coming out
coming out is to convince
everyone, that you are awake
when you can’t fall asleep
coming out is to reassure
that you are not going crazy
when you’re the craziest you’ve ever been
coming out is to lie
that you are who you always were,
when they’re meeting your honesty for the first time.
coming out is to fantasize,
that you will never have to do this again
for the rest of your life
coming out is negotiating
for a little more room in this world
when you want to disappear
coming out is coming home,
you will keep coming back,
because this is where you live
I found a bunch of draft texts in my notes app. These are texts I had jotted down over several months. It was the same text, edited and refined over and over. I could see myself negotiating aspects of the writing, the vulnerability, the tone, the level of justification, the brevity, the joviality. This poem is a reaction to my fascination with these drafts, where the edits reveal the absurdity, pain, sorrow, and beauty of coming out in primordial literary form.