Pretend I'm Screaming This

Birthmarks Or Freckles

When I was six years old, I saw a girl kiss another girl as I waited at a bus stop with my grandma in central London.

And I stared as these women pressed their lips together and pulled on my grandma's jumper sleeve and pointed towards them.

My grandma's face turned into one of disgust and she pulled me behind her as if these women were going to break apart and pounce on me.

But as the day went on, the image of the two girls kissing became infringed in my mind

And I fell asleep touching the curls in their hair and watching the wind catch their jackets.

And when I stepped into high school at age eleven,

The word gay turned from an enchanting characteristic into this adjective for boys who liked pink and girls who preferred short hair.

And my image of women kissing on a street corner turned into one of masculine girls and feminine boys

Who threw this word back as if it was an insult instead of a way of life.

And I was left thinking, that if I fell for someone with the same genitalia as me,

Was I a disgrace to society like this word was to them?

So I swallowed my picture of girls in love on the street,

And spent valentines days in a cloud of cologne emanating off whatever boy I had chosen to hide behind.

And when I was at a carnival at thirteen I fell beside a girl on the bouncy castle,

And when I looked up I saw her.

With hair like fox fire and eyes like winter emeralds,

I just wanted to hold her.

And breathe her smell on my pillow as I fell asleep

But her scent always had a hint of cigarettes so when you ask me why I smoke when I'm sad its because the nicotine scraping the back of my throat reminds me of my first unrequited love.

And when I finally left high school and started college, I spent the summer praying for someone like me to be there.

A girl that wanted perfume and sweeter lips instead of what she was expected to have.

I wished for a girl that could slow dance in dresses and twirl underneath starlight and fall in love with someone of the same sex.

A girl with a heart on fire with a desire for chaos and anarchy and rebellion.

Someone to float away with

To guide me through the waterfalls, to the willow trees, and down the stream.