Listen

Speaking to society with my experiences

Listen to me world. Listen. Take a moment out of the constant hum of your rhythmic day and just….listen. Listen to the story of a thousand souls that beat in the underground, that cause earthquakes to beat up from the dirt, begging to be heard. Listen. Listen to my war torn story, that shatters my soul into a thousand broken segments of a life that is led by love but governed by hatred, and a heart that is courageous but afraid to continue its beat. Listen. I am a dyke, as is it carved into my legs with the sharp blade of the unwanted. I am a gay woman. I am a gay woman taught to fear the love that makes me who I am, taught to hide myself behind closed doors and to jump when an administrator almost catches me holding a hand. I am the receiving end of unrequited love and the girl who literally sits in the closet and cries at her conservative government camp when the other girls talk about boys and you have to bite your tongue. I am a dyke. A f*****g dyke as the woman said, who called me and told me I was going to receive a restraining order for falling in love with her daughter, who told me I was a contagion. I am a gay woman. I am the laughing end of the jokes of those who think the suicide of gay teens is the victim’s fault. I am the gay woman who had a boy finger me even when I asked him to stop. Even when I tried to shove his fist out of me his strength overcame my own and he whispered down my tear-streaked face that he was going to change my sexuality. I am a lesbian. I am a frightened middle school girl in love with her best friend who wore black on gay pride day and confided in me that she knew all gay people were going to hell and I have been an in the closet gay woman. I have been looked down upon and bullied by those with authority over me. Been told by a group of middle school girls that I was going to hell, and had my own friend out me as she screamed I was unnatural. That I was a freak. That I deserved to kill myself like I had been planning to, that I wasn’t actually gay I just wanted the attention. I have had boys tell me I would be beautiful if I only lost the weight, got some girly body parts, and stopped wearing boy clothes. I have been shoved by track bags and the catalyst of silence as I walked through the door to have everyone stop their daily gossip about who I have been inside. I’ve had peers tell me that just because I was gay I didn’t have to be a s**t. I have been in the locker room with girls who hide their bodies around me fearing that I will look at them as if I did not see the same parts attached to my own skin and I have had my best friend stop holding my hand when I was sad. I have been taken the wrong way and I have weirded out and I have been banned from sleepover parties by parents who think that the way I am is a choice. And I am a f****t. I have been called such and shoved into a locker by boys twice as strong and twice as old and my own friends have told me to cut deeper. Half the scars on my wrists are marks of self-hatred from the society that causes parents to write me letters with death threats, invade my own home with calls to my mother. Make my family fear for their safety and mine as I had threats sewn onto my already zipped lips about what lay in my dug up and thrown out heart. I am a gay woman. Listen to me. This is not about the laws and the religion, put down your bible for a moment and please listen to my words. I am a girl. I am a girl who is begging to not be a sin any longer. To not be banned from seeing my classmates as if I were a sickness and I am begging for the dads not to say I make them physically ill. I am begging you to not throw up in front of me telling me that you purge yourself of the raw disgust that is caused by the thought of me being with your daughter. I am begging you, not to excuse emotional and physical abuse due to the fact that they defend their religion with the same hands with which they leave bruises. I beg you to listen. Listen to the gay woman speak, and do not regard her words as nothing before you simply…listen. I have been the victim of fear, of ignorance, been told I wasn’t allowed to come out until college or to the family because of that Christmas party I would make awkward. Because I live in a town where homophobia rules as a presidency and I might not get into college with the ideals of a “f*****g dyke.” That’s what they have spoonfed this youth. That’s why even though I stand up for others I have depression and anxiety and a crazy phobia of suicide because year after year the thought of ending the love I could not control bounced around in my head until it hung from a tree outside in the hopes it could disappear. I am a gay woman. But my grandparents don’t know. I was told I would give them a heart attack of distress and that it would be worse than my own death. Now my grandfather lays with his ashes on church property I am banned from and he will never truly have loved his real granddaughter. I am a gay woman. Whose teachers won’t make eye contact with. Whose neighbors won’t let their children interact with. Whose own mother cried at the idea. I am a gay woman. Just for a moment, listen.

Author's Note

This is all my true story