getting misunderstood by people was familiar. getting misunderstood by family felt different. it felt like a hot iron melting my insides but putting something else completely in my ribcage instead. being misunderstood by the closest people was like destroying the person that I am and putting someone else in the emptiness of me-less.
my mother's stubbornness replaced my empathy, my dad's judgement suppressed my caring. all my edges were deformed and cut. I loved them, deeply, but love meant different things to us. for me to love was to accept, for them — to make alike. I was afraid to become like them each day and each day I saw a bit more of them in me.
my mother hid me from the people for a long time. I never told her but I feel like somehow she knew that I was different. she hated it. to her, to love was to be alike so she just couldn't stop hating the part she was not a part of. I couldn't hate her even if I tried. and I tried.
once she came to me, asking me to come to church with them. I liked church when I was little. then, I learnt that I was a sinner. I've never returned to it afterwards. but that day, when my mom was asking, pleading, trying to familiarise me, I cut my own edge to meet her in the middle. I was going to hate me for it, another un-me part.
I put on my best dress, my best smile, my best obedient face. it was important for them so it became important for me. a part of me was afraid to burn once I step on the god's premises but I realised that I had way more them-parts than my sinner-parts. we were standing near the entrance — for most, but it was an exit for me. to this day I think my parents deliberately chose that place to be able to quickly escape in case anyone would notice the parts of me that were left.
you noticed me first. and you noticed me, not the glued parts, but the flesh underneath. sometimes I still think that it was god who sent you in my life. you were god's gift and I will forever be grateful. people assume that queer people hate god or deny him but how could I when I know that it was him to send you to me. my saviour. my messiah. I saw the second coming in your little silhouette.
I became your devotee, even though you didn't need one. but it's the whole thing, isn't it? the subject of devotion never wants followers, it's the devotees who desperately need their deity.
and I followed you everywhere. my mother was happy I finally found a normal godly girl friend — yes, she actually used the term — while I was blessed with kisses behind the closed doors. I immediately understood judas, all at once. it was a need. it was a craving. it was flying too close to sun, because burning was familiar but this time, at least, it simultaneously warmed my insides.
but just like judas, my love was also a betrayal, the most cruel one we both have ever experienced. it was brutal, when your parents disrupted the holy communion just as I was eating the body of my christ. I didn't think that I was wrong so I confessed believing that the sworn secrecy of confession is unbreakable.
and I was wrong, as with many other things. we have never seen each other after that day. we moved, as putting me behind closed doors was not enough anymore. my mother wasn't even furious, she was just disappointed — the worst type of my mother's wrath.
you changed me. the parts of me that my family burnt with the iron turned out to become a metal shield that protected what was left of me. you taught me how to do it. you made me stronger but most importantly, you gave me faith. you might have been crucified, but I knew that no matter how they tried, even when they tried to put holes in you, you stayed whole. you were holy. you were stronger, than any of them.
it's funny how, in the end, my mother was right. no matter how I tried to deny it, god helped me find my way.
