We’re Not Going Back:

We’re Not Going Back: Companionship, Queer Joy & Paperwork That Ain’t Got Nothing to Do With Love
by Queen Sheba

Let’s talk about companionship.

Not the algorithm-approved “soft launch” kind where you post matching sneakers in a hotel hallway. I’m talking about the real kind—the kind that reminds you to eat before you snap at somebody, the kind that holds your hand and your truth, the kind that still picks you up from the airport even after a fight.

Companionship isn’t just romance. It’s friendship with a spare key. It’s laughter when you forgot you could still laugh. It’s someone who knows how you take your coffee and your silence.

Now let’s talk about Pride.

Pride is not just rainbow T-shirts and corporate hashtags that disappear July 1st like Cinderella’s carriage. It’s protest. It’s pleasure. It’s partnership in the face of policy. It’s our collective refusal to shrink, code-switch, or make our love more “palatable” for anybody’s pending legislation.

Because—newsflash—some of y’all’s uncles in office are busy trying to unwrite our rights with pens drier than their approval ratings.

But here’s what they’ll never understand:
You cannot ban love out of a body.
You cannot outlaw intimacy.
And no amount of paperwork will undo what we’ve survived to become.

We’ve already buried too many friends.
We’ve already rewritten too many histories.
We will not be revising our existence so it fits into someone else’s narrow definition of “acceptable.”

This Pride Month, I’m celebrating every femme, stud, they, trans, bi, ace, nonbinary, unlabeled, pan, and questioning soul that ever dared to choose love anyway.
To love in broad daylight.
To hold hands in parking lots.
To kiss at the corner booth and not flinch.

We are the law now.

Our joy is policy.
Our bodies are legislation.
And our companionship?
It’s revolution with a day rate.

So take the trip.
Write the vows.
Make the brunch reservation.
And don’t you dare go back in the closet just because the paperwork got loud.

We’re here.
We’re legendary.
And we’re not going back.

Happy Pride. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Write on,
Queen Sheba

#TheQueenSheba #PrideMonth #BlackQueerJoy #WeNotGoingBack #PoetryForPolicy #LoveIsLaw #SpokenWordPoet