Inhale. Exhale. Breathe. Fill up your lungs with the air that is contaminated with your sins and your shortcomings. Suffocate yourself with the filth that you radiate. Notice that you're impure, abnormal and destructible. Your sexuality defines you and makes you less of a person, to society, to your family and to yourself. Literally hiding in the closet as a solace? What a funny play on words, it's a pity it won't get you anywhere. Don't worry, you're better off than a gay person, at least the perverted gain sexual fulfilment out of watching the skin against skin, tongue against tongue, body against body of two females. You're just a fetish.
Why is this what I preach to myself when I know I do not believe it? When I know none of which is true. Perhaps it's irrational fear submerging me deeper and deeper into the pits of my internal hell, making me think I'm successfully floating above the surface until I crash against the tip of that rigid, detrimental iceberg and I capsize. Or perhaps it's just the effect this closet has on me. Externally, I'm an extrovert. The typical Sun, excitable, enthusiastic, optimistic, described to resemble my name - a shining hope on myself and those around me. But inside here, is where my demons lay. Along with my clutter of stretched, worn-out materials remains my self-deprecation. However, this closet is nothing less of a comfort to me, there's something so idyllic, so tranquil about the dreariness of it all. The infinitesimal flakes of dust levitating like fireflies, ambiguous as to whether they're trickling down or rising above. They glisten, almost with naivety, their aimlessness unintentionally engulfing my 4'11 fragile structure in these four minute walls - a definitive form of protection.
And, I guess it's the only place I can think about her. If there was anything more tranquil, more comforting to me than this closet, it would the absolute beauty that is Sade Lee. She's perfectly imperfect and incidentally my best friend. Within this secluded wooden solace, I can only think of her laugh. Sometimes obnoxiously loud, as if gashing the frail wind, sometimes a stifled giggle signifying the rebellion against what is the embodiment of innocent youth. But the silent ones are what I can not resist falling in love with. The way her rectangular mouth widens in amazement, the humility so extreme, it is impossible for her to even make a peep. Her head thrown back, her arms clutching onto her stomach as if she were about to burst, almost as if she's lost control and happiness has overtaken her to such a hallucinogenic dimension that everything else that dares to retaliate against it deteriorates into tiny shards of irreplaceable glass. Her happiness overrules everything in those moments, and in particular, me. Time hasn't changed a thi-
"Sun, Sade's here! She's come to check if you're alive, I hope."
Oh crap. Stumbling, I shove against the tawny doors of my compact confinement, my adrenaline rousing higher and higher as I can hear her gentle but assured footsteps coming up the stairway. My hands clammy, pins and needles coursing through my veins from sitting cross legged for more than a bit too long; I needed to get out. She can't see me like this. With tear stains clawing upon my bloated cheeks and my auburn hair turned savage from carelessness. I wipe and wipe and wipe whilst kicking and kicking and kicking and finally, I tumble. Who knew such a small closet could build up that much momentum to create such a harsh impact? It would be an understatement to say I'm embarrassed, with carpet burn and bruising hips, sprawled on my floor in discombobulation. And it would be even more of an understatement to say I'm abashed, as my best friend walks straight in so nonchalantly to witness me in such a state. Goddamnit, don't mind me, she's still as gorgeous as ever.
Nine years old. The first time my introverted apathetic, almost sociopathic personality was approached by her extroverted, overexcitable, giggly one. Offering to sit with me at lunch in the playground, wanting to play hopscotch or tag or Chinese whispers, wanting to simply be my friend and although every time I refused, she always came back. She was persistent and a victim of rejection until I eventually realised, Sade Lee was my kryptonite and I was bound to fall susceptible. Double that, and now I'm hopelessly in love with her.
"Jesus Sun, were you having another existential crisis again?"
"I...uh...no? Just was...thinking about things I guess."
"What must have you been thinking about for you to be lying on the floor looking like roadkill?"
You.
I scoffed; "Harsh much? And well, just irrelevant things. Pondering the meaning of life, as you do."
"Riiiggghhhtt, let's take your mind off of some of that, shall we, with a bit of collaboration and duality in the fantastical rainbow world of Mario Kart!"
"Fine. But please for the love of God, could you be any more cringeworthy?"
And here we are. Playing Rainbow Road on Mario Kart (ironic I know) and screaming our lungs out at the blue shells dashed towards the back of our vulnerable karts, the television screen wincing in affliction at our deafening squeals and shrills of victory and despair. Mine of despair more than hers, because I could not stop losing. Whether it was my conscience having disappeared to the land of the rising sun or whether my gameplay was merely terrible, it didn't stop Sade mocking my abhorrent skills as I drove off of every phosphorescent surface into the nothingness of thin air.
'How do you even fall off of there? You literally just had to drive straight. How hard is it to go straight woman?!"
Pretty goddamn hard when you're not, Sade.
"Wait, what?"
Did I really just say that out loud? I couldn't have. I just came out. My heart, I can hear it pounding through my ears, pulsating through every pore, every inch of my body and I can't tell whether I'm panicking or numb from shock. My insides are burning, the acid in my stomach swirling around a concoction of anxiety and helplessness, and in this moment, I want nothing more than to just disappear.
"I...um..."
"You're gay?"
"Well no, bisexual, I think, I d-don't know entirel-ly, I'm still quest-"
"Sun, shut up. It's okay."
"W-what?"
"I said it's okay. Your sexuality doesn't matter to me because it doesn't define you, it's just a part of you that you cannot change and to be frank, that you shouldn't want to change. You're still my best friend, it doesn't make a difference, and I love you that much more for being able to tell me, as accidentally as it may have been."
Silence. I was in awe. I don't know what I had been expecting. For her to lash out and storm off? For her to cut me out because of a part of me I shouldn't have shame in? Fear. It's irrational in times like these.
"Sun? Say something, please."
So I can't help but to laugh. Laugh with relief, this clandestine I had been holding back for so many years, laughing away the antagonising slurs and insults I told myself day in, day out. That awful crampy closet I had been hibernating in, both literally and figuratively, suppressing my morality and my self-esteem. It was all just hilarious.
She laughs with me. And it's not the silent ones, no. It's the hearty ones, filled with so much compassion, appreciation and sentiment. The ones that have no particular reason but don't need one. The ones where we completely lose control, the ones we will never cease to forget. Those are the ones I love most. Thanks Mario, for ending me up in this predicament, and maybe one day I'll tell her about my profound love for her but in this still moment of time, all we can do is purely and simply laugh.
