Frat Boy Love Poem

I am in love with a frat boy.
I know it
He knows it
We both know it
We just don’t acknowledge it.

Every night he comes over and we get deep
But I don’t mean like fucking, or kissing kind of deep –
I mean deep like looking into each other’s eyes
And doing that little eskimo kiss thing that just drives me crazy…
And I say I missed you.

And he says I missed you back.
And he always squeezes me just a little bit tighter than necessary when he hugs me.
And when he tells me about his day
He tells me he’s so happy to have someone to talk to.
He tells me he’s so happy to have someone to hold.

But when we go out in public we bro-five
And we say “bro”.
And we look straight ahead
And I mean straight
Like, straighter than that little ass tap thing football players do.

But when he comes over he is cultured.
He doesn’t chug beer he sips wine and
He isn’t awkward around my roommates
He smiles and holds conversations
He has opinions and jokes and anecdotes and I mean he – he even knows what an anecdote is.

They say ‘home is where the heart is’ and you only ever come over to my house, away from prying eyes
So I guess that makes me a hermit not in my own home,
But here in my own heart. Trapped.
In this relationship.
And it hurts.

I am sorry if I am not masculine enough for you.
As if being too comfortable in my own skin
Translates into being too gay to associate with
Translates into being less of a man
As if the real me doesn’t measure up to the standards that you have set so high for yourself…in public.

I hope you understand that I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.
I don’t want to out you to your bros
I don’t want to out you to your friends and family
I don’t want to put what we have on Facebook and NO
I don’t want to hold hands and dance across the quad

What I want is to break you from the bonds of this collegiate brotherhood
That wants to oppress you
That wants you to suppress yourself
That wants to make you feel weird because you like to wear bright pink shorts instead of those shitty pastel salmon ones from J Crew.

I want you to look at me and feel proud of our bromance romance
To see that what we share is just as special as what any of your bros and their hos share
To know that I will be there
To hold your hand through this coming out initiation
Because I have been there.
Already.

And because I want to know that when you come over,
And hold my hand, and kiss my neck,
And wrap me up in your arms
It isn’t because I was the best you could find that night, September 22nd.
It’s because you want to.