Waiting for Matthew Shepard’s funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral to begin I stood in place holding my ground and my processional torch and a woman came down to me she cradled half empty an unlocked ziplock half filled with dirt she asked are you carrying the torch? I said yes cause I thought I was and let me tell you she looked me dead in my eyes and told me I can put some of this here dirt in your torch’s collar it’s from his hometown in Wyoming I said ok only right then and there smack in that moment I knew my torch couldn’t be a torch anymore it was something like a heaven and she wasn’t just a woman cause she hugged me so tight she had to be an angel and the dust wasn’t dirt it was Matthew Shepard it was Wyoming it was a little black boy in Mississippi it was e l e v e n jews in Pittsburgh it was Adam it was Eve it was you it was me so how the hell are you gonna tell me that my torch’s flame was just a flame. That’s where my itch started. I wasn’t really carrying a torch before right then and there but if I carry mine and you yours then we could really go somewhere.