CW: reference to sexual assault
1.
He was trying to prove that I wasn’t a lesbian.
Or so he claimed,
when he did
what he insisted
that he had to do,
while his intellectually disabled brother watched cartoons
just outside the closed bedroom door.
I was 18.
He was 21.
When he was done,
I drank wine coolers
from the mini fridge
on the floor of his bedroom
and stared at a non-existent spot on the wall
willing it to open up and swallow me whole
while we waited for his mother to return
and take over brother-watching-duty
so he could drive me home.
2.
I came out the first time
while we were doing side work.
We had a crush on the same hostess.
A crush that took me by surprise,
bubbling up as intensely as it did,
as she sat across the table from me
while the trainer quizzed us on appetizer descriptions
ahead of the restaurant’s opening,
my mind wandering in ways it had never wandered
with the guys I had convinced myself I’d had crushes on.
The guys I’d dated.
I thought I had a better shot with her than he did,
with his 1950s flat top,
and awkward personality
and I told him as much,
though I was all talk,
too terrified to put myself out there.
Terrified of the double rejection of me and my queerness.
3.
I went out with the long-haired cook, instead,
because he asked me—
because I dated (nearly) any man who asked me—
because it was easier,
making-believe I was kissing a woman
as I ran my fingers through his hair
while we made out
at the top of Kennesaw Mountain,
mid-hike.
And I wondered if the people passing by
made-believe he was a woman, too.
I wondered if they cared.
4.
When I came out to my parents at the age of 20—
after months of sneaking home free copies of the Southern Voice,
between stacks of more “acceptable” reading material,
not quite brave enough
to snag a copy of Out
or The Advocate
off the magazine rack
at the local Barnes & Noble,
though I walked past them time and again,
and again,
and again,
hoping no one would notice me looking—
my mother asked, “Why are you doing this to me?!”
5.
I found a support group listing tucked in the pages of an issue of Creative Loafing, and joined a handful of young adults I’d never met in the basement of a church I’d never attended to discuss our families’ reactions to our coming out.
Turns out, I had it easy.
Easier than everyone else, anyway.
My mother hadn’t kicked me out; she was merely incredulous.
6.
I’d had it easy.
7.
Nearly 25 years later,
just hours before she would be rushed to the hospital
for the condition that eventually killed her,
my mother—
visibly sweating through my computer screen,
wan and in pain
and swearing up and down
that she didn’t need to go to the hospital,
that it was just something she ate—
managed to summon every ounce of incredulity
she could muster from deep in her core,
when,
after asking me
about the man
she’d hoped
I was dating,
I shared that I actually had a girlfriend.
“Why?!”
“Why?! Why?! Why?! Why?! Why?!”
7.
She departed loving a me who was less than the all of me who remained.
For whom is such loss the saddest?
kfw 2023
Postscript: What would the state of Georgia have needed to ban when I was young to make sure I didn’t “turn out gay”?
- The few seconds of the video for “Walk Like an Egyptian” by the Bangles, when (the very straight) Susanna Hoffs looked back and forth coyly leaving my newly 10-year old self—who was sneaking MTV when my parents left the room—mind-blown for reasons I had no way of explaining.
- Every woman I ever had a crush on.
- Me.
Undusted Corners 