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.