Waiting Game
At the cross section of cultures
where do the children stand?
My mother first discovered that
being gay was a “thing” when
she was 19,
back in Ecuador, where
house fires are still set
because of a different identity
and everyone mourns the idea
that a life was lost
but still put their hands up and say
“well, what can you do?”
Turn on the TV here
and try to identify a channel
that is still pretending that
only one type of person exists
that there is only one lifestyle
people like to live
It’s been a blessing for cultural diversity
But has filled my house with unspeakable tension
when I first started asking my parents about sex
at age 7
when I asked about gay relationships
at 12
when I explained to my mother what
transgender really means, and why its valid
at 14
They were never prepared to
have children so different from them.
Who could be?
And I didn’t know
how I could hide how different I was
to my white classmates
I covered up my arm hair with
long sleeves year round
and my mother finally let me wax
my mustache when I was 11
I cried in dressing rooms
furious that I was the only
6th grader with a size C chest
but I still felt
like I needed to laugh along
as my best friend recited the most recent
Mexican joke from South Park in between classes
How differently I was raised,
how I couldn’t go to a sleepover
because my parents didn’t know the
parents of the host
and would never know them
call it lost in translation
In the tsunami of hormones
that was high school
I questioned everything about myself
who I liked, who I wanted to be
but knew I had to keep silent
about my worries that I
would fall in love with a woman
because that would just be
another thing for my mother
to cry over
It’s a waiting game
Do well in school
Stay away from boys
Finish college and then
you’re free to be you
Unfiltered from the ones
who raised you
who love you more than anything
and even hesitated before they hit you
for talking back
but who will still
never understand