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sara galluzzo Jan 2018
I Am Lost
I am handsome
I am caring
I do good in school
I have friends
I am happy  

I like a boy
He’s sweet
And pretty
He smells heavy of cologne
But I like it
He's in my fourth period history class
He’s very funny in class
I talk to him Sometimes
But I don't think he knows I like him

“Basketball is a very important sport”
“Basketball is essential in my life; if I do not play I will become sick and die”
“No I don't understand question 7”
“Yes Brandon, I believe the basketball should be part of our national flag”
He's a macho kind of guy
So I can't flirt with him all that much
Six months ago I ran into him the hall
He looked so good with his hair pushed back and his new jacket
I couldn't help but smile

The next day I told him how I felt
I didn't know he’d tell all his friends
I didn't know how fast news could travel
I didn't know they'd make fun of me
I didn't know they'd say awful things about me
I didn't know people would treat me different
I didn't know how I felt was a sin
I didn't know how my parents found out
I didn't know why my dad stopped talking to me
I didn't know who to talk to
I didn't know how badly I needed it to stop
Until one day ; it did
I am bound to societal norms
I am drowning in discrimination and unequal rights
I am forced to live my life the way others see best
I am numb to the pain that tags along with each name that is thrown my way
“Gay“ “Freak“
“Loser”
I lost my friends
I lost my appetite
I lost my will power
My grades dropped
And so did my mood
I became an outcast
A loner
I was sad every day
I cried every hour  
But from now on that won't be a problem
I won't be problem
I'm going to stop this the only way I know how
I never knew what it was like to be in love
I never married
I never had kids
I never graduated
I never had a judgement free zone
I never had positive thoughts
I never found help  
Last wednesday when my eyes shut for good
I only hope
I opened someone else’s
trashcanpoetry Dec 2017
dear me in the 8th grade-

you haven’t even realized you like like boys yet.
you haven’t realized that all of those gay jokes are about you
so they don’t hurt your feelings, yet.
you haven’t seen what it’s like to be labeled as something, and also that the same label happens to be what everyone will know you as.
you didn’t realize that accepting yourself a lot sooner would’ve saved you a lot of memories you’d prefer to forget.

dear me in the 11th grade-

you’ve realized that after dating so many girls,
something just wasn’t really right.
you couldn’t pin-point it so you just ignored it.
maybe you thought love just wasn’t for you.
it wasn’t until that car ride with dad that you understood why everything was so confusing.
“be honest with me kid, are you gay?”
“oh ****...”
it was something that hadn’t even crossed my mind.

dear me in my 3rd year of college-

you’re definitely gay.
you’re challenged by the fact that you can’t hold your boyfriends hand in public the same way that your sisters and their boyfriends can.
you hate that dating through apps like
grindr and tinder seem to be the
best way to find “love”.
however, you love the fact that you now know exactly who you are, and you are unapologetic.
Atlas Aug 2017
You didn't know that my notes were actually love letters
And no matter how sad I was, you knew how to make me feel better
That every picture I drew of you was me trying to impress
And it was so hard not to watch you undress
I didn't know that our drunk kisses meant nothing to you
That all the nights we spent cuddled up watching movies was just what friends do
I buried my feelings for you
Because I knew we could never make it
It took 5 years and a lot of tears for me to finally admit
That what I felt for you... was love.
Atlas Aug 2017
My thoughts come like lightning, without the storm.
They don't want to belong to this earth anymore.
But my body is frozen in fear
And I am burdened by obligations to stay strong.

I feel like I have no home.
I am just particles floating through the air
Trying to figure out where I belong.
Rey Storm May 2017
I don’t want to make a big ordeal,
but the way you see me is not ideal.

The world expects me to conceal,
but wouldn’t that be unreal.

Now that I’m saying this it feels surreal,
like someone grabbed my steering wheel.

My body feels like oatmeal,
and I’m trying not to kneel.

You turned this into a newsreel,
I wish I could repeal.

I tried to be stainless steel,
but you’re a spiked heel.
Abby Carpenter Feb 2017
When I was in the fourth grade I didn’t understand magnets.
You told me that they were like a boy and a girl,
that the positives and negatives stuck together,
but with two girls they would just repel.
Repel,
as if the idea of two girls being together was so awful that mother nature herself would come down to pull them apart.
I think about that a lot.

And now I’m standing here in front of you,
the words dancing behind my tongue,
and I am fighting to keep them down.
I want to tell you that I’m finally happy,
that I found someone,
that when I hold her hand I don't want to run.
I want you to know that I love her,
and that I didn't actually know what love was until now.
I want you to know that with her everything is brighter,
and that I take back my feminist rants because if she were my wife I’d always cook dinner.
the love songs I listen to finally make sense,
and hell,
maybe Romeo and Juliet weren't crazy after all.

I know this might be confusing.
But before her I was soil,
And now I’m a bed of roses.
I’m sorry for hiding this for so long.
and now it seems like a college phase,
but if we’re being honest I always knew.
I knew at junior prom when my date’s hand made me recoil.
I knew when I never really hit that boy crazy phase.
and I knew when I saw her,
When we watched a movie on the grass and I laid my head on her shoulder,
and I felt like I was home.

And I’ve tried to change,
if I knew how I would.
When Mom died you said you would always love me.
I hope you meant it,
because I’ve tried to pick between you.
Take you, leave her.
Take her, leave you.
But I can’t.
So please don’t make me.
Kimberly Lore Dec 2016
It's funny how when we are young
We're taught to be honest
Told that the truth is the best
By adults who deal only in lies
Because honestly they've learned
To fear the truth
And what do we get in return?
Panic attacks from (just thinking about)
how our parents will handle
precious, treasured truths that
we hold in our hearts and
giddily whisper to each other in the dark
with a sense of danger and adrenaline
Yet we can't help but want to share them
with each other, with adults, with the world
(look how beautiful and new and vulnerable it is
this truth that I've hidden in my heart)
Because we were taught to be honest
We long to be honest
But are afraid our precious truths will be tainted
By this society of lies
Created by people who say they love us and want the best for us
But if they really care that much
Then why
Why make it so painful to let you know
What we want the most
What we think is best
To share with the people we love what we love
Pearl earrings.  They came
in a red box with gold lettering
I unwrapped in the
restaurant parking lot
on a humid evening before
my college graduation
where we milled around,
waiting for our table.

My father's gift.

One year later, in the same place,
I put them on;
my father walked me down the aisle
to marry a good man.
Wrapped in a princess dress.
Towing a six-foot train.

My mother's dream.

They stayed in my jewelry box
for one decade plus five.
Years while I played
hide and seek with depressions
and wondered who that person
in the mirror was.

My straight persona.

When  I think of that now
I remember--
pearls are made of pain.
The substance the oyster makes
to coat the grit, or
whatever makes its way
into the shell.

The process transforming
the ugly, raw, pain
into the lustre of something
priceless.
In honor of National Coming Out Day
There always was a face
under this mask--
living skin, stifled
under the thick, white layers
immobilized by:

fear

the expectations/exhortations/excoriations

Logic found at the bottom of
empty wine bottles,
the dregs and sludge of sediment.

Hairline cracks, deepening,
flaking, peeling,
tiny pieces, larger chunks,
the slow work of years
until

my fingers ripping, prying, tearing
a sudden rending of it all.

I raise my naked face to the sun,
feel the wind on my cheek.
Take one, long, full breath.

Hello.  It's good to be.
In honor of National Coming Out Day
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