have  you ever been afraid to go to sleep?
with nightmares so realistic you wake up with a start.
with  a shock.
subconsciously sitting up,
taking in your surroundings to make sure it was, in fact,
just a nightmare.
just a dream.

but then they haunt  you.
for days on end, it's all your mind can focus on:
whether or not you'll be able to sleep tonight.

you know in your mind
the monsters
the demons
the ghosts
the robbers
the murderers
the rapists
are only figments of an on-edge imagination.
but the knots in your stomach tell you something entirely different.
and so the question lingers still...

will I sleep tonight?

You say you don't want to be called beautiful,
But look at you.
You are.

Maybe not in a conventional way.
You're not a twig.
Your face is full.
Your cheeks are rosy.
Your hair is like platinum.
Your grey eyes twinkle even in the darkness.

Really,
There's nothing ordinary about you.
But ordinary isn't, and never has been beautiful.
And it never will be.

But there is no denying that you are beautiful.
The glow of your smile.
The power of your words.
Your presence on stage.
Your feet as they glide across the floor, even when you're not dancing.

So I will dare to call you beautiful.
Because if you of all people are not beautiful,
Then I will never truly know what beauty is.

We never say, "I love you."
The words always get stuck somewhere between our hearts and our tongues. Forcing us to swallow our affection, and replace the phrases that seem so hard to say with words that are much easier to get out.

Instead of "I miss you." we say "*******."
The distance makes us distraught, as we toss knives at the one person we never want to push away.

Instead of "I trust you." we ask each other to check our phones, because there's nothing on there I don't want her to see.

Instead of "I need you." we look at colleges together.
The idea of leaving each other is so implausible that we spend our time designing our future apartment. Each draft has one shared detail- a wooden bunk bed, so we can fall asleep to the sound of the other's breathing, the reassurance that we  will never have to be alone. The reassurance that I will never have to live without my other half.

We never say, "I love you."
We do not need to.
We say it with every sarcastic comment, every inside joke, shared memory, favorite song, every inhale, and every exhale.

I miss you.
I trust you.
I need you.

We never say, "I love you."
Either that, or we never stop saying it.

6:00 AM

I wake to the sound of my grandmother's voice announcing the morning long before the first rooster crows to the open countryside. The sun is still in hiding as I dress in the dark, already dreading the day's events. Shuffling through the empty house, as I attempt to force my frizzy hair into some kind of order, before giving up and slinging a backpack over my shoulder as I walk out the door.

6:45 AM

I stumble on the bus, still half asleep, as the havoc of the the night before has kept me from ever allowing my body a reprieve. Constantly moving, yet I still somehow manage to gain weight. I drop into a seat, my ever growing thighs pushing together as I lean against the cold glass of the ***** window, not daring to look out upon what my world has become.

7:30 AM

I amble my way up expansive staircases and through crowded hallways to my locker, tucked away in a tight corner next to the English office, where I find a semicircle of people waiting for me. We mumble our morning greetings then part ways in our minds long before our bodies move in opposite directions.

7:40 AM

The late bell rings, and I ease into a seat near the front of the class as one of my three good teachers begins to animatedly shout about expressing ourselves and setting our minds free and I'm always tempted to ask her how exactly I'm supposed to do that trapped between the four walls of this mighty mind numbing institution. Because even though this school may have been built like a castle, anyone whose read "Rapunzel" knows that a castle is just a prison where they hide away women.

8:25 AM

I leave one of the few decent classes of the day and enter the chaos of the hall where people are screaming and running and kissing one another, human interactions that I never seem to be a part of. I sleepwalk through the dull drone of teacher's voices, as they rant on about the importance of my "education."

10:00 AM

I reach my fourth class, the day is nearly half over, and I try as hard as I can to listen to the women at the front of the class as she expands logarithms on the page, but the numbers fog up my mind and cloud my vision. I start to feel dizzy, like if I see another equation I might faint. So instead I pull out a notebook that's nearly falling apart, and let the thoughts fall from my mind, making much more sense on the page as I scribble my feelings in a desperate attempt to be poetic.

10:50 AM

The moment I step foot into the cool auditorium it seems to get a little easier to breathe. The corner of the school I have carved out for myself as a home has opened up to me for midday drama class, and I smile at the sight of half-painted scenery littering the stage. But still I wonder how my creativity is supposed to flow between these walls, and how I'm supposed to allow my spirit to be lifted when every single scene we play out has been one hundred percent scripted.

12:30 PM

Finally, lunch arrives and I rush to the courtyard, hoping to soak up the social freedom of these forty five minutes as my friend and I ramble about things that matter and things that don't and I never remember any of the conversations but they're still important because they're the only things that make me feel sane.

1:20 PM

I find myself in the third floor chemistry classroom where I will sit for the next hour and a half wondering how I could make my death look like an accident from an untested chemical or crazy bunsen burner reaction.

2:45 PM

The school day draws to a close, but still I stay in the building where my dreams have come to die, slaving away in a poorly lit auditorium, giving my life and soul to the theatre. Not for a chance to be on stage, but to be behind the scenes, weaving together a musical with the smallest of roles, and it doesn't seem to matter how insignificant my job is, because it takes a lot of small people to tell a good story.

5:30 PM

I exit the sanctuary of the theatre and walk to my mother's car. I choke as the cigarette smoke fills my lungs, while we talk about both nothing and everything. I find that this is the best conversation I'll have all day.

6:30 PM

I'm called upstairs for dinner, my grandmother insisting we all eat together while we scramble for polite conversation topics. My angry political disputes and uncensored ideals of the future are not welcome here, so I keep my mouth shut, tugging at strategically placed articles of clothing made to hide the few secrets my body has managed to keep.

9:30 PM

After hours of pointless false conversation and staring at a flickering screen, I jump into the shower, loving the blissful in between state it provides.

10:00 PM

I go to bed, but not to sleep, my phone hidden under the sheets, sending secret messages to my friend across the universe, like whispers in the dark. When I finally shut my eyes, all the insecurities crawl into my mind like little insects of anxiety. My throat closes up and I can't breathe. I feel as though I have been tied down, and I thrash around the bed until I tire myself out and slowly succumb to sleep.

12:00 AM

I dream.

6:00 AM

I am ripped out of the one pure moment in my 24 hour cycle, ****** awake by the sharp sound of my grandmother's voice shouting the time. I get up to repeat this never ending monotony of my everyday life.

i'm suffocating, gasping for air, as i sink into the quicksand,
i desperately try to grasp at her arm, hands flailing as i pray to get a hold of any part of her,
but she is too far away to save me in time,
as i drop into the abyss i cannot breathe, i cannot scream, i open my mouth in terror but find sand consuming my lungs, filling up my body until i become one with the earth

i can feel the end approaching in my bones as i allow the panic to dominate my mind,
my body curling into a ball, squirming underground,
my brain screams at me to give up the fight and i know for sure that soon the sand will bury me completely and solidify my skeleton into the soil,
returning to which i arrived,
giving my soul back to the earth, the cycle complete

i've resigned myself to my imminent death when i feel a pair of strong hands wrapping around my wrists, pulling me out of the dirt where i had lay six feet under,
she rips me out of my misery and the sand pours out of my mouth as she cleanses my soul, her presence allows me to breathe the cool morning air once more, no longer choking on my own despair
i cry my gratitude into her shoulder and in her arms is where i can finally start to feel whole
i lay my head on her chest and our hearts beat as one
her voice soothes my fear addled mine, anxiety melting away

she stands strong beside my shaking body, the only person to ever grab my hand, and pull me right out of a panic attack

The summer before I turned thirteen, I spent copious amounts of time perched on the edge of a ***** wooden chair in the corner of my friend's kitchen. Sometimes we'd sit together watching her mother make us dinner, the way her hands moved gracefully chopping up onions, and with a flick of the wrist, tossing them into the cast iron pan.

Other times we'd sit with her sisters and fill the table with large stacks of books, reading our favorite lines out loud to each other. Laughter bubbling up to our ears, a quiet contentment settling over the room.

This time was different. It was just us girls, the oldest of us was playing with my hair as I leaned back against the thick wooden frame of my chair, humming quietly to myself. The ******* the other side of me slid open her phone, them immediately turned to me. When I looked at her, she squirmed in her seat as though she had committed a crime and the kitchen had somehow transformed into an interrogation room.

Finally, she broke the silence, saying, "So, uh, I told my friend, the boy you met the other night, about your whole...thing." Instantly, I knew that this "thing" she was talking about was my crush on the girl down the street. She was still uncomfortable with the subject so I gave her points for trying and swallowed my pride. I asked his response and she glanced back to her phone while I waited for a cry of disgust that never came.

Instead I got a reaction I never knew I should fear. Her phone screen displayed a simple text message with only two words. "That's hot."

As if I should care. As if even though I didn't want men, they were still allowed to want me. Still allowed to think that they owned me.

The way men think that my life is a game and at the end of the day what I really want is a big strong man to take care of me.

All women fear ****** assault, but there's a special kind of torture that seemed made only for me. Corrective **** is what they call it when a man thinks that the best cure for a lesbian is to get a taste of a man.

As if men cannot fathom the idea that women were not made to please them. As if they can't comprehend the idea that there are women who don't want to have *** with them.

The way straight men complain about how uncomfortable gay men make them feel, as if men are allowed to say no and women are not.

And at nearly thirteen years old, I didn't know any of this and I bore his words as though they were a compliment, because even if I didn't want him I'd been raised to think that pleasing men was to be my only goal in life.

I told myself I shouldn't be angry. I begged my skin to stop crawling, my insides to stop revolting against me. What was wrong with me? Why did a compliment feel like an assault?

But a part of me recognized, even at twelve, that those words were not a compliment, but rather a threat. This boy knew I didn't want him, couldn't want him, but that didn't seem to matter to him, because he wanted me. I have been taught that men always get what they want, so why shouldn't he get to have me?

With two words, I felt like I'd been sold into slavery. I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out, silenced by the waves of shame crashing over my mind.

I was a girl, nearly thirteen, sitting in her friend's kitchen, and realizing that I'd never be free.

I. When watching TV with my grandmother, we stumble upon a film about two beautiful girls who fall in love. When they kiss, she turns away from the screen. Every time.

II. I'm getting reading for school in the morning, and turn on an episode of my favorite show. When two of the boys kiss, I glance away out of habit, and my mother whispers, "It's just so strange."

III. I'm making lunch in the kitchen when my grandmother remarks, "I don't think anyone can know they're gay until they try being straight." Suddenly, I'm not hungry anymore.

IV. One of the boys I grew up with keeps telling me that I'll find the right man, no matter how many times I correct him.

V. When my friend finds out, she says it's okay. But she refuses to hug me.

VI. I'm out to dinner with my cousins when  one of them says, "I have a friend who's a lesbian. It's so hot." I excuse myself from the table and spend the rest of the evening sitting in a parking lot.

VII. The boys at school say "***" every other word.

VIII. The girl in the locker room refuses to change next to me.

IX. My grandmother finds a love poem in my room. I tell her it's a part of a school project.

X. In class we talk about gender roles, and a boy gets up and says, "You have to teach your kid to be manly or he'll end up being gay."

XI. Someone says the word "****" and I feel like crying.

XII. The youth pastor at my church tells me that I can be cured.

XIII. Everyone tells me I'm wrong.

XIV. I tell myself I am wrong. Every single day, it repeats in my head like a sacred chant. I tell myself I don't deserve to live. Until the day that I don't.

--------------------

I. I watch every movie I can find without looking away.

II. I smile every time they kiss.

III. I develop a stronger stomach.

IV. I correct him more forcefully.

V. Her sister hugs me twice as hard.

VI. I slap my cousin across the face.

VII. I decide to see it as a term of endearment.

VIII. I stop taking gym.

IX. My grandmother finds a love poem in the room. I tell her to calm down.

X. The girl beside me tells him to shut his mouth.

XI. Someone says the word "****" and I feel like laughing.

XII. I pray for her.

XIII. Everyone tells me I'm wrong.

XIV. I tell myself I am wrong.

XVI. Until the day that I don't.

Dreams.
Follow your dreams.
Chase your dream to the ends of the earth.
But chase with caution.
Dreams have a knack for getting in the way.
Of real life.
Of the responsibilities that real life holds.
But don't be too cautious.
For dreams chased are the way to happiness.
And without that,
What else do we have to live for?