I did not know how to start this story. I couldn’t find the words to express my sadness, my confusion, my rage.

I am telling it now the only way I know how.

BEFORE

I am seven years old when my mother first explains the concept of homosexuality to me. I think I must have read the word in a book somewhere. I read better than anyone else in my class, and I am always reading books that are too old for me.

“It could mean ‘happy,’” my mother says as she pulls open the car door for me, “but usually it’s when a boy loves a boy, or a girl loves a girl.”

I scrunch up my nose, stick my tongue out a little. “That’s weird,” I say, and I slide in the car, clutching a small stuffed bunny in my left hand.

She does not correct me.

In school the next day, I draw a picture on the blackboard while we are waiting for the buses to line up and take us home. It is filled with gross second grade toilet humor. The boy next to me sees the drawing, sees me laughing, and scowls.

“That’s so gay,” he says. I tell him it’s not, and I tell him what that word really means. He doesn’t listen to me. No one ever does. “That’s so gay,” he says again. I erase the drawing. I’ve decided it’s not funny anymore. I count to 50 in my head, wait for the buses in silence.

~~~

I’m ten years old, and I am on a walk with my older sister and her friend. It’s my first time leaving home without an adult. We giggle about the boys we like, gossip about the girls we don’t.

“I like pretty much everyone except Nicole,” I say. “And gay people. Gay people are gross. They're just weird, it’s just too weird.”

“Who’s your best friend?” Kaitlyn asks. “If your best friend told you she was gay, would you still be her friend? She’s still the same person.”

I think, but don’t say anything.

“She’s still the same person,” Kaitlyn says again.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

~~~

I’m twelve years old when I hear the word “bisexual” for the first time, from one of my friends who identifies with it. I ask my sister what it means. I didn’t know you could like both.

My stance on homosexuality has shifted from “gay people are gross” to “there is nothing wrong with gay people, I just don’t want to be one.” I write stories featuring gay and bisexual characters, because I don’t want to seem homophobic, but I never show the stories to anyone.

My best friend and his cousin use the Bible to justify their disgust. Two years later, we stop being friends.

~~~

I’m fourteen, and I’m walking to class with a girl I’m close with. She links her arm around mine, and suddenly I am hyperaware of the warmth emanating from her body, of her presence beside me. My chest rises, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

~~~

I’m fifteen, trying to climb back up from the worst year of my life. I wake up early one cold February morning, blink sleepy eyes away from the dream I just had — the first sex dream I can remember having. It confuses me —Amy is older than me by two years, and I barely know her, but I’m scared to see her after that dream. I’m scared of the things I might feel.

~~~

I’m seventeen, six months into my first relationship. I mention to a therapist that I think I might be bisexual. She asks if I’ve ever done anything with a girl, and I tell her no.

“How would you know, then?” she says. “If you’ve never been with a girl before, how would you know?”

I think, well, six months ago I hadn’t done anything with guys before either, and I knew I liked them, but you wouldn’t have questioned that at all. I think, fuck you. I think, how did you even get a PhD? Who in their right mind would graduate you?

I smile, tell her thanks, good point, I guess I’m not bi after all.

~~~

I’m twenty, and I am madly in love with my boyfriend. He understands me more deeply than anyone, and he fills the cracks where I am too broken to hold myself together. But something is changing. I’ve met a girl.

Her dark eyes follow me into my empty bedroom at night, and I am consumed with the thought of running my fingers through her hair. I don’t have the courage to say her name out loud, so I scribble it, over and over, into the little red journal I take with me everywhere. I go out of my way to show up in places where I think I might run into her. I spend too much time in a place I hate, just because she’s there. I write poems about the exact shade of brown that is her eyes, and I daydream about holding her hand. I think I would walk across the earth until my feet bled, if only it meant that she would smile.

Last week, I saw her kiss another girl at a party. There was a part of me, then, that felt so, so validated. But an even bigger part of me wished that I was the girl she was kissing.

I know she will never love me. I’m okay with this. I am more tormented by the thought of telling my boyfriend I might have a crush on a girl. Instead, I let it rest. Instead, it exists only inside the pages of my journal. I am not yet ready to face the consequences of loving a woman.

Every time I write another poem for her, I swear to myself that it will be the last. There is a part of me that knows there will never be a last. There is a part of me that will always belong to her.

~~~

National Coming Out Day is just nine days after my birthday. I type the phrase “Happy National Coming Out Day, by the way I like girls too” into my Facebook status. I stare at it, my mouse hovers over the “post” button. I erase it, rewrite it, erase it again. It is not the right time for me.

I am 21, and I spend too much time drinking water in bars because I don’t have the money for alcohol. I come out to my friends by vaguely mentioning “this one girl I used to have a crush on,” and then moving on to something completely different. I don’t know how to flirt with women, so I just admire them in silence, or else get drunk and tell everyone how pretty they are. I only talk about my sexuality with a select group of people, and though I consider joining the LGBT+ group at my school, I never do it. I use the excuse that I just don’t have the time right now. It’s only half true.

~~~

Last weekend. I am at a party in Brooklyn with a close friend. There is a burlesque show here that neither of us were expecting to see. I have had a few drinks too many, and I lean against my friend for support.

Watching people bare themselves like this has always made me uncomfortable, but tonight I decide I am too drunk to care. The first act features two men, and the rest are women. For a while, I stop watching, and stare into a corner of the stage. I am trying to figure out why this usually makes me want to slide out of my skin, and why I am okay with it now.

I think the truth is that I am just more comfortable with women, living with women, being around women, being a woman. I am more comfortable with the way our bodies are shaped, the unexpected curvatures of our hips and thighs, the contours of our shoulders, our chests, our breasts. I am familiar with it. It is home to me. It is a way for me to love.

I remember that I’m drunk, that I’m leaning against my friend not because he’s the only solid thing close enough, but because he is someone that I trust. I consider telling him everything I am thinking, about myself, about the show, about sexuality, but instead I cover my face with my hands, giggle into his shoulder, and watch the rest through the spaces between my fingers.

The next morning, he reminds me of things I did and said that I had almost forgotten — grabbing a handful of leaves and trying to give them to him, walking past a couple of stoners and remarking on their smell, a thousand apologies for nothing in particular. He laughs and tells me I’m a fun drunk.

“You basically just don’t have a filter,” he says, “you just say whatever you’re thinking. You’re not usually like that, and it’s hilarious.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” is how I respond. But I still don’t tell him the things I thought about last night, or any of the hundred other secrets I am hiding. Under the influence of alcohol, I will say whatever I'm thinking — unless it is too big, or too dark, or too deep. There are some things I still want to keep hidden.

AFTER

Sunday afternoon. I waddle into my mother’s living room, still bleary eyed from sleep. I hear about the shooting in passing, my heart hurts for a minute, and I go back to sleep. It’s not until later that I am truly able to grasp what has happened. It’s not until I stumble out of the bathroom, hair still wet from my shower, that I see the numbers. 50 dead, 53 injured in Orlando shooting. Then I see the letters: LGBT. It was a terrorist attack. It was hate.

It doesn’t sink in right away. I get a glass of water from the kitchen, lean against the wall and watch. The letters appear again on the screen. I can hear the words of the news reporters but I can’t tell what they are saying, the words just won’t penetrate my brain. All I can think is that this must be a mistake. These people were in a place that they thought was safe. This man violated a place where these people felt safe. This couldn’t have happened, not this many people, not here, not now. We were making progress. We were making so much progress. We were finally getting somewhere. This can’t be happening to them. This can’t be happening to us.

It must be a mistake.

~~~

If that girl had loved me too, what then? Would she have held my hand, let me run my fingers through her hair, kissed me the way I secretly hoped she would for so long? Would she have fallen in love with me, and I with her? Would I have gone on a trip to Orlando with her last weekend, instead of New York with my friend? Would I have held my arms around her neck and danced with her in Pulse? Would she have been quick enough to save herself? Would I have been brave enough to save her?

Would they have listed our names amongst the dead?

NOW

What we need to remember, now more than ever, ever, ever before, is that this has nothing to do with radical Islam. This has nothing to do with gun control. This is not the time to be using our tragedy for your political platform— save the politics for next week. This is not about me, this is not about you, this is not about anyone’s agenda. This is about targeted violence and acts of terror against LGBT+ people, and more specifically, against LGBT+ people of color. This has everything to do with homophobia. This has everything to do with hate. This has everything to do with us.

What I want to say to my fellow LGBT+ friends: Lay down your weapons now. Remember that you and I are fighting the good fight. Remember that you are real, your gender is real, your sexuality is real, your emotions are real, every inch of you from the ends of your hair to the skin on your bones and every thought that passes through your mind is real, and beautiful, and valid. You are still here. You are going to be okay.

We will rise from this like the phoenix from the ash. We will rise from this better. We will rise from this stronger. We will prove to them that they were wrong, that they cannot break us. We are real, and we are here, and we will stay. And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love, and we are always, always, always fighting this fight, this fight and every fight before and every fight after until we win, we are fighting it with—and for—love. Love for each other. Love for ourselves.

Love for them.

Edward Sotomayor Jr.

Stanley Almodovar III

Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo

Juan Ramon Guerrero

Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera

Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz

Luis S. Vielma

K. J. Morris

Eddie Jamoldroy Justice

Anthony Luis Laureano Disla

Jean Carlos Mendez Perez

Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez

Amanda Alvear

Martin Benitez Torres

Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon

Mercedez Marisol Flores

Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado

Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez

Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez

Oscar A. Aracena-Montero

Enrique L. Rios Jr.

Miquel Angel Honorato

Javier Jorge-Reyes

Joel Rayon Paniagua

Jason Benjamin Josaphat

Cory James Connell

Juan P. Rivera Velazquez

Luis Daniel Conde

Shane Evan Tomlinson

Juan Chevez-Martinez

Jerald Arthur Wright

Leroy Valentin Fernandez

Tevin Eugene Crosby

Jonathan Antonio Camuy Vega

Jean C. Nives Rodriguez

Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala

Brenda Lee Marquez McCool

Yilmary Rodriguez Solivan

Christopher "Drew" Leinonen

Angel L. Candelario-Padro

Frank Hernandez Escalante

Paul Terrell Henry

Akyra Monet Murray

Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz

Antonio Davon Brown

Geraldo A. Ortiz-Jimenez

Rest in peace