“Well, I just want you to know that I’m not gay and this doesn’t change anything.”

I wanted to roll my eyes. Instead I smiled. “Of course, hun. Don’t let me let you think otherwise.” I paused for a moment before adding, “Does that mean you’re not interested?”

“Oh no. I’m still very interested.”

I couldn’t help but still smile. Maybe even a little more so. “Good. Believe it or not but gender is still such an issue for cishet white guys.”

“I don’t even know what you mean by that but okay.”

My cheeks pulled at my lips, forming a taut, straight line. So much for not being like other guys. More like marginally so — at best anyway.

Three Weeks Ago

His left me feeling like I am gazing through ice so frozen that every molecular bond right down to the nuclear center became an infinite array tessellating out of view.

His hands didn’t hesitate in their touch — was it from the booze? Was it because he fancied himself heteroflexible? Did he really see me as a woman? Or did he just think I am a boy in a dress and convince himself that, if you just drink enough beers, if your eyes are blurry enough, boys look like girls, girls look like boys, clothing comes off, and if you get touched in the right places then its all worth the euphoria?

Is it euphoria though?

His fingers wrapped themselves around my wrists and my arms. I felt weak enough to snap under his grip. But when I got up the next day, shed my tshirt and gazed in the mirror, all that remained of him was the smell of cigarettes and beer and faint blue specks across my pale body where his hands grasped at me.

Who is the lonelier — the desperate, or the one in denial?

Two Weeks Ago

I told him about another person I have been seeing for a long while now. I am very close to this person. In a lot of ways they are like the beautiful piece of antique oak furniture you find at someone’s yard sale. Run down, gorgeous, something your spirit or soul or whatever you call that innermost part of yourself attaches itself to. But, in need of a lot of tender love and affection.

I could tell he was feeling cocky that day, and I didn’t know then — nor do I know now — if he seriously believed what I told him about this person.

“I will win you over,” he messaged me after a long pause, “and I’ll make you mine.”

Something about that didn’t sit right with me, and all the voices in my head were in congruence with my gut. Something just isn’t right. I felt an itch on my arm, and I scratched at it. It hurt more than it ought have. But I still scratched at it anyway.

Last Week

.The only person who I ever heard of that could be both enlightened and without the burden of mental illness was Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. Everyone else — especially the other queers I know and love and run around with — suffers from something. Find me someone who doesn’t have something. I dare you.

But sometimes I hear things, and sometimes those things tell me to do mean things to others — usually low-key rude things — but almost always terrible things to myself. See, the voices know about the disjunction between my being and my body. They berate me every minute of every hour, telling me over and over that I will never achieve alignment. Sometimes I think that the alignment of one’s body with one’s mind is the queer person’s version of Buddhist enlightenment. But don’t let me speak for queers everywhere.

It was one of those days where I unfriended close friends because I couldn’t stop or control myself. It was one of those days where I promised to be with them for something important — a local music show, a gallery opening, I can’t remember the details — and I stayed at home in bed instead with Paco. Paco, bless his scrunched face, was the one thing the voices couldn’t turn away.

But the boy, on the other hand, couldn’t understand. Did he even fathom anything at all? What’s the point of posing the question anyway. No one likes a crazy fucking queer.

Yesterday

“You’re complicated, and honestly you kind of freak me out.”

I’m queer. When did that ever suggest simplicity? My complication — my complexity — has been clear since day one. I understand myself better than the average person understands themselves. I am conscious of the ebb and flow within me, of being either/or and neither at the same time. I am aware of the paradox that society brands me to me, and, like a lavender letter hovering over me, I wear it unapologetically and with pride.

Regardless, I am still confused. I asked him to elaborate.

He couldn’t be bothered. Maybe it is all nonsense anyhow.

A simple line cannot comprehend a tessellation.

Now

I took my t-shirt off. I haven’t showered in three days. It’s hard to remember to in the wintertime. I don’t sweat as much as I used to, and I certainly don’t in the middle of winter. But as I trailed my hands over my skin, noticing where the electrolysis worked and where it needs work, noticing how soft and supple I have become, I noticed that those purple specks that once were there were now nearly impossible to see. As my fingers passed over them, though, I felt aches and twinges. But that’s okay.

I turn on the water faucet, and the showerhead begins to sprinkle its artificial rain. I let the water warm up before I step in. Sometimes I still feel the bruise, and that’s okay.