Three years ago, shortly after coming out to my family, my mother happened to fall across the movie Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee's depiction of two queer men attempting to survive the mid-1900's in the far out west. After she watched it, she told me she had cried. Cried, because she knew Ang Lee's tale of fiction could, had been, and seemingly will continue to be a very true story for many people. When she told me she cried watching that movie, she had a look in her eyes. The kind of look you have when you want to make sure you have caught every detail, every wrinkle and pore, the kind of look you use when this may be the last time you see a face. She knew, then, to be afraid. Then, I was 16 years old, and I knew nothing of fear.

Personally, I have known of very little hate. I was fortunate enough to have a supportive family, grow up in a bubble of acceptance and love. I have never personally been attacked for my sexuality and I have come to realize today it has nothing to do with anything besides luck. Fate, if you believe in it. There is nothing that separates me from the victims of the Orlando shooting, besides location and time.

I am a queer, mixed, minority boy, who if given the opportunity, loves to let loose and party, who loves all things drag queens, who, had he visited Orlando that night, may have happened upon the nightclub, Pulse. But I was not in Orlando. I was home, with family. Protected from within my four walls.

In response to the shooting, the poet Loma wrote a poem entitled "All The Dead Boys Look Like Me," and it was in reading that poem that I realized just how shockingly unsafe I truly was. These kids were my age. Lived in homes just like mine. Grew up with supportive families and a loving environment. There were queer, mixed, minority boys, just trying to live in the semblance of summer joy. The entire room was filled with people that could have been me.

She may never say it out loud, but I know that one of my mother's biggest fears is seeing my name on the headlines. Seeing my story on breaking news. But I am more afraid she won't see it. 50 dead in Orlando and the whole world stops. But how many people know Sakia Gunn's name? Or Angie Zapata? Or Scotty Joe Weaver? Or the hundred of other LGBT atrocities that have occurred just within in the last 20 years? The countless murderers who had reduced sentences because judges blamed the victims for "cruising the streets for men"? Murderers who received lighter sentences because juries refused to classify their crimes as hate crimes? Why should my story be any different? Why do I, the young adult, queer, mixed, minority boy continue to live when so many people who look like me, who could be me, who are me, are dying all around? Murdered without a chance.

Today's America has shown me that I am indeed not safe. There are no gun laws to protect me from anyone. Hate crime laws that convict the victim. Completely nauseating and suffocating bigotry from around the country that makes it hard to leave my house. There is nothing stopping another act of hate to occur outside my door. America has a tendency to mourn our dead rather than protect our living. I want to live in a world where I feel it is safe enough to hold my husband's hand without fear, where having kids doesn't mean signing their death sentence for being raised by gay dads, where being gay is not brave but is simply living.

There is nothing more shaking then discovering one's own mortality. But discovering that mine has a very strong chance of being far less than my heterosexual counterparts is difficult to swallow. Three years ago, I knew nothing of fear. And now I know far too much. I know fear, and I know anger, and I know pain. Unless something is changed, unless everything changes, there is nothing between me and a headline. Between me and candle light vigils, and repeated shared articles, asking what more could have been done. Hate is what needs to be undone. Love is love is love is love.

To the families from Orlando, my deepest sympathies are no match for the pain you are being caused. My heart, my soul, my very being is with you.