There was solace in the quiet,
before you opened your mouth

And proved me wrong.

Like a hawk in a hunt, a fresh guard,
I held into my walls.

Surely they will accept me.
Surly they won't.
Black and white together, mixing into gray in a never ending spiral.

Long after you knew and hugged me a warm reassurance,
I told you, yet again, I have never been attracted to a man and probably never will

And you shot the bird out of the sky with your words of,
Never say never.

I sent you a letter.

I'm sorry that I didn't just say it out loud,
but I couldn't look at you as our faces mirrored each other's heartbreak.

Yours then mine.


I couldn't be there as you struggled to give me an answer,
couldn't just tell you without giving you space.

I wish I could talk to you,
that my mouth won't fill with silence when it is opened.

That I'll stop wrapping the silence around me, desperate for its warmth in freezing days.


Yet still,

I sent you this letter, dear mother, because the waves held my face under your turbulence of expectations and the currents needed to change.

I didn't want to drown.


Forgive me for this letter, dear father, I know you prefer ignorance but it only leads to hate and anyway,

mother always says there's nothing you love more than your children and I didn't want to become a stranger.


I know this is hard, but I wish it wasn't.

I wish you'd paint your face with my colors, cheer from the stands, celebrate my existence as it is.


Still, I don't expect you to understand it,
I know it's foreign and new in your eyes.


I don't want you to tell me you still love me and that your love would always be unconditional,

I want to never have questioned it at all.


I don't want your sympathy.

There's nothing to be sad about, nothing to fix, nothing to mourn.

The future you visioned for me was never real, you never asked me anyway.


I don't want your acceptance.

It's just blank pages and silent mouths, I want your support.

The world is sharp and I just want to know you'll be there to clean away the blood.


I had to tell you because whenever I thought of who I am and heard your voice carried in the wind, I flinched and tensed as if you could look into my mind.


I needed to tell you because I am tired of hiding away flags and pins and scarfs,
bite my tongue around a joke,
overthink every passing comment that falls from your mouth.


I had to tell you because most of all I needed an answer.


So now,

please,

just write me back.

My vains, they're coursing with ink from all the words I did not say, from all the details about me I did not care to share.

Because what could I say to make you understand the pain of hiding me away?



The boulder of emotion that drops down and ignites the empty hole where my heart should be every time you speak of a future that I would rather not have at all than go along with your plans.



The flinch I suppress whenever you speak of a husband or kids that I would be forced to bear in your oh so pink future,

Pink that is so bright in your eyes but dark and dripping in mine.


The decision I make as my hands dig into my chest in an attempt to reach up into my heart and relieve the pain of being ashamed of what I am- of who I am.

It's becoming too much!


The waiting
for the perfect moment to let the ink pour from my tongue all over your too clean floor.


The fear of your reaction knowing your liberal approach is only for what you've been taught is right to love and wrong to hate, knowing that you do not want to learn and believe in anything you deem as new.



The step back I take as I ask myself;
"Is it really worth it?"

Telling myself that I don't owe you ****.

You have sowed the seeds of self hate with your casual heteronormativity in my mind and now you have no right to its flowers whose colorful petals I have struggled to maintain.

But even back here, it's getting hard to ignore the spark of the possibility of freedom that turned into a fire ready to consume my mind and body.


The hope that you will accept me for simply being me. That you will put down the raging flames of worry in my heart.


The smoke is far too close to my lunges to keep me hidden any longer.

Each breath comes shorter as time goes by, the heavy numbness of a fainting spell on my doorstep.


The answer.

YOUR answer, the part that will either burn me with the scorching shock of your disbelief or will carry me to peace by the black river of your reassurance.


My story,

the one you hear right now,

that will never be finished for the smoke has choked me as the ink came raining down my eyes, down my throat, in a vain attempt to keep the fire at bay.