Thinking about all of my family (extended and real) who have been hurt through ignorance. Let's make it better for the new kids.
Oh, New York! What happens when you come here having already found yourself?
I'm not looking for answers, but I didn't sign up to answer those of others either.
Under a full moon coming full cycle having seen all the people I wanted to see on 8th Avenue and beyond.
Dancing two-step reveries with the sirens of my past in a neighborhood about as southern as Siberia.
Commenting on the years not with tears, but rather as though they were tree rings we wear like engagements to every boyfriend past.
Every year, another love.
Every love, another promise.
Every promise, another break.
Unbroken and wandering the streets of Brooklyn realizing I smell really good.
And my profound sense of smell reminds me that this community isn't about to raise its voice at me and call me a faggot.
They are going to look at me and say I'm artistic.
My parents' generation called gays "queer."
Oh, how I wish we could revert to that enlightenment!
People watched Uncle Albert on Bewitched and thought, "Warlock. Queer warlock. Funny, queer warlock."
I want to be a funny, queer warlock wandering the streets and spreading my magic amongst the fairies of my generation.
I want to go to a dive bar in a straight neighborhood wearing a dress and high heels sporting a goatee and declare myself the queen, only to have them crown me with laughter and Fernet for a scepter.
Maybe that's a lot to ask.
Kid can't even go to Gray's Papaya without having his face blown off for wearing shorts on a 90 degree day.
So I'm queer, but who isn't?
You collected baseball cards with stale bubblegum strips packaged questionably within cancerous sleeves.
I collected Agatha Christie novels and snow globes.
So maybe I was destined to be gay. But maybe you were destined for bad teeth, and a dream you'd never come close to touching.
I've visited all the worlds within my snow globes and realized which ones were drawn to scale.
You've scaled a wall attempting to escape the police who chased you for your arrogance, and thought they were chasing you for that time we touched each other after Little League.
I never told anyone until now.
You broke our promise.
You came out when you sprayed your bullets all over the face of my friend.
My brother.
Whom I'd never met.
But we were connected.
We loved you, even when you wouldn't be caught dead with us at your lunch table.
We tutored you in Spanish when it was supposed to be your mother tongue, but you couldn't conjugate a verb to save your life.
And who's life did you save?
Who's life did you help?
You've scared all my friends into dressing like you.
It's hot outside.
I will not wear pants because that's what "straight" means to you.
I will wear what makes me happy, even if the synonym may kill me.
This is New York after all.
Another snow globe I know very well.
For as much as I've shaken it, I've never broken the skyline.
For as much as I've spent a night in the spare bedroom, I can't break up with it.
For as much as I want to believe this is a one-off, I will love this place and know that crazy comes with an invitation.
I just want the crazy to realize our RSVP requires a stamp and a sense of humor.
Not a gun, or a word of hate, or a moment of insecurity realized.
Be crazy, but remember we were once crazy for Pogs, and video games, and Ronald Reagan.
Things change.
Hearts shouldn't.
I love this so much.
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