Blossoms of Pink and White (Patreon)

6.23.21

Last night, I saw a comic. A comic that stirred a feeling in me that I hardly experience. It wasn’t a platonic feeling.

After coming out as gay to most anyone who isn’t family, or linked to my family, I undertook a journey of learning more about myself. The feelings that I suppressed for years came to me, at first rejected then, quickly, accepted. I had to learn not to shove those emotions down immediately, I had to learn how to let myself experience things.

I blame my depression for a lot of my odd behaviors around how I express my emotions. To save myself as a suicidal teen, I cut myself off from feelings altogether. I severed the tie that connected me to the pain and torment that my mind subjected me to, but in the process, I split the knots that once linked me to happiness, joy, excitement, sorrow. I became numb in order to stay alive.

It worked. But I wonder if it worked because I cut off the biggest piece of contention about my life: my sexuality.

I’ve written about my experience with being bullied into denying my own gayness. I’ve expressed the painful experience that will forever stain PF Chang’s to me, that will always have lasting scars that I still to this day discover. And I think, today, I discovered another. Perhaps my depression wasn’t solely because I have a mind that refuses to produce the proper amount of serotonin needed to survive each day without constant vigilance, but perhaps it was contributed to by the active denial and forceful refusal of my queer identity. Of my own self. Of me.

I learned that feelings that I felt were wrong. I learned to constantly suppress them. To shove them down and deny them.

I attended an all girl’s school. It is no surprise that a lot of us turned out queer. A friend of mine, a friend I had a crush on, crushed on me. This happened twice. And both times, I began to give in to the feelings I had, to encourage them without necessarily saying “yes” to any romantic relationship. When things got serious, I would fall back. I would get scared. Surely nothing was wrong with a little playful flirting, but to admit I had feelings, to admit I was a gay sinner? That was something that terrified me. That was something I could not do.

And so, time and again, these feelings bloomed inside of me, and I crushed them under the brick of Christian doctrine. It hurt. The pain from each self-denial, the pain from rejecting myself time and again--it took its toll. I remember laying in bed at night, wishing beyond all wishes that I could just forget about everything else for a while and explore this relationship with one of my friends. That I could dive in and not suffer any consequences for seeing where it went. That I could kiss the girl I liked and not be fearful of the backlash, of the hellish condemnation, that would follow me for an eternity.

I’ve since left the brick behind. I did not carry it with me to my new home, I did not allow it anywhere near my new property. I dropped it in the lake of things no longer needed, and I let it sink to the bottom where I left heterosexuality behind. I let it settle in the depths with self-hatred, with submissiveness, with my belief in the god of my father, of his father before him, and the one before him. I watched the bubbles surface and pop and fade away. And now, when that flower of desire blooms, I instinctively reach for the brick that is not there, and remind myself to shelter the blossom, to give it water, to see what it becomes.

It is a strange feeling nonetheless. The colors of these sprouts are unlike anything I have seen within my world of black and white. Purple, greys, pinks, reds, greens. I find myself startling whenever a new one reaches its first leaf towards the sky and greets me with new, weak, growth. And yesterday, while scrolling Twitter, one burst right from my chest.

Suffice to say, I was a little surprised.

My heart began to beat quicker as its roots closed in around my lungs. A heat like none other washed over my flesh, burning it with each touch and making every ounce of me steam in the cooling evening. I stared. I could not tear my eyes away--I did not want to look away--and as my hand reached up to smother the flower, I reminded myself that this was good. This was okay. That I could let it bloom and see where it led me. I set my hand back down. I went to another tab to do some work. I came back and looked at the comic again. And again. I could not get it out of my mind. I could not stop thinking about it. And each time, the heat would return and burn me enough to push the blankets off my body and reach for some water.

These experiences come seldomly, and each time they do, I am surprised by the intensity, and then, directly after, pursue it with such curiosity that I feel once more like a teenager, exploring the world denied to me. Exploring the me denied to me.

As a Christian girl, sexuality had to be denied. Even if it was straight sexuality, straight curiosity, all of it came with shame and guilt and self-hatred. For my part, I felt no desire to look up straight porn, no desire to look a naked bodies of men. I knew that I should be bashful around these topics, and so, via learned survival instincts, I did. And I weaponized that to be better than my peers, because I, a good little Christian girl, never felt the desires they did, and that made me better than all. Of course, I felt quite secure in my super straight and entirely cis existance after being bullied to leave any queer questionings behind, so I played the part of joking about men being hot, I made up the version of the “perfect man” that I would love to “marry” some day, and I was constantly praised for not dressing immodestly, for not wanting to date, for not sending nudes to boys in class. I was the best of all the others. And I did not for an instant recognize that I didn’t desire attention from men, so I did my best to cover up; that I did not want to show my body to men, so I did not send nudes; that I did not desire a man’s affection, so I did not return any interest from the boys in my class.

And when that breakage of ground occurred when I met another girl that I found myself seeking to befriend a little too much, I crushed that with a rock, and I tried to pretend that it was normal. That it was all platonic. That the growth of interest stemmed purely from holy, sanitized love.

This is all to say, that I never experienced or explored sexuality in any sense. Not when I was pretending to be straight. Not as a teenager. Not even when I entered the college realm. I was straight. That’s all I could be. And now that I’ve stepped away from that, I find myself startled by any rousing of otherness. By any semblance of something different. By any inkling of myself.

I didn’t want to lose that new blossom grown from this comic, so I decided to go exploring last night. I took the flower and let it guide me. It was late, and I was going to need to head to bed soon, but after that startling arousal, I was definitely going to need some help. Often, to ensure a good night’s rest, I listen to ASMR. The soft sounds keep any potential nightmares or night terrors at bay, and they allow me to fall asleep a lot sooner, without so much tossing and turning. But then a thought popped into my head: I remembered my friend mentioning how they listened to boyfriend ASMR before. And that got me thinking. Surely there were girlfriend ASMRs for queers like me? Surely that might be something to further explore my curiosity while I got ready for bed? I put on my wireless headphones, picked a video, and began it with full intention of getting up and cleaning the house before bed.

This did not happen.

I remained rooted to the spot, a blushing mess, listening to the audio. I felt my heart thunder and my chest tighten. Beads of sweat formed on my forehead from how warm my temperature got. And when the audio playfully teased me about blushing, as if it knew? I was a disaster, and I never felt so different. As if, after living for years within the sea, I went onto land and dried off in soft, sun-warmed grass. The feeling felt nearly foreign to me, but I remembered hints of it throughout my life. In high school, with the girls I could not date. In college, with the woman I neglected to get the number of. And now, because of a comic, because of an audio play. Like getting onto land and drying out. Like laying in the sun. Like smelling the grass only hinted at upon the drifting winds.

I want to explore more of this world. I want to find more things I have only seen the shadows of. I want to experience more of me that I, for many years, smashed beneath the brick of Christian doctrine.