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Someone in Wyoming Loves Me
For Matthew Shepard may you forever rest in peace

Matthew was my true love.
He waited for as long as he could

but I couldn't get away.
There was a 3-hour delay.

I hadn't told my parents about my trip to Laramie.
I'm still in the closet. I can hear you now,
Girl, closets are for clothes, not gay boys. Oh how I loved you so.

I wanted to wash my hair,
lose a few pounds,

lay off the Big Macs
until I could get up the courage

to tell him I get weak in the knees
for Rally Burger's banana milkshakes.

We were good together.
We both agreed your mother would have loved me.

If only she knew that my love for you was as deep as the sky.
Her homemade brownies were a slice of heaven
on a scratch resistant baking pan.

I should have been around to walk you home that night.
This wouldn't have happened if Village Inn hadn't been

out of blueberry pie.
A slice of pie could have saved my Matthew's life.

Damn them!

Should have been there to rescue you from face mashed with blood.
There wouldn't have been any such thing as pistol-whipped beatings,

or your body hanging, crucified on a frost bitten fence.


Had I been around, none of it would have happened.
There wouldn't have been hands of hatred holding signs picketing your funeral.

The religious right was dressed in raincoats
and three piece suits the day you were buried.
They smudge thick, black bibles with your blood.

They are the bastards out of Laramie.
They spoke for God with forked tongues.


Had I been present in your life, I wouldn't be writing this poem.
I wouldn't have cried myself to sleep when you were pronounced dead,
murdered after a five-day struggle to stay

alive in a hospital bed.
The streets of Wyoming ran red that day over the shoes
of Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney soaking their pant leg.

Had I been with you at the bar,
I would have told you those guys were only pretending
and you should move on.

but I couldn't get a plane out; I was snowed in my love.
I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I'm so very sorry.

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