Certainty

I talk a big show. I really do. I can talk a mile a minute about the most inane shit. And, frankly, I can do it with some poise and intelligence. But, a lot of this talking lately revolves around certainty. I speak to how I know I'm allowed to have a husband. About how sex will be glorious. But, the whole time, I am the most uncertain person I know. If I'm entirely honest I give more credence to the whole "gay relationships are okay within a biblical framework" side since it's...easier. 

It's a lot easier. That's not to say it's wrong, just easier. The other side, the call for a reevaluation of what friendship is, looks like, and can be in light of celibacy seems much more difficult. And time's like now I feel like I haven't considered it enough. Or, at least, thought that there might be a better more clear way. Either way. I am uncertain. And will be for some time. 

Lord have mercy.  

Shut the Fuck Up

Trigger Warning: Suicide and self-harm discussed. 


I was called a faggot in the first grade. Too early to understand the weight of the word nor the implications. Too young to have even been called that. But that's what you get when your only friend was a third grade girl who sat with you on a bus of twelfth graders (whoever planned that shit was an idiot in all honesty). I remember crying one day when I got home, walking up my cul-de-sac, listening as the bus pulled away and with it the words "lover boy" and "faggot". I walked into my house, in tears and simply said that the boys were mean to me. No more. No less.

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I'm pretty thick skinned. I'm not easily offended. Ideas don't offend me, and, in fact, I don't think they should offend. But, since coming out, I've realized that "faggot" is hurtful. For me, though, it's more hurtful knowing that others around me might be struggling and are gonna hurt. I get annoyed but very rarely am hurt by those words said in ignorance, though ignorance is not an excuse. 

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I guess it helps that I have a deep voice, am relatively athletic, and decently good humored. That's probably why I don't get insulted. Who knows. Regardless, I still struggle with body image and self harm. And while I choose to cut I still blame those who have hurt me and insult me. I get angered and triggered by the bullshit that is hatred. 

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I wish to god I could tell people that words have consequences. And if they said, Like what? I could point them to the stories of Tyler Clementi and others. Kids like me who were told they weren't okay, beautiful, or good enough. That they needed to change. That they were fags and abominations. Kids who are outed or mocked or embarrassed for something they can't change. Just the thought, the typing of those words in sentences gives me chills. Words have consequences so shut the fuck up when you want to say something harmful or wrong. 

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Are those who hurt LGBTQ folks who have killed themselves culpable? Part of me, in brutal honesty, thinks so. 

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Forgive Us (AIDS Memorial)

Forgive the rambling nature of this post. I wrote it from my heart so it's a bit more raw. I want it to be raw and nothing else. It feels honest. 

Being gay feels like hypocrisy.

Like fucking hypocrisy.

Nice, straight folk telling me how I’m supposed to be me, how I am supposed to live.

Nice, straight, Christian folk who don’t take the time to listen to my story. To any one of our stories.

Stories matter. Somehow, though, they’ve been ignored. Stories are being ignored by the one sub-culture which, one would think, would emphasize and appreciate the stories of others.

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I realized I was gay in an age of immense and growing privilege for gay and lesbian and bisexual folk (still working for full societal inclusion of transgender men and women). I realized I was gay almost 30 plus years after the AIDS epidemic ravished the American gay community. And the men, who survived it, were affected by this plague, and who live today are living among teens that are coming out. I know they’re proud of how far we’ve come. I know they hurt. Still, part of me can’t help but feel like my generation of LGBTQ kids is as negligent as the average teenager of our predecessors. We come out and are proud of our identities as we should be. But we fail to realize that it’s taken 600,000 plus deaths to get where we are today. It’s taken us years and pain. And we’re still dying by our own hands.

Being gay feels like taking responsibility for the past and the future.

Being gay feels like death which forever lays at our doorstep.

Being gay feels like guilt.

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To Christians, please listen. Please, for the love of God. Stop hurting us by your ignorance. “Forgive us for we know not what we do.”

To the men who’ve gone before me, forgive me and my generation who are forgetting you. Forgetting to look to you and learn from you. “Forgive us for we know not what we do.”

To the men who’ve died, forgive us and know your deaths have not been in vain. You’ve helped us to be able to say being gay feels like justice. “Forgive us for we know not what we do.”

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Being gay feels like pain and guilt and death ever near and freedom. But it cost us the lives of so many beautiful men.

Lord have mercy.