We live in a straight world.
You might not think it’s true,
“Gays are coming out everyday
could be them next or her,
maybe you too”
Well I’ll take a minute to prove it to you.

If I told you I’m into girls
I’d see your brain short circuit in real time,
“But you don’t look gay” you’d say.
“Straight passing” is what they call
a girl like me, who still looks feminine
but doesn’t want the D.

This “luxury” of remaining in the closet
is really hurting my game,
Added another straight boy
to my list of those who lost it
when they heard me exclaim,
“I appreciate the offer, but I’m gay”

Let’s not forget the most important issue
“Gays will ruin the sanctity of marriage”
Here, I’ll hand you the tissues.
Man and woman, hand in hand, till death do they part,
and yet more than half of all marriages
end in the perfected art of divorce.

Far be it from me,
to take anyone’s right
to do and say what they want,
while you embrace the hate
and live fighting the inevitable reality
of any queer couple tying the knot.

It might be 2018,
but I still can’t hold a potential partner’s hand
in a public facility
without getting disgusted leers
and a dreadful look at multiple cases
of unprovoked hostility.

So, try to look me in the eyes,
And tell me I’m not right.
But despite it all
I’ll keep my head up high
And let that rainbow flag fly
Because this might be a straight world,

But love is love

is love

is love.



And that concludes this winded verse.

LGBT.
You may have never heard of this acronym before,
Or maybe you associate it with liberals, or Obama,
Or hippies.
LGBT stands for:
Lesbian:
I was approached by a straight man
At a gay bar, who asked me if
I wanted to 'have a good time'.
I told him no.
I could see something in his eyes
Flicker, and he asked me why
I told him I only liked women
In that regard
He stood up angrily,
And told me that I was an
Ugly dke anyway.

LGBT stands for
Gay:
I was holding hands with
My boyfriend while
We were walking in the park.
We watched an older woman
Walk up to us and say,
"You're going to hell."
I said, "I'll see you there,"
She glared at me before
Storming off in a rage,
mumbling, "Disgusting fg."
On her way.

LGBT stands for
Bisexual:
I came out to my family today.
My cousin said,
"You're just confused."
My father said,
"Don't you dare walk in
My house with a f*ggot."
My mother said,
"Pick a side."
My supposed "friends" said,
"You're just desperate and greedy."
I've been dating an amazing person
That I can never share if I want to
Stay on good terms with "family".

LGBT stands for
Transgender:
I binded my chest today
With Ace bandages even though
I know it's extremely unsafe
Because I didn't want to be
Seen as a girl again.
I finally cut my own hair
And when I told my mom why
She told me,
"Leave before your father gets home."
I am sleeping on my friend's couch tonight
Because my parents couldn't accept me
As their son.

You might associate the acronym LGBT
With liberals.
Liberals that don't use their religion as an
Excuse when they're really just scared.
Or Obama who said, "No one in America
Should be scared to walk down the street
Holding the hand of the person they love."
Or hippies who refuse to conform to
Heteronormativity, because it only matters
That you love, the who or when or where or why or
How
Doesn't matter nearly as much.
People are more than their secondary ***
Characteristics.
"Love thy neighbor as thyself", right?

They asked us to think of the person we respected the most in our lives.
Once we had that person in our thoughts they continued,
"Now, write a letter to them coming out"
My throat hitched and I felt my chin start to quiver,
One kid called out, "But I'm not gay?"
That isn't the point of the exercise, Michael.
My mother always told me when I cried my chin looked like a walnut because of the way I scrunched it up in attempt to keep from sobbing.
And in that moment I knew my chin was contorting into a nut and my eyes began to burn,
Because am I?
The constant names and ridicule, "You're a ****, you're a ****, you're a ****" spit at me like venom after I donated my hair,
The family jokes of, "So you have a boyfriend yet?"
No.
"A girlfriend then?"
The countless times I have walked downstairs in the morning only to hear my mother say, "You look like a lesbian" and laugh because I didn't feel like putting on makeup that day.

I had spent my entire high school career terrified of the thought of being gay.
But so what?
What if I am?
Why does it feel like being gay is wrong?
The word "gay" is used as an insult time and time again.
If you're not straight then you're not normal.
Normal?
We have to crush this assumption that heterosexuality is a must, that it's the norm.
The LGBTQ community needs you.
We need acceptance.
Someone should not feel threatened due to their sexuality.
That exercise, of writing a letter to your idol coming out, shouldn't even need to exist.
Coming out shouldn't be so scary, so difficult.
We need to learn and to accept one another.
We can't place such negative connotations about being gay, or trans, or pan, or bi, or anything but straight and cis into the youths head,
because then they end up terrified and confused,
just as I was.
Please,
We need to save these kids.

She was a stranger.
Cute, freckled, one of the most beautiful smiles.
And when she looked at me it felt right.

He was a stranger.
Nice eyes, a full beard, tall and burly.
His eyes glanced my way one too many times to be coincidental.

With her I felt comfortable, at ease.
It felt right to smile at her and laugh with her,
and even though I knew it would go nowhere it made me happy.

With him I felt a dull excitement, a small thrill.
It felt good knowing that there was a man around that wanted me,
even though I was sure that I didn't want him.


And that is how I know.
Because laughing and smiling at a new girl felt closer to love
than the lingering lustful looks of an unknown man I was told already wanted me.

I used to grasp onto the smallest bit of attention from a man,
falling over myself with feelings at the mere possibility of being loved by one. Its been years since I've felt that way, I've outgrown the falsehoods about what I thought I knew.

I belong with a woman, I just know I do.

My sassy gay friend
Is not an accessory
When you go rooting through the closet and find him
Lacing straight ties into chains
Do not think that he will complete your outfit
Just because a rainbow holds the hues that you were looking for
Haven’t you seen that bruises also bloom in shades of purple and blue
Fading into green and yellow
With red far too often escaping veins that are supposed to hold it in
Haven’t you seen what marks us
And brings our identity to the surface of our skin
When closet doors are slammed too often against our hands
My sassy gay friend
Is not a decoration
You do not get to wear him at your hip
To flaunt your acceptance
And claim symbiosis
As if he needs you to navigate the streets of heteronormativity
Cutting short his words when communication is the best thing we have
And when speaking fails us we resort to spending an afternoon
Sending smoke signals into the sky
Waiting for security in the focus that it takes just to
Breathe
My sassy gay friend
Is not a collectible
You do not get to gather us up into a complete set
To line us neatly in an array
Of rarities and charities
And alternative identities
Until you feel sufficiently well rounded
In your attempted diversity
My sassy gay friend
Is not an icon
A token character
Or comic relief
My sassy gay friend
Is not meant to be romanticized
Idolized
Or fetishized
He is human
I am human
You are human
And if we see each other as sparkles and rhinestones
We're all going to lose all the value
That can't be found on price tags

Blue skies and apple pies
Football games and guns to aim
40 hours of work and fireworks
Heteronormativity and conformity
White tranquility in the midst of police brutality
White terrorism claiming nationalism
What is the American Dream?
Shutdowns and cages and riches for ages
Fascism raises from hateful rampages
Families taken away from their own
These are a few of Trump's favorite things.
What is the American dream?
A flag always at half-mast
In preparation for the next mass shooting
Killing the poor with a minimum wage
That can't even afford rent
Mocking the people we stole this land from.
America the land of the free
Construct of the patriarchy
Thousands of dollars in medical bills
Treating our oceans like landfills.
Oh say can you see by the dawn's early light
A country so broken the end is in sight.
Capitalistic ideals that possess the rich
Destroying the poor as we're thrown in a ditch
Together we must rise above
And show Trump's cult what we're made of.

Auntie Em is calling….

I was just getting to love my Emerald City
The shiny feel of it, its sweetly diverse demi-monde.
Its shimmering green beauty and tranquil sense of safety.
The heels of my ruby red slippers were well & truly dug in.
But no, the state fair balloon stands before me ******* & ready to go.
A grand exclamation mark in my way if ever there was one.
And Toto for once has gone mute, no chance of a last minute hold up.

"Dorothy, Dorothy, where are you?"

I guess it must have been too fantastical a dream to be true.
A time for goodbyes.
I’m embracing the Lion telling him to always be proud of himself & not to walk unafraid.
The Tin Man’s gentle open heartedness I compliment him on as we both shed tears.
The Scarecrow I kiss and thank for his loyalty & grace under fiery pressure.
With a heavy heart, I climb that first tentative step on the block.  

"We’re sick with worry over you"

I could be angry but the wise words of the mystic ring loudly in my year.
I do need to go back – My Auntie Em is really calling me.
Calling me back to the grey flatlands of home.
Back to the numbness of small town heteronormativity.
Where Twisters rarely every came by to sweep you away and save you.
I could only keep singing ‘Over The Rainbow’ in vain hope.

"Find yourself a place where you won't get into any trouble!

Unlike Dorothy Gale, this Dorothy left Kansas voluntarily
The long yellow brick road finally took me under the rainbow and on to my Emerald City
I no longer pined for home but knew all along that it would call me back one day.
And so here I am, drifting higher & higher away from my adopted home.
Perhaps I need to build a revolving door when I get there to pass through both worlds easily
Or perhaps bring something of the rainbow back to illuminate the grey-lands.
Or perhaps – in reality -  some reconciliation between these worlds is in order.
Perhaps.
It’s time to slip on the ruby red slippers and prepare the way for Kansas.
Yes, this Dorothy has surrendered but
I always had the power to be me, my dear.
I just had to learn it for myself.

August –September 2018

Caring about other people when you're sixteen is like trying to complete a long jump from a high school football stadium on Friday night to a parallel universe where heteronormativity isn't even a word in the dictionary and misogyny is nothing more than a scary story told around the Girl Scout campfire- deemed impractical by everyone you know and more terrifying than you could possibly imagine.

         I. When I was in second grade, I became best friends with Hermione Granger. She taught me how to fall in love- with books, with learning. My seven year old self had a newfound adoration for life. When I laid awake at night and pretended to be at Hogwarts, I was free to fly across the night sky on adventures and then sit on my bed and read countless books whose titles I had never even heard before. In my second floor bedroom with the door shut tight, I was free to stop pretending.

         II. Fourth grade was the year I realized I could be good at something. It was also the first time I wrote a poem. It was about math, and I won a contest to have it published in a book filled with poems by other kids across the country. When I figured out how to rhyme math related words with each other to convey how much I hated the subject, I didn't know about the sense of accomplishment that would follow. I didn't know that forgetting about personal censorship was a better idea than listening to the priest who talked to our class every week. No one had ever told me about verbalizing the ink stains under your skin and liking what ends up on the page.

         III. Eighth grade was the first time I felt passionate about feminism. It was also the first time I witnessed the effects of **** culture in my tiny, Catholic grade school. The new boy in our class told girls he wanted to **** them through metaphor, as if objectification is justified by pretty words and a smooth tongue. When we informed our teachers, they promptly ordered us to "be nice" and "stop spreading rumors." Eighth grade was the first time I witnessed the effects of **** culture in myself- a loss of compassion for the boy terrorizing fourteen year old girls instead of learning analogies in English class. Boy is to girl as dog is to meat. God is to disciple as man is to woman- **** culture perpetuated by the word of God and only fifty percent of us knew it was wrong without knowing why. We were never taught to be anything more than meat.

When Hermione Granger was thirteen, she slapped a boy in the face for insulting her friend. Because she cared. Considering my complete aversion to confrontation and irreplaceable, debilitating shyness masking a deep seated feminist rage put into the words of a poet, I derive strength from Hermione Granger. Not the strength to fight on the front lines of an endless war, but the strength to care. It comes from best friends and books alike, but its ability to create bridges of freedom through parallel universes and ink scribbled hastily onto a page filled with ideas brilliant enough to fuel the world for centuries is never compromised. I don't identify with the Catholic church anymore, but I pray you find it too.

On the street, I have to pretend.
School, work.
Home, church.
I pretend.
To be cis.
To be straight.
To be everything everyone wants me to be.
But when I get by myself,
And shut my bedroom door,
I can breathe again.
I take off society’s rules,
I shake off gender roles.
I close the door on heteronormativity,
And I toss “She” in the trash.
I am me again. “Thank God.”