Okay, maybe I'm just paranoid....

....but do you think anyone is going to seriously hurt me for making an unofficial high school GSA in the south?

I keep thinking about those two poor boys in elementary school that were murdered for telling their peers that they thought they were gay. Elementary students. Murdered. Just months ago. And the police raid at a gay bar in Texas weeks ago where man's skull got bashed in. And I'm out of the closet. I have gotten insults and stares, but that's because my school has so many students that if you want to make any noise you have to be a BIG noise. Which is what I want to be so that people know about the club and how strongly I believe in what I'm doing. I just want to help kids like me because I've been there. I know that I wouldn't have had half the pain and hopelessness I went through before I came out if there was someone willing to listen and sympathize with me. It HURTS to not be considered equal.

The closer the school year comes the more nervous I get. There's been so much violence at school. An attack with a machete made it to the front page of the local paper. But do you think anyone outside of my family or circle of friends will care if an angry dyke like me gets harassed?

At least the ACLU is on my side. God bless those important, marvelous pricks.

cont.

I don't think i made it to the top of that one; eventually I lost my mind and sense of direction and ended up on top of another damn hill. For some reason there was a white hammock and without thinking I laid down on it. My pulse shook my whole body. I heard a gunshot (at least that's what I thought it was) and panicked. Oh God oh God I've gotta get off the hill before someone catches me! So down I went to the thickest part of the wood and didn't know where I was. Where's the dock? What happened to the lake? Oh how I suddenly longed to see that clear stream and cleanse my hands and face in it. But I was exhausted and stuck between two unfamiliar hills convered in intertwining trees and those damned dried-up pine needles. I decided to climb up once again and hope that this hill lead to the neighborhood.
Thank Heaven it did, but I still wasn't close to Erika's house. It would have been so much easier if I could have gotten a ride, but the people there never leave the house except to rush to work and church and vacation at The Beach. Again, alone. My shoes and the bottom of my jeans were covered in mud and leaves and I felt so heavy that I could have just falleninto the road. But this was no longer my world of Eliot andstreams--and strife I had chosen--Someone must be wondering where I am.

Of course when you choose to be alone, you should expect to be alone or even lonely. When I finally reached the house I sat on the steps in the garage and waited to relax and stop breathing so hard. My book and jacket would have to wait. Turned out that my mom and Erika were working at the coffee shop, the boys were annoying their father, and my sister was practicing her clarinet. Ah well. I still had a story (which I didn't write until now).

For nights and mornings after that I repeated the words "Do you want me?" over and over, trying to feel the same light that they held before.
They still have not held any light, any comfort, any. . . . . .