By Jordan Leahy

On January 20th – the 34th observance and celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day – approximately 22,000 people (mostly white men) rallied in Richmond, Virginia, to protest proposed legislation to address and decrease gun violence in the Commonwealth. Their numbers, and the accompanying threat of violence, was so great that many other annually held rallies were cancelled.

Content Warning: sexual assault imagery

The Gospel of Paranoia
Convenes them.
Foreboding presence
“Come and take it.”
They cling to
White supremacy
Disinformation
Their own exploitation.
All more indicative
Of what
Their respective childhoods lacked
Than of ideological coherence
Or historical literacy.
All the while
The media documents
And relays
Footage of
This public
Circle jerk
(Without our consent),
And thanks them all
For only threatening
Our lives,
Rather than
Cumming
And taking them.

Jordan Leahy (he/him) lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he enjoys hiking with his family and has recently gotten into bird-watching.