Outpour

I was a lesbian when I prayed not to be. I didn’t really know what it meant to pray but I knew it was something to turn to if I felt desperate. I felt desperate then. Prayer was a chance to sing to the sky, when I was too scared to speak to anyone around me. I was terrified the word would follow me, and it did – chased me home and escaped my lips, dripping with anxiety.

I was a lesbian while alone in my purple-pink bedroom, singing Taylor Swift karaoke and crying to “Ours”. I was a lesbian seeing stained glass in the jewel-toned colours of my laptop screen – all its carefully collected dust sitting patiently in patterns.

I was a lesbian when I swallowed a tooth and audaciously wrote to the tooth fairy, asking if I could please still receive a pound coin in exchange for nothing but my wanting. I swallowed a second tooth and was again gifted golden magic. There it was, my reassurance: girlhood was alive and I wouldn’t miss out. The same way I wouldn’t miss out on a first kiss or wearing a prom dress. I was normal, I was innocent, I was a lesbian in the way you can’t help but notice lightning, even when your focus is trying to stay elsewhere.

I was a lesbian when I never got to grips with straightening my hair – the back of my head still frizzy, losing most of myself in exclusion.

I was a lesbian when I said I was bisexual, which I’m sorry for – it really wasn’t my intention to be wrong. I was a lesbian in my mistake and in my purple-coated activism, waving glitter and knowing queerness was joy.

I was a lesbian in my dreams: pink, forest green, and golden. I saw wedding decor and adoption papers and a bed bought for two.

I was a lesbian in denial and in confusion, until I became a lesbian loudly. I was a lesbian swimming in my most honest state, the waters much less murky. The waves were metallic blue and sparkling with salty hope.

I was a lesbian in bite marks, relief, and arms stretched out wide. I was a lesbian in sunshine and poetry and an amber rose orchestra calling me home.

Lesbianism felt like a destination but it was within me the whole time. Wasted spirals leading me back to a beginning I’d been too scared to see initially. Now my eyes are open with every copper step, and cherry blossoms bloom at the sight of us – in the light – of us.

Sun-kissed/kissed by her/a lesbian. Heard in the thunder of the timpani, and read in the outpour.

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I'm not a traitor, I'm a lesbian