

spinning stories in the

silence

between breaths of the wind

walking roads before rome

before babylon

before jesus

we were the keepers of

hope, the ones who walked

between, not caught

in the illusion of walls and borders

but shifting

shimmering

knowing

more than man

more than woman

more than words allow

human

in the temples of inanna,

we braided silken strands

into chains of

our compassion

in the courts of emperors

we spoke

wisdom

hijra

osh-tisch

we'wha

ninauh-oskiti-pahpyaki

mahu

many names

many spirits

lives beyond the small

cages of

rigid expectation

cruel and bitter times

empires rose on the bones of

our destruction

the eradication of those

who refused to be chained

to a single name

a single body

a single way

those who chose

to be whole

to be authentic

to be

we were burned

banished

buried beneath lies

Still

we were

in the quiet

revolution of a name

whispered that becomes true

we endure

we reclaim

we breathe into the cracks

of history and inhale the

breathe of these

ancestors,

growing like wild things

untamed, unbroken, alive

in their sacred memories

not new

not sudden

not a phase

but echoes of something

ancient and vast

something sacred

a love song of existence

that refuses to be

silenced

over discomfort

they were

we are

free

visible

sacred

perfect

Saint Marino/Marina, image credited to https://www.axiawomen.org/wow/st-marina-monk

kfr, @all rights reserved except with written permission, 2025