Could your delicate hands,
hold me?
Could your soft lips,
press into my face?

I took care of myself.
and sobbed through a therapy session,
I was the one to sign up for the next appointment.
I took care of myself
and worked through pages of homework, even when I could hear arguing from your room.
Even when tears fell on the pages and all I wanted was to run away.
I took care of myself,
When I remembered what happened,
hands under my nightgown,
My four year old brain not knowing what was happening.
I took care of myself,
When I bought a pride shirt,
And some middle aged women told me I was going to hell.
I took care of myself,
Even when you told me the God I know is with me,
Was against my very being.

I did it on my own.
So when you say you won’t walk me down the aisle,
Or pay for my wedding,
Or love me the way you said you always would...
I don’t need you. I learned.
At sixteen,
How to love myself,
And I did on my own.

When I walk,
into the house of worship and prayer,
with notions,
of souls without bodies,
and people not constrained,
by the labels and boundaries of this earth,
of loving without restraint,
without a condition of what they look like,
They all agree.
until I say,
I meant, the concepts of gender, and sexuality.

You, my father,
The one who says
“Meet me in the middle.”
So I take a step forward,
While you take two back.

I’m  getting really, really tired of having to think about my feelings.

For the second night in a row, I lay awake, their face flashing through my mind again and again and again. Guilt, fury, and shame all curled together in my gut, heavy as lead, weighing me down into the bed but keeping sleep at bay.

The guilt threatened to eat me alive. But the fury curled around it, hot and unrelenting, and justified every action past justification until I’m not sure what was right and what was wrong. Were their parents even wrong? Or mine? Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I went about it the wrong way.

Then came the shame. It was like fog, seeping into my chest, dousing the flames and filling my lungs. Making me choke on its lingering bitterness. If I had just kept my **** mouth shut, it would’ve been fine. Or maybe if I’d been bolder, I could’ve made a stand.

And once again, guilt spread through my gut, long fingers of ice scratching down my spine. I winced, dragging my pillow down over my face. All this thought about rights and wrongs...

It exhausts me in every sense of the word. My chest ached, their face appearing in my mind yet again. Were they just as torn, just as unsure as I was right now?

Guilt, fury, shame. The cycle continued. With a long, heavy sigh, I sit up; I guess I’m  not going to get much sleep tonight.

But what else is new.