lgbtq+ WRITING

I wrote a poem.

Progress! The gay experience is now a best-selling body of renowned and loved literature.

Breathtaking quote after gut-punching quote is adorned on the literary message boards of our time.

“I begin to think that not everyone suffers in the same way; that not everyone, in fact, suffers.”

“[His love] seemed a horrible waste. It was a harvest no one seeded, and it blossomed from a vine no one tended.”

“You avoid getting hurt in an attempt to avoid suffering: for years, this principle will serve as my holy sacrament.”

Is our existence no more beautifully or powerfully defined than by suffering and shame?

Is this who we have been, who we are, who we for ever shall be?

I hope not.

I think not.

But I do not know not.

Am I dismissing the lived experience of people before me, alongside me and after me by loathing this shame?

They may be stronger people than me. Is to write of it is to live it, embrace it and overcome it? Perhaps my positivity and levity is to mask it.

I hope not.

I think not.

But I do not know not.

When I read such powerful writing, part of me cries, another dies, yet another part rolls its eyes.

Are we all steeped in such shame? Will our most compelling literature be neverendingly steeped in such inevitable lament?

I hope not.

I think not.

But I do not know not.