When I was fifteen I listened to a religion teacher say
“Maybe” there should be a queer holocaust
and I pretended it didn’t hurt me,
the same way I pretended when she said
trans people mutilate their bodies by becoming who they are
when she misgendered Leelah Alcorn
when she called asexuals freaks of nature
when the other queer kid got sent to therapy
for having the audacity to even try to start a GSA
and suggesting that maybe everyone deserves to feel safe here
and my friends
think I’m overreacting
“It’s not a big deal!”
“Get over it!”
“Stop trying to be so special,
you should be expecting it at a Catholic school,
this is just what religion is like”
Is it?
Head down
Head down
Voices down,
you can get expelled for disagreeing with the archdiocese
Whisper in the hallway
about all the girls with pregnancy scares
who believed that
love
was the best contraceptive
Is that what Jose Gomez is teaching us?
No it doesn’t hurt
to watch my friends cry
about boys who yell “******”
down high school hallways
No it doesn’t hurt
when my friend asked me
“what would your kids even call you?”
No it doesn’t hurt
to be like this
Or at least
I can pretend it doesn’t