I need to feel like I'm - at the very least -deserving of that love before I can give it back to someone else

so that I'm not constantly asking "is this right? is this okay?" to someone who already knows it is

like, if you're at a normal place in your self-love journey

(if you allow yourself to want and accept a basic level of respect and love from others, specifically romantic partners)

imagine how much of a mindfuck it would be for your lover to ask you if their gentle touches, their soft caresses, their tender kisses are "right"?

wouldn't you be offended, too? wouldn't you second-guess yourself, too? like maybe it's been wrong all along if they have to question if it's right? 

and maybe offended isn't the right word

but I think that might be why gay culture is isolating sometimes

because if you're raised in the homophobic Deep South or Midwest or Great Plains 

you're taught that NO act of gay love is "right", no matter how pure and innocent

so it becomes almost impossible to divorce yourself from that concept 

and when all you want to do is fall in love and touch someone like that, all gentle fingertips, it hurts to feel like that physical innocence is wrong simply because of who it's directed towards

this stopped being a poem so many lines ago

but I wish that Growing Up Gay wasn't so isolating

because I think it will take me even longer than it already has to feel like I can touch someone in these tender, soft ways

and, just as importantly, be touched in the same way

without feeling like I'm dirty or wrong for holding my girlfriend's hand