bend, don't shatter

This summer is going to be about learning to love and accept myself.

I remember lying on my sister's futon in New York.
I was madly in love with D at the time.
He inspired me to write poetry again.
It's odd reading those poems now, because things are so different between us.
And at the time, I couldn't imagine anything changing, because things were so beautifully, cloyingly... wonderful.
I don't think that I've ever felt that way about anyone before.
It was terrifying.
(I hope to god that I'll let myself feel that way about someone again.)

But look at where I am now: (!!!)
D and I are no longer friends.
I went to a gay dance club for the first time.
I danced with a boy for the first time.
I came out to my friends at school.
I even came out to my sister.
I had my first boyfriend.
Who I held hands with proudly openly in public.
Who I shared my first gay kiss with.

Everything is different now, but it's all for the better.
Definitely for the better.

And one day I'll find someone I love and who also loves me back.
That's all I want.
But I figure that that dream is still far off.
After all, I've still got stuff to work on.

It's impossible to ignore the fact that:
I'm still hiding my desktop background of Justin and Austin from Ugly Betty, sharing their first kiss.
I'm still hiding the book that I borrowed from the library, Bend Don't Shatter: Poets on the Beginning of Desire, under my bed.
I'm still pretending
and lying
and protecting the people that I love
from what?
me...
I'm protecting them from me?

So that's what I'm working on this summer...
Not those lofty goals that I've been telling everyone.
Not French, not lab work, not any of that.
Just me.

[steven]