Jadey’s writing about being gay again. Raise your hand if you’re shocked.

For the second time in undergrad I am taking a poetry class. The first time I took this class I was a freshman; nervous and mostly unfamiliar with the world of poetry. Being that I’ve currently gotten all the credits I need for my major as a junior (besides thesis classes I’ll take my senior year) I decided to retake poetry for fun. It’s been about a month and a half and I can confidently say I’ve had a lot of fun already and am excited to keep writing poems.

I can see the improvement in my poetry and have gotten into a productive writing process. My poems are whimsical, yet serious. There are good images and metaphors. It was recently pointed out to me that there were similar themes and rhythms of exploration I was doing in my poetry. And while this is good in one aspect, that I’m honing in on my “thing’ as a writer, and will have a thread throughout my end of semester portfolio, it also was frustrating for me to realize. And I’m not really that upset about my similar line breaks and typical silliness my poems have. I enjoy those things about my poetry. My frustrations come from a greater problem. Recently, almost all my poems have mentioned my sexuality, if not being explicitly about lesbianism. 

And of course I’ve told myself that this is okay. Because it is. It’s cool. Queer representation is needed and I haven’t heard any other explicitly lesbian poems in class yet, though it’s definitely a possibility. I’m telling myself I’m in a lesbian renaissance. I’m coming to terms with things. But the issue is that I don’t want to. 

It’s frustrating for me to be upset over my queerness. Because usually it is something I find so much joy in. It’s my favorite thing about myself. But recently I can’t help but feel sad about it. And granted, this is not all the time. Maybe a brief moment or thought in the middle of the week. I don’t wake up dressed in black (though I do wear black a lot – not the point) like a widow in mourning for the husband I’ll never have. But every once in a while the thought will pop into my brain and it’ll pass, or like this present moment, it will linger, and I’ll mull it over. 

This grief I’m feeling for the life I won’t have is an ongoing process. As much as I surround myself with positive queerness and am in queer circles the issue of homophobia is a systemic issue. It’s embedded into our culture. And with this presidency it’s certainly not going anywhere. 

I simply find it not fair. I don’t want to be sad. I don’t want my life to be harder because I’m gay. I want to live in a beautiful state of ignorance where I don’t know about the systemic oppression and homophobia and constant news of trans people dying. I don’t want to be distinctly aware of the fact that I can count the number of queer adults I know on less than ten fingers. How am I supposed to imagine a full beautiful life as a queer adult, as an asexual for that matter, when I can’t see it in my real life. The only asexual people I know are my age. Most of the queer people I know are 20 years old. How am I supposed to imagine in the future when the queer adults I know don’t surpass the age of 40? How am I supposed to see a fulfilling life as an asexual when I’ve never met as asexual adult? How am I supposed to believe that’s even a possibility? 

I have thought that maybe the label lesbian isn’t for me, which is exactly what I predicted myself doing. I think my issue is that in an attempt to accept it, I’ve forgotten to hold onto the queerness and aceness I live with, which is equally, if not more, important to me than using the term lesbian. But I am a lesbian. I don’t have to scream it from the rooftops. If anything, I could end my lesbian acceptance renaissance and use the term queer, knowing that term encompasses my asexuality, lesbianism, gender, and unconventional relationship types. Which honestly, is what I might do. Going through the process of coming to terms with this label was necessary, but I also can use the label queer, and know that I am a lesbian. Because I am asexual, and because I am not straight, and because of all sorts of other things like my strong rooted feminist identity and relationship with gender I feel incredibly queer in my identity and my lifestyle. So, I am queer. But, if asked to expand what that means to me, part of that would be that I’m a lesbian and asexual.  

Anyway, I am definitely going to write more poems about being gay. I just needed to rant. Thank god I have a blog. 

Update: I did write another poem that was gay and it actually is one of the best poems I’ve written so clearly I have something going for me. 

• Lesbianism