I remember the day I admitted I was gay.
I had renounced my pretense of liking
those women in short dresses
with long hair with perfume that smelled
like a summers breeze or crackling fire.
I remember my father caught me with a lingerie magazine.
He smiled, said he wouldn't tell my mother.
He thought I was straight,
I was admiring those finite detailed patterns.
.
I remember sitting my family down with news
pressed against the inside of my mouth.
My tongue making twisted syllables into
sort of words; ones which could not
fully function or get across my meaning.
'Mum, Dad, I sort of don't want to be with girls.'
My sentence though flawed hit home like a
heavyweight champs left hook and they did not speak.
I had knocked them out with the truth.
.
Fortunately, after a while everything was fine.
My parents were good whilst never using that
word in front of me in case I was offended,
because I was still their son and that was that.
I remember bringing that first boy home.
How my mother hugged him at the door.
How my father shook his hand.
How my brother said that his sister was hot
and could he have her number?
They loved him as another son.
.
Unfortunately, things did not work out.
There was no happy ever after
in that abusive relationship.
My bruises told truths that I once
managed to create into knockout punches,
but for once it was someone else planting the blows.
I ran home to my mother and I wept.
My father had to re-plaster the walls.
My brother never did text his sister.
.
A few years later I am still alone,
until one day I am sat in a coffee shop.
I sip from my cup whilst reading
and this tall man walks up to me.
He asks if he can take a seat.
His American twang leaves his mouth like butter.
His words pour like the steam
from my coffee cup into never
ending circles of beauty.
.
We sit for hours talking about nothing.
Though we conclude you cannot
think of nothing because to do so
we are thinking and this sort
of existential crisis make me laugh.
It isn't until we go to leave that I notice his footwear.
Those five inch heels that fit
to his feet so elegantly.
.
Now I had never been one for camp men.
It was never something I had an interest in,
but the way his brain conveyed these
thoughts of pure intelligent beauty that I could not help myself.
The way he touched my wrist to lead me to his house
because I had never seen Aladdin.
The way his heel clacked against the floor.
I hope he didn't notice my flinch.
.
We watched the film but I watched him.
His long blonde eyelashes
seemed to cast a breeze over me.
The smell of his cologne was
like crackling firewood.
His hair was long and swishy
and the colour of warm sandy beaches.
I lean over to kiss him, my lips trembling like
seismic plates causing earthquakes in my head.
I kiss him, and he kisses me back. Hard.
.
I remember when I admitted I was gay.
I had renounced girls and their heels,
their perfume smelling of firewood
and their long hair.
I found all these things in Luke.
My mother hugged him at the door.
My father shook his hand.
My brother asked if he had a sister.
And his American twang soothed my
horrible nightmares like a lullaby;
I was not scared of what could happen anymore.
I fell in love with this magnificent boy
who wears five inch heels.
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