Once, my best friend (at the time)

told me God would never ordain a gay relationship.

 

I think about that sometimes…

 

Guilt be the pebble in my shoe I can’t shake out.

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Many would prefer that I do not speak about gay love.

Know silence can suffocate an existence.

I wonder about all the things that have died beneath pillows.

All the lungs crushed behind rib cages. Squeezed out of the universe.

 

What if I wasn’t born this way?

What if I’m just wrong?

 

Almost thirty years old and I still speak my identity as an apology.

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Treat my heart like a trash compactor.

Crunch down on special things that should not be special to me.

 

Alone

with people so close by.

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This is the life they want us to live.

Cannot imagine that we could be like them.

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That a gay boy could dream of his wedding.

To go to prom and slow dance with someone they picked.

That we could crave hand holding. Forehead kisses or cuddling.

Long car rides with laughter in the passenger seat.

 

Is so impossible that we could long for the same love as them?

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I remember the last girl I had feelings for.

I also remember her engagement photos on Facebook.

Accidentally committed their child’s birthday to memory.

 

The last three weddings I attended flash in my mind and mock me.

Pictures of my crush and his girlfriend on Instagram mock me.

The poems I write about the boy whose partner is not me, mock me.

Everyone is so much happier.

 

A million “what if” shaped knives twist in my heart.

 

Did I both forget what the bible says?

The government didn’t.

God didn’t.

 

Heaven paints loneliness across the rest of my days.

Ordains a long line of “straight” crushes.

Sprinkles a few wedding invitations in along the way.

Eternal damnation with my initials engraved.

 

I ask God for forgiveness.

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Every lonely Saturday inside,

I ask God for forgiveness.

Valentine’s Day I pick out a gift for a guy but don’t give it to him,

I ask God for forgiveness.

Tinder app sits with no matches… no messages… no responses.

I ask God for forgiveness. I ask God for forgiveness.

 

I don’t want to wait until my first day in Hell to know better.

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So, I beg God for forgiveness.

Not sure if it’s worse to ask for a different life or to misuse the one He already gave.

​

Hoping one day I can love someone without repentance wedged in my throat.

That one day my heart would live beyond a crucifixion.