i'm in league with the queer folk like me.
the world's beautiful monsters, like the author of Sea-Witch, the fairies and freaks and all our glory.
but not just the other monsters like me. but like Jesus Christ, perfect monster. Or monsters like Marie Curie, or monsters touched by madness, like me or Hitchcock. I'm in league with the poor. With the convict. With the tortured geniuses and the other prophets. I'm in it with the redeemers we destroy like MLK Jr. I'm in league everyone you hate. And everyone I hate. And everyone we love to hate when you or I should remember to love. And I'm in league with you even if we sometimes forget that. But also I'm in league with the w h o r e s and and the wretched. The suffering. The ill. And yes, the weird and the queer.
I'm in league with the messy underbelly of humanity we as a society love to devalue or even despise.
As Eugene Debs said so beautifully addressing a court so long ago:
"Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."