coming out
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Why haven’t you come out?
It doesn’t make sense
You know your parents would… probably accept you
They are allies, you know that much
I never told my parents I was gay.
Never mentioned that I would not be giving them grandchildren.
An eleven year old’s mind, full of insecurity, but eleven year old’s will listen.
Listen to the news that you watch
You make fun of my voice.Likening it to a chickenThe tears roll off my cheekLike the waterfalls of the NiagaraAre you a boy or a girlAre you queer or gay?Why limit me to the binaryFor you feel entitled cisquoI never will understand theeFor you sa
The grave hollows the liesThat are performativeFor it reveals my own bondageShake the blocks crushing down my skirtSo it crumbles down the mirror of delusion
Who are you in the flesh?Were you always masculine or feminine Or were you just too extreme for the box?
Housekeeping
I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with closets.
On one hand it’s been a safe spot wasn’t it?
A haven to escape to when I was afraid,
By now in life you have faced some demons;
Learned the corners and closets to avoid.
You coddle your innocence
In the soft and cuddly things around you.
He is thirteen
Navigating school hallways and people and the nooks and crannies of his developing body
But one thing he can't figure out
Is what's wrong with him
i've done it.
okay?
i've done a lot.
i've laughed till i peed myself,
cried until my throat was sore,
figured myself out so i wouldn't have to
On the water there
A petal breaks the silence, suddenly submerged lungs aching for breath,
alone,
more words tumble from the mouth.
Mirror, mirror,
As I speak to you
the petal finds a break
On the water there
A petal breaks the silence, suddenly submerged lungs aching for breath,
alone,
more words tumble from the mouth.
Mirror, mirror,
As I speak to you
the petal finds a break
That feeling;
hand shaking, heart missing beats .
I can hear the drop of a pen.
I knew when I was 5.
But I'm 15 now and can no longer lie.
The boys never gave me cuties,
Can I tell you something?
It's quite important
But I mean no alarm so, actually I'll say it's not
We haven't talked in a while
It's time I tell you this thing
Oh you're kind of busy?
her words,
shatter my resolve like ice
smashing my hope to bits and pieces
she says I'm over reacting
inventing things to finally make friends
this isn't how it ends
Every little kid learns about butterflies,
With their fluttering wings and their monumental transformation
you're four and pocahontas is your world.
mommy and daddy don't understand,
'you want to marry the princess?
you can't.'
(they don't know why you're confused.)
to be queer is strange,
but stranger is pretending
for you that i’m not.
i am not a bug
to be shut in a jar and
When I was young,
Living in a world of hate,
My mind created a cage.
It was told that love has chains,
Love must be restrained,
"Have you ever dated a girl?"
He asked.
I wanted to tell him that
she grows flowers from her veins
A long, long time ago in a small home
lived a little girl who felt alone
she screamed and cried but wasn't heard
all the noise and clatter around her
was so loud, no one heard her words
I am an impressive liar
I lie everyday
to everyone and everything
I can even convince myself of some of my lies
These lies are pretty convincing
and have made me tell much more
I've finally thrown her out of my house.I defenestrated the cunt after all these years.I still catch drops of her blood pooling underneath the doormat and dripping from the leaves overhead of my porch.
today i smile because
for years i have denied who i am
today i smile because
i was scared to come out
today i smile because
i was too proud to admit mom was right
today i smile because
Dear Uncertain Teachers,
You may have noticed some features
some things I'm insecure about
but I'm here to tell you without a doubt
that I am a boy.
dear Me in the Closet,
imagine a sunrise that goes on for forever,the radiant colors staining every inch of the sky you see.beautiful, right?
Dear Mom and Dad,
Wish you knew how bad it hurts to keep something like this from you.
Wish you felt how I felt, the way my heart drops whenever you make a negative comment about someone just because of who they love.
Dear father,
I'm sorry you had to find out this way. I'm sorry I've hidden, lied, deceived. I'm sorry you had to find out this way.
Everything is Everything,
My hand possesses no wedding ring,
And my mommas don't either,
But she still sings.
In the kitchen on Sunday morning,
Ever since New York
I tried to change my mind
pushed away these little things
and these little white lies.
I was only 18 surrounded by fool's gold.
I had no control as these fire proof clouds
Red, as my family's faces,
Orange, as a pumpkin pie in November,
Yellow, as the plates that were on the table,
Green, as the salad in Thanksgiving,
Blue, as how I felt after telling them,
When I look in the mirror
I see a face rottiong away
I don't know who she is
But I know it's not who I am
What am I?
Who is she?
Why's this mirror always lying to me ?
what does unconditional mean, really?
is unconditional love loving someone with disregard for those qualities they don’t like?
They love you for who you are, but sometimes words, they leave a scar.
A scar so deep, you question who you are.
like you've been hit by a car,
over and over, and, you're the owner of the car,
moving slower, slower.
I'm a Narnian, amongst the cardigans.
your material deposits, in the closet.
I liked it there, it's hard to explain, I can't complain,
for the people I met along the way, I could have stayed.
I came out to you on a school day
I gave you that final part of me
And I can hear it in your voice as you spit out your words:
"Disgusting." "Disgraceful." "Horrid."
I'm a disappointment to the family,
It took until this year for me to accept me
To even realize I was drowning
In an ocean of the heteronormative
I was floundering
You say I was quiet, and shy way back then.
I was little and it’s hard to remember, but when
I think about it, I really did stay
To myself, hidden behind you, without much to say.
A year from now it was dark,
But that was before Clark.
So I came out,
with a famous shout.
Now I wear glitter and make my mark!
I'm still me, but I'm not the same.
My hair is shorter, my spirit bolder.
I say I'm still me and in a way it is true.
But that doesnt mean,
That it's the "me" that you knew.
these two situations are not ideal in combination:
being thirteen,
and realizing that gay is a synonym for your name.
but that was my summer before eighth grade.
It's hard being in a closet.The hangers hit your head and you can't see past whatever clothes you have.But I think it's even harder being in THE closet.
What do you think of me?
Do you really love me?
What if I told you something about mysel that might change the way you think of me of me?
What if I told you that I saw the world in color?
The ever clever fox is so swift
Little did she know, she has a gift
With a flick of her tail
She’ll never fail
But the ever clever fox
Is about to go through hail
You see…
Once upon a time,
We were younger and we loved each other.
You loved me freely, for the world to see,
But I had fears so I loved you secretly.
But you should know that I did.
Know that even with the passing time
Meaning to my existence flees from me
Must I decide from various notions
When decisions are my own cup of tea
Based on preference, not by promotions
i sat at a red light in my girlfriend's car and yawned. before i could react, she poked her finger in in my mouth and laughed. i remember my dad telling me how he used to do that to my mom when they were dating in college.
i'm nothing.
i'm nothing but
petrified wood
nothing more
than a hardened rock
sitting in a grove of
others just like me
pointless and worthless.
so i carve out arms
hips
occasionally
you meet a person or
people who
strike your heart
like a hammer to a bell.
it hurts when they
don't return the feeling.
they become the reason
for the cracks
You see me but only the outside and preconceived notions cloud your judgment of my reality.
I’m not trying to hide but,
I wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans and take a breath.
"Mom do you know what pan sexuality is?"
i think of the girls I kissed
when you were little, did you ever play hide and seek? there’s always one kid who hides in the closetif it was you, you know whythe closet’s warm and dark and quiet and as long as you stay silent, no one can tell you’re there
When my seventh grade self,
Riled up over the excitement of having a girlfriend,
Came out to my mom I said,
Society judges me like the God I don't believe in
My mother smiles at me warm and comforting
My friends congrat me but the meaning is empty
The are congratulating something they see as trending
It hurts me, more than it hurts you
Seeing the pain in your eyes makes me want to die
I will never understand it, but I’ll do my best and try
But I guess if nothing was said, I really didn’t know you at all
Why is it when I close my eyes all I see is you? Why is it that when you walk in the room my heart beats for you? Your smile is indescribable; your eyes are like the stars in the sky.
"I love you," he used to say
every night.
Every night when he tucked me to bed saying, "you're the best daughter ever."
"I love you too, "
returned daddy's little girl.
God give me a second chance
I’ve been dealt a hand that no man can understand
Falling in between the lines
Of is this truth or are there lies
I can’t help it
The hand I’ve dealt with
I know it might be lame but I like it when life is simple
I know it is insane but I just wanna be with something like peace on earth and all those things
living life like a game when I want to just sing with you--
I knew you were
Something
special
One year
Eight months
And nine days ago when I first saw your beauty
soaring over social norms with gilded wings;
You could never touch the ground.
Mom, if I said we need to talk
Would you stop and listen to me,
Or would you just blow me off.
If I told you it was important,
Would you believe me?
Or say that I'm exaggerating.
If I told you the truth,
