His parents' eyes are on him.

His heartrate spikes. His thoughts race, his gaze downcast. Sweaty palms are clasped together on his lap. Fingers fidget.

Face them or hide. Put on an act. Deny himself. Hurt alone. His vision waters. He's fifteen, but he's done this since he was seven. He can't take it anymore.

"I-I'm gay," he confesses.

Mom scoots on the couch to his side. "We know," she soothes.

"It's okay," Dad assures, moving to sit beside him.

Built-up tension leaves him. He cries, hard.

His parents embrace him.

His head hurts, but he feels lighter, more free.

Lavender.

All I want is to give her lavender.

Well, I actually want her hand in mine and to hear my name from her lips: "Zoey".

And yet, here I stand on her doorstop, afraid to ring her bell.

We have been friends and neighbors forever and my heart races thinking about the only two possiblities. Dating or never hanging out again. There was NO way she talk to me again if she rejected me.

I found the smallest courage and raised my hand to the bell, only for her to open the door first.

She smiled. "Hi."

"Hi, Liz."

I live in the gayborhood. For pride month, they repainted the lines (There are rainbows painted at the intersections). It got me thinking. Should I repaint my lines? What lines do I cross, or not cross, that I should reevaluate? There is magic in renewal. Is there not? What if I cross lines I should stop crossing, and cross lines I should have been exploring why they even fucking exist in the first place? What if lines that were faded, could be repainted, and everyone would see something new? What if I saw something new? What if I saw you?

First there were the antitestosterone diuretics. Then came the estrogenic hormones. Next came a decisive step--castration. Then removal of other parts and construction of novel parts.

My parts are dropping like flies.

I'm being forward-engineered. My pronouns are mutating, but they're also maturing. My résumé is being corrected--LinkedOut to be LinkedIn. My way out is the swinging door that hits me in the ass on my way in. Now the malleable world has to mature to me.

My new place in this world is sidestepping my old place: it's a dance, but I'm still leading, because they're playing my song.

i have a resume in evolution. i can give you a list of all the words and terms i've used to introduce myself. i stopped collecting my references a while ago because my relationships became interviews, especially my relationship with myself.

"how do you qualify for this position?"

every day. over and over again. measuring my insides like a ritual.

i'm proud to have the capacity to love anyone. to be able to see each human as they are without any prerequisites is my most beautiful quality.

my resume has become outdated, it couldn't fit all the love i feel.

Preteen girls on the playground parked on the curb, plucking their dying daisies,

"Does he love me? Does he not?".

It's unfair- let them be me! I sit on the curb of thirteen- sleepless,

"Am I? Aren't I? I can't be!"

My sweat and tears are dipped in misery, "Do I like her? Do I not?".

If god's there why'd he do this to me, "Why me! Why me!"

The 'normal' girls were content; I was dragged unwillingly.

Is my love not worth these daisies?

So now, when I tell you,

"I am."

How dare you tell me,

"You can't."?

He was my dearest friend amongst our theater crowd. He was the one to tell me the boy I adored spoke disparagingly of me, so that I might learn to be more careful in my affections. He crazy-danced with me because it felt good, it was fun, and who cared what people thought. My mom adored him and apparently she also knew I was "safe" with him because I fell asleep on our couch with him more than once when he stayed over

AIDS was new then. Taking lives before some knew there was danger.

Such a one was Stevie.

“Hi, I’m Maggie!”. “OMG, my name is Maggie too! That’ll confuse everyone!” She said, curls bouncing as she laughed.

Thankfully - we looked nothing alike. She was beautifully mixed Black and white, I was a chubby white girl. I thought that our names would be the biggest problem for us.

One night, she asked me to kiss her, then cried, saying she just “didn’t know.

In the end, our names weren’t the problem. I told her I loved her after 6 months of giving her everything. In the end, she was the only Maggie with a problem. She wasn’t ready.

I'm 8 and I always like masculine female characters the most in shows. Just cuz they're cooler. I'm 10 and I sometimes look up YouTube videos of girls kissing. Just cuz I'm curious. I'm 13 and I have a huge crush on a female celebrity. Just cuz she's hot. I'm 15 and I have a crush on my best friend. Of course, it's just cuz she's nice.

Now, I've started a club that works to spread awareness and acceptance for the LBGTQ+ community. I have an amazing girlfriend who loves watching lesbian shows with me.

Just because...

Maybe I'm lesbian?

"So like...what's your deal?"

"My deal?" A shit-eating smirk slid across Mills' face.

"Yeah. You know. What are you, like, into?" Ree was beginning to lose her nerve.

"Oh. I don't know. Little of this. Little of that. Got kicked out for thinking about anything other than dudes." Mills began to fiddle with the tip of the shortest spike in her fiercely gelled mohawk.

"So...bi?"

"Hey, man. If I'm into it, I'm into it. No need to overthink things." Mills raised a single eyebrow. "Why, you fishin'?"

" Well, no, I mean, maybe-"

"Then chill. Just do what ya feel."