Quick Hit: Straight Jacket

I discovered this poem today and it really resonates with me. I came to Boston, in part, to find a sense of community; but instead I’ve spent most of my time here in the “closet” of my dorm room. I especially love the lines, “How would I teach a nation to love what it doesn’t understand/ If I wasn’t strong enough to love myself in front of them.” The idea that you have to make peace with yourself before you can seek it with others is something I struggle with. I’ve transcribed it after the break.

This is not a b-boy stance

This is not me getting ready to dance

This is my straight jacket

This is how I’ve learned to fold my arms

and hold myself in the open

You see no one ever told me

You don’t have to be in a closet to lie to yourself 

You just have to stand up real straight

and smile

I have never been afraid to be open

I always wore my pain and history on my sleeves

Performed at a moment’s notice

But sometimes fear doesn’t make sense

It isn’t logical

I grew up knowing that both of my parents

would be more than okay if

If, I was gay

See my kitchen growing up

there were rainbow magnets on my mother’s refrigerator

Hatred-free zone proclamations

But still to this day

I get choked up when faced the words

bi, queer, or gay

There is something I am afraid of

Something I have tried so hard to run from

In September of 2008 I moved to California

for two reasons subconsciously

I ran to the city of homosexuality hoping

She’d hold me in the open

But Stanford

She had a way of pushing me back to where I was used to crying

Everyone at Stanford knows

You don’t come here to boost your self-esteem

And you don’t stay unless you can deal with the blows

And since I couldn’t go home

I ran straight from my bedroom closet

to a closet-sized dorm room

I found comfort in being boxed in

You see that way it’s much harder to fall

Even when you do hardly anyone ever notices

Stanford taught me to be invisible

So that even though every inch of my being screamed gay

Like I was a rainbow flagging down the lesbian cruise convention

I found a way to not exist for three months

But when California’s Proposition 8 passed

Making it illegal for people like me to be married

I was legally deemed a second class citizen

I watched the vote count rise

The percentage gap between right and wrong widen

While cheering Obama’s win

I watched thousands of people lose

This is not the change we voted for

So hatred opened my dorm room door and I found myself exposed

hurt

and angry

Wanting to be strong enough to wear my pain on my sleeves

and speak

But this was all I had

A poetry book with similes I was too afraid to share

Two arms that wouldn’t fold

How would I teach a nation to love what it doesn’t understand

If I wasn’t strong enough to love myself in front of them

And so for the first time in my life I realized

that being gay is not about being different

It’s about being the same

It’s about loving yourself enough to fall in love with yourself

And being more than okay with that

I am nineteen

And though I don’t identify with my sexuality

I am no longer afraid to say I find it much easier to fall in love with women

than men

And I will love whoever I love

without ever trying to justify it again

I will not hide

Because in 2008

I moved to California for two reasons subconsciously

To find someone to love

To find someone who could love me

And in 2009 for the first time in my life

I took off my jacket

voluntarily wrapped my arms around my chest

I found exactly what I was looking for

Myself

I fell in love

And I finally stopped hiding it