Midnights Like This

Part 3, 28. Knockoff

     I fight myself in psychological warfare, while I wonder why no one can be mine. I went to the youth church that Wednesday night, and I saw you again, Luciano... This story isn't about you, so don't get me started on how much you love to hog the attention. This story is about that guy I saw who had a crush on me, his name was Matt and he was very nice, and quite pretty. So I sat next to him and his eyes lit up. He hadn't seen me since I went to church in December for Christmas vacation, and It was obvious that he liked me. I never told him I liked guys, and I don't think he knew either. I had heard from one of his friends that he had only gone to church to pray the gay away, which made sense, and I guess I was an obstacle. The truth is that I really liked him and the whole summer I had feeling we could've been something, I mean, he was so kind and genuine compared to everyone else I dated. It looked like we could be a real thing, no knockoff.

     I didn't want no knockoff, didn't want no fake love. I wanted real shit, real authentic. I want the real thing, and he looked to me like he's the real thing, was I dreaming? I wanted him to prove that he's the real thing, I wanna know. Sadly, I've dealt with knockoffs my whole life and I thought that maybe this time would be different but it wasn't. It ended exactly how I thought it would end, how it always ends for me, us not being together because either of your preferences or because of my horrible ability at romance, because, well, no one has ever done anything romantic with me so you can't blame me. I haven't seen you in months as of right now but I hope that you're okay and that maybe someday you will be comfortable with who you are. I was in denial for 2 years with the fact that I liked guys, and even when I came to terms with it I wanted to change myself. I did the same thing you did, I tried to pray it away. My sister Alexa goes to church like 3 times a week her whole life and she's a full on lesbian; there's no changing who you are as sad as it is and as much as you want to change it. But besides that, I need to look past the knockoffs and find the real thing, because I don't need no knockoffs on midnights like this.