When you were eight years old you walked through the grocery store following closely behind your mother as she shopped. When you passed by a couple with their hands intertwined, crossing in the opposite direction. You had seen people do that all the time all it did was make you want to hold your mothers hand too. But as you reached out you saw your mother scowling at the couple’s backs as they walked away and thought maybe she didn't like holding hands, so you kept your hands to yourself. It wasn’t until later when you had both returned to the car that you realized the problem. “Boys can’t love other boys!” Hearing the venom in her voice made you pause, you hadn’t seen anything wrong with it, but if your mom thought it was bad then it had to be.                                                   

Years down the line, you would realize you were different. That maybe you were a boy who liked boys or a girl who liked girls or maybe you weren’t a boy or girl at all; and it would feel like everything fell into place.for the first time everything would make sense and you would feel like you finally understood yourself. But you would remember your own mother’s words like an arrow piercing through your heart. How could anything so disgusting ever feel right? How could anything the world hated and despised ever be ok? These conflicted thoughts would haunt you, following you like a shadow. And you would decide it would be better to just hide it from the world.

You keep your identity hidden, under lock and key. Only telling your dirty little secret to those who bear similar ones. You could never bring yourself to be open about who you are to the world. Because what if it doesn’t accept? What if it thought you were dirty, unclean, horrid, or even disgusting? But oh how you long to. You wish you could be honest with yourself and everyone around you. You wish you could tell your family and trust in the fact that they will love you regardless. But no matter how supportive some of them may seem, no matter how far the world has come to be accepting. The words never leave your lips, you’re still afraid.

Despite keeping it on the down low, people seem to figure it out anyway. They seem to sense there's something wrong with you, they give you weird looks whenever they see you. As though your feelings aren’t just in your heart, but a wound burned into your skin. Like an ugly scar carved into your flesh marking you as different, as wrong. They laugh, their voices laced with a venom so familiar to you whenever you say something slightly off, just a little incriminating, as if they know the truth and even though you’re trying so hard to fit in and be normal they can see through you like a window pane, and it’s just pathetically hilarious that you even try.

Eventually maybe, you hope to find a place you belong. A place that will help give you the strength to cut your heart open and show it to the world. Somewhere where you can love who you love and no one will mock you for it. But you know you won’t for a long long time, and instead you will hide, clinging onto that small hope like your only lifeline in a stormy sea.

There are hundreds of thousands of LGBTQ students who get harassed every year for who they are. Many of them hide who they are just to avoid said harassment. I too, am too afraid to be honest about who I truly am. But maybe one day, the world can be safe enough where we can be who we are, and who we’ll continue to be, and we won’t have to be afraid anymore. Someday.