Sippin', smokin', privately-

no filter needed here-

holding hands with liberty,

resplendent in our queer.

Judgements paused, no snide remarks-

defenses are relaxed-

shielded from the hate that lurks,

beyond the curtained glass,

guarding freedom, happiness,

and covenants of love

'gainst rainbow letters that address

inequities~~~~~ENOUGH!

It was like a status change from God. Going from a confused bisexual teenager to an even more confused straight adult struck me by surprise. When I started this adventure on Prose, I identified as bisexual. Girls had crept up on me and become attractive literally overnight. I never kissed one or anything further than that, but I knew when a girl walked by that an attraction would typically be left behind. But, that changed about a year ago when I woke up and whatever switch had been flipped back off. Women were no longer attractive. The allure had faded completely.

Now, the odd thing about this change is that is basically invalidates everything I experienced. It's no longer "one of us". It's awkward shame. I feel like I'm covering an A on my chest every time I have to talk about my sexuality. To be fair, I've never been with anyone and the desire to be with anyone is peeling off like a 25 year old sticker (in fragments that are impossible to get off thanks to that 1990s glue). I feel like the dude from Castaway in the raft trying to get to safety. There's no safety and you can't go back and your only friend has abandoned you. My friends have not abandoned me but then again we don't have "The Talk". I don't get the familiar online spontaneous dating checklist from my friends that I get from strangers with some interest in me.

The reason that I'm writing this piece is because I refuse to believe that I'm alone. I refuse to believe that no one else has spontaneously woken up one morning to find an attraction to the other sex (not just one person. They're the bait) then woken up awhile later to find that that the attraction has dissipated. In the event that this has happened to you, you're not alone. What you experienced will never go away and ultimately shaped how you view people, the world, and lovers. Don't just sweep that shit under the rug like I've tried to. Embrace it because it literally hangs with you forever.

I write about girls I do not know. Ones that I have never met. Ones that only exist in the confines of my brain. I don't know what that makes me, but I know it makes me confused. So here's to Mae, Emma, Emily, Carrie, Annie, Elizabeth, Elizabeth Mae, Lily, Poppy, Cheryl, Daisy, Lilac, Primrose, Rose, Bella, Posy, Caroline, and all the others girls I don't know but like to pretend I do.

---------------

Soft skin in every color of the rainbow

Perfume radiating, overwhelming my senses

We memorize each other's curves

Not the circumference of our hips

But the bend in our elbows while we braid each other's hair

Brown hair, pink hair, blonde, brunette, highlights, faded bleach she did herself last summer

Leather jackets, denim shorts, polyester sweaters in July

I'm a sucker for a girl with personality

Sundresses in January, flower crowns in May

Compliments bestowed onto me that I don't deserve

Lips in every color Sephora has to offer

Netflix reality shows, trash television

I hate it

She loves it

That's all that matters

Aesthetics with flowers and tickets to concerts of her favorite Indie bands

Is it that obvious I have a type?

Soft hair, wavy locks, tangles in the morning, curls tighter than cherry stem promises, French braids, ballerina buns, ponytails

I want them all

Cherry lips, apple pie, caramel lattes from her favorite coffee shop, tanned French manicures

Did I mention she speaks three languages?

Meet in college, in a cafe, in a back alley, at the grocery store, I don't care

She bites her nails

Collects vinyl records

Loves yard sales and thrift stores

Maybe we're practically polar opposites

Laugh out loud at super bowl commercials

Pasta, Italian garlic knots, sushi and fried rice, steak on Friday like her mama used to make

Did you know she cooks?

British accent, Australian decent, Northern roots, Southern homeland, did a semester in South Africa to see where her mother grew up

Hoop earrings, pearl necklaces, we read Gatsby together and complain about the way F. Scott treated Zelda

She played tennis with me on Saturday because my grandfather couldn't make it

I took her to meet my parents

She loves them

I love her

I can't even pinpoint which one I'm talking about

But it doesn't matter

I love all of the girls I'll never meet

The ones that I make up on a whim

But stay with for days because real people can't comapre

So I called her cat and she called me kitten. And at the beginning of it all I was convinced she was the most annoying person on earth, with her clingy smiles and jumpers like Mabel off gravity falls. And of course we became friends. And we had competitions of who could fly off the swing the highest. And I honestly felt on top of the world like an angel. She was right beside me and then we hit the ground with a force, spitting bark from the back of our mouths. We were the ones who rebelled against the swelling of our hips and chests, who refused to cover our pimples and red-cherub cheeks with a makeup mask. But eventually we joined the other, though still cat and kitten at heart.

I wrote a comic book with her. She went away and sent me a postcard every day. I still have them, all 28 collecting dust and memories that make me cough when I read them. And I wronged her. I really did. I fell in love with her and she asked me out, in the midst of flowers and confusion. I was like a happy ghost with an iron heart. I knew it was too good to be true so I fulfilled my own prophecy. When he made me kiss him like the puppet I was, I screamed into his mouth that I loved her. And he never heard, just swallowed it all up, mouth pressing fiercer to the twisted climax when she walked in and left straight after. Shock was grating at my bones as I ran outside and cried. I was a surface victim but I knew it was all my fault so I bled.

And I wrote her a postcard. I covered it in code and messages telling her of my love. And she replied with a message on the back of an unsolved puzzle. My heart. And I have never solved it. She thinks it’s because I can’t do puzzles but really, it’s because I’m too scared to hear what she said. I am comfortable in my sexuality. I love souls, not bodies. And yet, I can never shake the lack of closure. It curls around my mouth when I’m falling asleep. It makes me miss the days we spent in Paris, kissing in my mind.

That’s the funny thing about doing and feeling whatever you want.

I never came out but I also didn’t keep it in.

I never talk with labels on it, and I never imply or hint at preferences.

In fact, I'm pretty sure I'd go out of my way not to avoid those things.

When I’m asked explicitly, I answer explicitly. That's just respectful.

I would never admit myself to immediate family though. I know them well

and it's not worth it. I don't need approval and support from there.

But if you think you can get me to drop a pronoun in ever which direction,

know that I’m looking you dead in your eyes and answering ambiguously.

I do this to normalize queerness and straightness, and to force you to play along in allyship or oust yourself in your effort to pin me.

If you wanna tell a tree how badly you need wood and how great of a carpenter you are,

it won't make the tree kneel and fall in pity.

Half the people I’ve met in my life, mostly the adults, have already made up their mind.

It seems to many that I take interest in what God must have told them I do.

Half the kids I know have sensed I'm not that simple.

And I really amn't, that's right. But in which direction does chaos go?

I masked it in humor.

I made the jokes good comedians made, I always talked like I was trying something, and I was always a gentleman. I liked who I liked, I had a boyfriend and girlfriend, maybe two maybe three. And I never filled it out on those first-day-of-school introduction cards.

That being said, everyone I was interested in them didn't have to wonder if I was interested for very long. I keep a part of my business private, but I wasn't secretive.

I wanted everyone to ask me if they wanted to know. Normalize asking it.

Too much word-of-mouth in school. It's hardly ever worth it.

And those who asked made it clear why they were asking in one of two ways:

-they swear it was curiosity and getting to know.

-they never mention or hint why they asked.

It's some tricky shit. People will go through some great lengths to extend the questions and their intentions around a finicky topic. That's why I like seeing kids do it.

They will be SO incredibly creative. They're beyond passing notes and going through mutual friends. They've got a whole internet and code language and community.

Girl in Red, Janelle Monae, iced with a steel straw- straight not curved.

Plus, it's a good time for mistakes.

They don't really have careers yet, reputations at stake, there's never money involved in this kind of stuff. When you're in high school, you have a lot of time to explore n shit.

And the earlier you learn to navigate these kinds of things and how society evolves within it, the easier living in it, teaching it, and being it is later on, later in the week.

I swing at least two ways. That's pretty safe to say. But who knows the rest? who knows

We'll see what happens tomorrow.