Buried Alive

 

I floated through existence wrapped in the womb of my thoughts and emotions. The days rolled in adventures, introducing new angles of the dramatic existence we waken and sleep of. It wasn’t long until I found myself buried alive by society, my family, god, and worse- myself. Judging by my hormones and the fact that all my close friends began developing breasts, my homosexual identity revealed itself to me by the 8th grade. I froze in fear and uncertainty, which planted a seed capable of fostering anxious self-doubt. The seed grew to have a mind of its own. Do I look gay? What does my difference entail? How do I behave?

I realized then how shallow I acted, and how deep I reach. In search of my identity I mistakenly toasted to loneliness, grew tired of loud girls, and moved on to quiet girls who didn’t dare face reality without a joint or beer at hand. Sadness and destruction attracted me, so rebellion with mind-altering substances preoccupied my time while I continuously denied my “crime.” I defined the world as unkind. Deceiving lies fed my mind, and I settled to despise my family for not understanding or accepting homosexuality as an important factor of my essence- that of which I never revealed.

My parents ignorantly blind-sighted the possibility that one of their children would mature gay. They never mentioned homosexuality at home. I suspect the combination of my parent’s dedication to our church and the struggle therein of accepting the lifestyle society largely misrepresents caused their ignorance. I was supposed to just speak up? How? Who would care to understand? The idea to “walk out of the closet” laughed in my face, so I strangled my identity and pushed away family and friends. My heart and brain folded in on each other, arguing into a stalemate. My worn, numbed body, mind, and spirit mumbled their way through optional days, weeks, and months. I buried my identity, and pierced with the will to escape reality, my mind and body eventually and repeatedly attempted suicide.

My mind, unforgiving, strangled my heart many times. My feelings weighed me down with hopeless thoughts of a lonely, unknown life. I wouldn’t allow my face to resemble my drowning heart and construed thoughts, so my suicidal episodes escalated in misunderstanding and unpredictability. I felt I woke into a lie each day, while each night surmounted to choking cries on my bed. My mind lost in a fog, I routinely battered myself into obscurity. Desperation to understand my harsh reality surmounted to screaming into my pillow for god to change me. Smoking dope through the night to ease insomnia, suicidal poetry, sharp edges, blood, pills, and psych wards routinely left me torn and weak. God never showed up or spoke up.

Tired of lying and waking to the voice of a doctor demanding I swallow charcoal to survive, I ended the fight. Reality set in, as did family, friends, and a fulfilling future. I had played victim, so my predicament, tightly fastened to subjective feelings, left me trampled by the occurrences in life meant to take me along for a ride atop an evolved understanding. I straddled acceptance and love for others and myself, and rode off on an optimistic journey of self-discovery. I felt it necessary to digest god in the process, so I theorized a subjective understanding of religion. I believe world religions teach of a truth and light needed to overcome the wrongdoings in the world. I don’t believe one religion to be superior to another, because I find universal ideals shared amongst them. I neither accept nor deny a higher power, as such has never revealed proven to me. I am the creator of my reality, in which I embrace qualities such as acceptance, trust, love, respect, and grace. My ideal stands to treat existence and the forms therein as I’d like to be treated.

I’ve asked myself, am I gay? Yes. What does that mean to me? Everything is just how it’s supposed to be right now. Each step beyond this recognition, I’ve scooped heaps of dirt back into the burial site that once defined me. I’ve chosen to live exposed, continually falling in and out of love with reality. I’m committed to life, and have a long way to go.

 

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