1997

It was 1997 when I first heard the word

lesbian.

That same year,

two small boys with water guns

accidentally got my third grade teachers white t shirt soaking wet,

I realized I was one.

It was also the same year

I understood that even the uttering the word 

lesbian

made others crumple their noses in disgust,

and made me crumple like trash on the side walk.

It was the year I started to recite the same prayer

over and over again

like it's rhythm and repetition

would somehow take my

dangerous, twisting dancing DNA

and flatten it straight.

I prayed that prayer till my hands bled and my knees were sore.

Then, my prayer started sounding a lot like

a secret I'd take to my grave.

And for the next fifteen years

I learned that silence is the loudest noise you'll ever hear.

for the next fifteen years,

I was imprisioned to posters of male Abercombie models

and short skirts

and letting a college football player

disregard my virginity

and use me the same way he used barbells

in his beloved fucking gym.

See to me, being defiled was a part of being straight

and I thought it would be easier

than to speak the truth.

Because I thought

telling the truth would be the same as regurgitating razor blades,

So in it stayed.

In the closet.

It wasn't until I spent my last four years of college

attending a christian church,

when I decided a closet was no place for a human being.

And church was just another closet.

when my jesus-loving friends said, “i'll pray for you”

I pretended they meant “I'll pray you'll be accepted, "

or "i'll pray you'll finally experience your first love"

or "i'll pray you have awesome amazing earth shattering lesbian sex.”
But I knew what they were praying for.

Because it was the same prayer I used to recite in my bedroom when I was nine years old

Dear God, please don't make me gay

God please don't make me be gay

GOD PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME BE GAY.

I don't recite that prayer anymore.

Because now, here's what I know about God,

he his bigger than heterosexuality.

Because there is nothing holier

than another naked woman's body entangled with mine

moving rhythmically like ships in the sea

and that rhythm and repetition,

we borrowed from the sky,

we move together like moons move tides up and down the shore.

And God made that shit.

It's beautiful.

And if that's what I have to say every single day

to urge women hiding underneath the ship,

to get out on the raft, and look at the fucking stars

I'll scream for oceans.

If that's what I have to say to dislodge a bullet about to shatter another gay teenager's skull,

I'll whisper it into every hand that ever held a gun to her own temple.

Today, I am out

Today, I am gayer than ever.