LGBTQ+ Atlanta: Hidden Gardens

Lyrics

There is no historical marker.
No plaque on a brick wall on Peachtree.
Just a story you tell when the door is locked.
A garden that grew in the dark.

By day, we wore the right tie, the sensible shoes.
Smiled at the right people.
Lived a life printed in black and white in the Atlanta Journal.
But the night had color.
A different map of the city, drawn in glances.
A question about a book you weren't reading.
The way you held your cigarette.
Small keys to unlock invisible doors.

We tended hidden gardens.
Down alleys where the city forgot its own name.
Behind doors painted a color no one would notice.
We coaxed life from shadow, watered roots with whiskey and quiet laughter.
Just to breathe for an hour.
Just to see our own faces reflected back.
In the hidden gardens of Atlanta.

Remember the place off Ponce?
Through the kitchen of that all-night diner.
The air thick with smoke and Jean Naté.
The clink of ice in a glass was the only church bell we had.
We learned the new arrivals by the fear in their eyes.
And we learned to give them space.
To let them find their footing on sacred ground,
this small, borrowed acre of freedom.

We tended hidden gardens.
Down alleys where the city forgot its own name.
Behind doors painted a color no one would notice.
We coaxed life from shadow, watered roots with whiskey and quiet laughter.
Just to breathe for an hour.
Just to see our own faces reflected back.
In the hidden gardens of Atlanta.

The record is silent.
The names are lost like keys dropped in the Chattahoochee.
They exist only in the space between heartbeats.
A hand on a shoulder, a shared look across a smoky room.
The constant hum of fear.
Headlights sweeping past a window.
A sudden knock.
Every root system was fragile, ready to be torn up.

But the seeds scattered.
They found their way into the sunlight, later.
Much later.
But it all started here.
In the dark.
With us.
In the garden.