By Amberdawn Collier

A scarecrow, broken, battered,

but not by the wind.

Hair, skin, clothes-tattered.

Left alive, bleeding, with no chance to mend.

18 hours, ¾ of a day.

Hanging onto a fence, onto life

Two manly Christian men

thought he had to pay

Because he simply didn’t want ‘a woman, a girlfriend, a wife,’

Because he’d have rater had a husband,

Another man to embrace,

to walk with peacefully, holding hands.

Our self-appointed gods ruled this was not a place

For fags, for homos, for a sweet boy

who loved his family

and received joy

from his life, which was treated so shabbily.

Mattew, rest in peace if you can.

Those left behind will remember,

will set in motion a plan

of equality, of justice for every member

of the world.