1... you beat everyone to the punch and branded yourself a freak before you knew what that word even really meant
but that didn’t matter because, five days a week you waited for the bus with a bouquet of scotch broom held in one small hand
picked sweetly and tenderly for the pretty, pretty girl with her long brown hair and shine in her eyes that always saved a seat just for you
and she always took those flowers, too might even let you hold her hand
and you didn’t know what it meant at seven years old but there were sparks and butterflies and you never wanted to let go
2. but, kids can be cruel and you remember the terror crushing and suffocating that came on the heels of realizing you liked this girl
probably more than any two girls should have liked each other you told yourself
trying to hold that part in that knowledge of liking someone of the same *** but not feeling like that was the right gender for you, either
and what is a child supposed to do with that? how can someone so young expect themselves to have the proper vocabulary to express something so big and so new?
3. and you think of that girl for the first time in 15 years crying into the knuckles held firmly in your chipped teeth
like there are enough tears to wash out the pain that still lingers from feeling so wrong and ***** for so many years
and you called yourself a freak first but, only to lessen the sting that came with being called worse things
like what was different about you was so much worse than wanting to hold hands with a pretty, pretty girl that saved you a seat on the bus and would sometimes let you hold her hand
4. and you want to ask what is so wrong with that, who were you hurting, being young and in something akin to love?
and you want to ask so many things like how you were supposed to know you could be gay when no one ever said so
how were you to know that a girl could love a girl and a boy could love a boy and there is beauty in that?
because, of course there is there was beauty in your love for that girl with the long brown hair and soft smile
there was beauty in your knowing that if that girl had asked and smiled at you just so you would have stolen the moon from the sky just for her
5. and you know so many things now and only some of them hurt enough to bring tears to your tired eyes
and that’s okay, too no one can blame you for mourning over what could have been and could have been sooner
if only you had known that your affection was not only okay but a thing to behold to be proud of
6. and you have loved since that girl sometimes wondering if she remembers your name
and you have cried, too out of fear and happiness and heartbreak like any good poet must do
and you have grown into yourself into your being as a man
and you’ve got the scars to prove it thank you very much
and sometimes, when you look at him or her or them
you are nothing more than that child again picking flowers for a pretty girl because you know they will make her smile
and that smile will make your heart grow wings every time