What My Family Doesn’t Know Might Hurt Them

A poem

Photo by Brian Gordillo on Unsplash

and maybe they lost the right to know

maybe they never had a right to know me

if who I was is something to be hidden

if queer is never uttered in male company

if they only wish I was just like so and so

if the boys of the family can’t say gay

without disdain breeding on their tongues

if I am the villain of their story when

the truth is I am only a reader

and they’ve lost the right

to open my pages to

understand me anymore when truly

they want to tell me who and what

I am and to follow their narrative

no matter what, my family aren’t villains

I love them as my heroes even if my hope

for them to have humility enough

to admit their mistakes will never

be our ending.