Mimeograph Light

We met in rooms where curtains learned to close

on names the outside world refused to speak,

and built a space where coded language grows

from borrowed chairs and courage kept discreet.

A magazine was passed from hand to hand,

ink-stained proof that we were not alone,

each typed confession forming common land

beneath a world that claimed we had no home.

We learned to write ourselves into the air

with articles too careful to be safe,

yet still they carried something like a flare

through cities where the truth was out of place.

No banners then, no loud parade of claim—

just quiet pages daring to name a name.