When I came out to my brother, he couldn’t understand why I seemed so scared to tell him. To him, it was clear-cut: if I was gay, then that was that, and how could I be any less than perfectly proud and unapologetic? He didn’t understand that every word I managed was laced with the consuming fear of growing up in our stifling, traditional household. At the time, I was too scattered to explain it to him. Now, I want to give it a shot.
What it means to grow up where we did:
It’s Dad glaring at two men holding hands on the street
It’s Mom condemning them as cowardly, lunatic, and pathetic
It’s being paralyzed by the thought of you having a similar reaction to me
It’s many stripped and distorted experiences
It’s having my first kiss with a sweaty boy in a movie theater in 7th grade, revolted by his tongue,
washing it right off in the bathroom outside,
thinking, pleading, “This cannot be it.”
It’s dating three more boys after that, hoping for someone who could fix me
It’s rebuking myself for noticing her eyes, vivacious and warm
Stop – you’re intruding, your shape does not fit here
It’s me, at 8, 11, 13, 17
resigning to hide this part of myself forever – it’ll go away, it’s not real, I could never be like that
It’s not having real feelings for anybody
Edit: It’s not being able to let myself have feelings for anybody because nobody ever told me this kind of love was legitimate
It’s being terrified of coming out to one of my best friends, who is also gay, because if even I feel ashamed of myself,
how can I expect better from anyone else?
It’s not being able to say “She’s cute” to my friends even after coming out to them
It’s tears in my eyes when I think about ever being with somebody It’s not being able to specify “a girl” instead of “somebody”
It’s looking away and apologizing when my roommates change in our room, when I was not looking in the first place
It’s having always to come back to this raw, insidious insecurity
It’s being so much harder on myself than anyone has ever been on me
It’s being stuck in limbo, between out and closeted, self-loving and self-condemning
It’s still carrying around a piece of the shame It’s patience
It’s small victories over time
It’s a work in progress
k amy i read this last year and never commented because i am cowardly, but now im not and this is a damn good piece