Chapter Thirty Two: Bearing the cross

Life is complex sometimes you wonder if its worth it. Theres a lot of debate as to who carries this big gay diverse community. Though its not particularly easy for any of us its broken down quite simply by what straight men (who incidentally are the ones who make most of the laws in our country or the world in general). The ones most appealing are the lipstick lesbians, who unequivocably are reveered as something that is erotically stimulating to straight males. Then there are transgender male to femal or even female to male individuals that are accepted with a metaphorically quivering handshake. This is perhaps based on the ideology that you may have been a man or woman before but you look hot now that your in the right body for your mind, ill overlook what i wish i didnt know and be sure to burn the baby pictures so i can sleep with you. Next on the higherarchy is the butch lesbian, they are overtly gay and not in an attractive "let me watch you" way, but still not entirely vile to the opposing community. This is perhaps due to the fact that they are one of the boys they can kick back drink beer and chase women and work on cars and compare sports bracketts. Not completely adored but not entirely reviled. Then theres the fence player, hated, loved, respected and feared. The bisexual be it male or woman, the woman is hot to the oposite community because theres the possibility of a threesome or at least the fantasy, and that plausibility makes it arousing. The bisexual man serves another more important but highly corrupt purpose. They bear the banner of hope, that maybe just maybe a gay man can be converted through jesus , through strip clubs or some other ridiculous means to enjoy vagina. This is not so, another reason they are wearily accepted into any community and viewed as a traitor to either cause is, very very very rarely , im talking sightings of lochness monster rare, is there a truely 50/50 bisexual, and at that lots of gay men come out first as "bisexual" because of the concept of distant hope. This brings us to the masculine or straight acting Gay man, a man who is often in danger or in other words down right closeted, while i dont endorse embracing cliches or being a stereotype just for the sake of being a stereotype we must address that most so called "masculine gay men" are to some extent posing, after all you dont look so straight with my cock in your mouth now do you as the old joke goes. The gay man that is allowed to play sports and takes a beard to prom but puts on their trench coat and wanders into the gay bar on sunday nights when theyre supposed to be in choir practice. Im not saying that its bad to be masculine but to swear off anything that may make people know your gay or may bring attention to you or possibly cause you to be denied entry in the republican party is just simply being closeted and denying your true nature. Last but not least this brings us to the last subgroup which is sectioned off in many different ways but all such divisions are all first and foremost part of the greater label that is "the effeminate gay guy". Girls love them they are the newest fashion statement, they are well dressed brave and brash. Youve seen them on television and in film. the sissy, the twink, the showtune singing ones. the make up wearing ones. the lisped talkers. the drag wearers. The guys that are tormented in highschool, the guys that are the voice and image of our community. negative or positive we feminine gays have brought us to the now. And we did it all while designing the fall line, and writing poems and of course snatching up the lead roles. We get the hate we get the jokes, we get the names we arent allowed to bring our boyfriends to dances, we arent allowed to play soccer with the rest of the boys. We are the ones who brought class to the community. We are the strongest players in the community, because we represent what is most taboo. Open advertisement. the worst part is they all have a special brand of hate for us, but we cant help it we wont hide it, we are who we are and we arent afraid of it, we sing our highest notes, and we dance like its the last moment well get to do it. We are the unashamed. We are the ultimate outcast because we represent something that is honestly genderless. Our sex is male, our prefference is the same, but our gender is somewhere in the grey area. we arent female or male like a transgender, we arent a guy with a guys mind who happens to like other guys. but we arent women either. we like to use what nature granted us between our legs, we like to party like everyone else, we represent what is in fact the most inclusive of all genres. the melting pot of diversity. What sad is we feel the most pain because we are the label. we wear our personality for everyone to notice and judge without a word being said. We face the brutality ahead from the unaccepting and we overcome the most obstacles because we are the most repulsive to the opposite community. We do all this, and even within the community we are looked down on, weve carried the cross and brought us all to a world where equality is within our grasps and they didnt even say thank you... Im proud to be who i am , and im unashamed to say "your welcome"

Chapter Thirty One: a broken Hallelujah

overthrown, i am quite withdrawn for what is to come. I know im going to end up hurting but goddamn it im going to dare to smile again. Im happy, legitimately happy. I have no illusions to what i am in his eyes but im happy regardless that im not just a one night stand, or a pawn in some ridiculous scheme to get back emotionally at someone else, or just a drunken lay. For the past three nights ive been hooking up with Austen. Im a hopeless cause, i keep convincing myself that im going to save myself the heartache and detach myself from feeling anything. But maybe just maybe i deserve the brief rush i get from opening up my heart to trust another person to take it. Everyones got baggage but with this, whatever you want to call it, theres no unpacking, its an odd feeling to fuck someone and have mutual respect for them. For the first time in a long time i topped someone, which makes a grand total of three guys in my entire sexual career that ive topped. And it feels as though he is apprehensive, he may see me as more now than he did before. Its quite possible that he might actually give a shit, im not going to say that becase i dont know for sure, but its safe to say being completley detached emotionally has recently become impossible. Last night i took him to a party at my brothers, and we spent most of the party at least an hour and a half making out on the balcony, and he didnt give a shit who was watching. after about thrity minutes of actual socializing we went back to Austens apartment. We fooled around a little kissed a lot and then he asked me to fuck him. We used three condoms that night. It was very good, he came first ....again.  After that we cuddled  for a few hours and fell asleep. My phone alarm went off at twelve waking us out of a dead sleep and since we were already awake, we fooled around a little more, then went back to sleep for a few hours. when i awoke the second time it was five o clock, i gave him a back massage,  he gave me head, and the next thing i knew there was only one condom left in the pack of i think fifteen that we bought the day before yesterday. He walked me out as it was time to go, i had a cigarette and we talked for a while. I made the decision to say goodbye and went on my way and made it back home at eight oclock after attending to some business. Its a very vulgar relationship we have but it was nothing romantic for me until last night. Its as if he read my mind and telepathically knew what it would take to make me want more. Perhaps i shouldnt have stayed the night, but I dont give two shits, I cant wait to do it again. I dont care if theres never a label to it. I dont care if its not facebook official. I do in fact like him a lot, fuck everyone else at this point because im more than content. And i honestly think hes incapable of hurting me the way we are now. Its a perfect balance, that is all i have to report right now.

Chapter Thirty : we all fall down , some of us should just stay down

Ive gotten to the end of my patience with Blake Isley, Ive been called out, Im tired of the bullshit, tired of being fucked with, trying to be subtle is just another reason shes full of shit. If your going to say something to someone , dont post it on your ex friends wall, dont try to make a statement, dont get your stepdad of two months to threaten to kill me, Dont send a fucking letter claiming that your more mature and that im a terrible person or that brittany and srah are terrible when we have all bailed your ass out on more than one occasion, dont run over someones foot and run the fuck away. You dont  try to be friends with Brittanys step sister when youve done nothing but talk shit about her in the past before. And then claim none of us are capable of talking things out or being civil, when your the one trying to fuck with the lives of people that have washed their hands of you. I am not straight , if i were i could do much better than Blake Isley, I do not do drugs, but i know damn well she does, and she hangs out with a cocaine addict who used to sell in high school. Talk shit about me, no big deal, send me a contrived letter, no big deal, but do not pretend like im the devil when you cant face up to the fact that you sank your friendships and became a psychotic bitch, stay out of my life or there will be consequences. Some people just dont know when to quit knocking on deaths door, i was done with her as a friend when i told her she was dead to me, so why does she continue to seek all of us out. I may not be perfect i have a lot of misdeeds to account for but dont lie about me, especially when i will be forthright and admit my actions as my own, when you cant admit when your wrong and still think your right. i was content to leave this along, but when you refuse to quit, your just begging for me to retaliate and i can ruin a life i have the technology, i dont relish being a bitch but if its brought out, I WILL GO THERE, and in case you didnt know or notice, your a little pestulance of a maggot at the bottom of the food chain, and IM AN APEX PREDATOR. And i hope to god she sees this because im not scared. and i wont be intimidated and im not one to be trifled with, this is the last warning, your ignorance of it is not my problem you should know not to fuck with people and ive let a lot of shit pass over, but im done with being passive, if you want me to i will stoop to your level and beat you at your own game.

chapter twenty nine: Children of Circumstance

I celebrated my birthday last night. Nineteen years old and it seems like at the same time its been just minutes , and yet as if its been a millinea. My friends brittany and i were on the way to syn and sky when we saw my old friend sara kenyon approach us and ask us for directions to greene street, seeing as it was gay night at greene street as well we decided to go to greene street instead. Upon our walk Sara was getting more and more affected by the alcohol she had consumed prior to our metting up with her, but by the time we arrived she was stumbling around in a drunken stooper. About five minutes after we had gotten in the club Security approached us and told us Sara would have to be escorted home. Her friend Nicole who had driven up with her took her home that night. Britney Sarah Fox and I continued on through a night that would only get odder, it started with me trying to find a hot guy to dance with. I spied one i wanted and had begun working up the courage to ask him to dance seeing as i did not have the allure working for me that night. I saw a few people i knew and conversed for a little while then got seperated from my friends. I bumped into the guy i had been eyeing and asked him to dance, ... it was that easy, surprisingly. We danced for a while then both went out to smoke where we conversed briefly and went back inside. We went back in and he stopped at the bar for a bit which didnt bother me as i needed refreshment at the time anyway. I noticed him talking to one of the guys at the bar and noticed the guy he was talking to was holding hands with someone in a barstool i noticed the guy he was holding hands with was my ex Matt Dazzle. I asked him " so how do you know my ex boyfriend" " which one" he replied, " the one in the hat Matt Dazzle" i said  he retorted with " oh hes dating my best friend" ..... a boner was successfully killed. Later on in the evening I saw my friends again after going upstairs, they were sitting on the couch with two random guys, then i saw chris crisp, who i hadnt seen in at least a year. We talked for a bit and then i realized Brittany and Sarah were not around i went down to find them. They were dancing with those random guys i had found them with before, and they seperated when the two guys went outside to smoke, they both looked at me and said Its time to leave, we wandered around for a bit so as to get lost in the mass of people. After about thirty minutes we retrieved our coats and went out the door where we saw Nicole who had informed us that Sara Kenyon had been taken to the hospital for alcohol poisoning. It had been a crazy night but it was not over, we received a call from Josh who needed us to come get him and take him home we proceeded and did what we had to. Its been a strange entrance into this new age. Nothing bad happened to me, although the world around me has fallen into disaray and device, i think that its a sign that im stronger than most. And also a sign that what i have going with austen may be clandestine or in some other way ordained and no intended to be haulted at the present time. In a way im glad because it brought with it a new sense of morality and a new sense of direction.... but for now im nineteen and green and content to be living .. that is all.

chapter twenty eight : resolutions and renventions

Its nearing the end of the witching hour and im officially another year older, making me nineteen going on ninety. Its astounding how much someone can grow and how drastically things can change over the course of one year. I am viewing the world through a completely different scope than the one i had  when i turned eighteen. At the start of this i was just a smart and wise for his age eighteen year old. over the course of one year, ive detached myself from feelings of guilt and resentment. ive gone through emotional trauma and here i stand better off. My enemies have presented theirselves to me, and i now know the early warning signs of mental disturbance and know when to give trust and when to reserve it until its earned and wanted. Ive learned who my true friends are, and i value myself intensely more, and i have come from being a non believer to a mystic to one who has found the balance between faith and gullibility. I have morphed into a much stronger person in this one year than i was, someone who is no longer angry like my 15 year old self but no longer a push over like my 18 year old self. Im no longer the scared naive adolescent. I still have a lot of room to grow but knowing my own imperfection is a step toward becoming whole that few possess.
 I i find it rather stunning how im only nineteen and so much has been figured out by my own sweat and toil, ie worked out my own path to salvation with fear and trembling. ive kissed death on the lips and come out unscathed. i found a sense of purpose i lacked, and ive learned more about loving someone in this crazy gay world where you have to play games and never be the first to say what should be left unsaid. a year ago today i was clinging on to the love i held in such high a pedestal for Brian, and today i feel as though hes no longer a part of me, im bearing the scars of so many others that ive learned to wear as tattoos reminders of what brought me to where i am today. I regret nothing. Ive made many errors crucial and detrimental but it was only instrumentla to my own pain and therfore subsequently necessary for my own growth, ive cut myself deep enough to free a trapped soul beneath. and broken many of my habbits that kept me steifled. ive learned to channel all my rage into art. ive learned so much that this has become not only a tell all of my sexual exploits and heartbreaks and idle adolescent mellodrama but a coming of age in the making. Im proud of myself and i never thought i would be. Seven years ago i was in the darkest hole imaginable, and within the past year experienced more alienating brutal tragedy and more weight and stress and i have only grown stronger because ive changed as a person for the better but in keeping with my fundamental structures of who i am at the essential level. Seven years ago i almost committed suicide, seven years ago i met my two crutches of addiction, cigarettes and hard liquour, they are still vices i lean on, but ive learned to handle things more efficiently. seven years ago i would have made that judgement to cut my life short had i met the circumstances that transpassed within this past 12 months of my life. But today i am nineteen and im truely happy with who i am. ive got myself, ive got a car, ive got a tight knit group of friends i trust deeply. i am enjoying the untagged relationship with someone who i connect with without feeling the need to be attached like a leech. I still cant believe ive lived so much longer than i thought i should have. Im slowly but surely reinvinting myself, the passions i have have never died, they just became more focused, the drive never depleted it just became more practical, the dream never drowned it learned to swim. I think as far as life goes ive been tested harshly but im starting to surmount the tasks and obstacles that lay before me with more ease than ever before.... its not perfect .. but it IS getting better

Chapter Twenty Seven: not quite hell but a far cry from heaven

"i could walk a thousand miles with nails in both my feet, it would still hurt less than the things youd do when you thought noone was watching"

I used to think, situations had a tendency to work themselves out... i was merely fantasizing, i would like so much to believe in a more eutopian world but the longer i linger in this reality i see more things to make me want to go back in hiding. While im in pain someone else i know is undoubtedly thriving. There was a time that i would sacrifice my happiness for the sake of anothers, but that was before the lying. I want incredibly much for things to be okay, mended up in their own unique way i once thought there wasnt a sin i could not forgive. But if im a messaih to the hopeless then ive got nothing left to give. Salvation seems so far away, i beg and i plead but bad things keep blocking my way. I want to be closer again to god, but it seems like with every moment were ever further at odds. Id give anything, to exist in the dream, but the haunting part is that i know ill be waking. I havent been sleeping so much lately, my bodys tired, but the mind wont let me. such terrible thoughts keep penetrating my conscious stream. Id like to kill them away, but i gave up drinking. Im trying my hardest to turn my life around, but complications keep arising that threaten to keep me down. If i just give up and consing myself to bitterness could i even be content. To survive through this life that ill forever resent. Im not consigned to accept my misery, i hope theres something better being withheld from me, I havent told anybody, but its what i keep in secret what i want to believe. My perceptions keep getting altered. I once remember having faith that would never falter. But it died somehow, has it been murdered on the churches alter. Is it any wonder that i turned away. i was devout but i was lead astray. I felt so close long ago, but if i didnt question it, i would have never known, id rather have the truth than to follow blind, there were many things in myself i had to leave behind. Why must i be the one to change, if its your design which was flawed in the first place. Dear god can you tell me when, the horizons will change, ill it be before i quit. Im at my lowest calling on your name. I hear nothing to comfrot me and say it will be okay. Am i too late to be saved, i would jump through the fire to be worthy of such grace.

Somethings i wish i had never known, but its far better to learn, or so i keep getting told.
is there more to this than whats being sold, if ignorance is bliss, then i must have doomed my soul.
I must tell you this is getting old. you said youd meet me halfway,  but your running quite late
im three forths of the distance, and i cant go all the way. I need dIvine intervention, so i bow my head today. Wont you promise me that help is on its way. or are there sins still that for which i must pay
ive endured so much, im buckling under the strain, i cant keep on living under the weight of such pain.
Devotion and conviction, are all that remain, youve stripped me down, have you had your way.
was this a joke to you, because i was assuming your sincerity.is it true that not even you care anyway
then why should i play the martyr if ive got nothing to gain. am i too late to be saved.
are you listening or have you turned away. am i talking to myself i ask of you, why wont you answer me?

---
i prayed these words so many times. so many things i bought as truth turned out to be just lies.
i wrote it out, in poetic device. i spared no honesty to conform to the ryhme.
i still feel as though theres hope, buried deeper though than i initially thought.
there was more to it but i forgot. I saw my enemy today, passing by the other way.
i realized i cant live in this town anymore, im planning to escape, on a more permanent basis quite possibly. Brittany and Sarah may end up living in apartments with me, if i can escape my job long enough and have my car in good condition long enough to find employment in the next county over
hopefully as a waitor or some higher paying less demanding position than the one i presently hold for minmum wage. I want so badly to get more out of this life, im tired of meerly scraping by, having no time to enjoy, but not making enough to barely survive. Im hoping to go to GTCC instead of ACC, not because of my ex best friend but because i want to get out of the dead end shithole town that is burlington. i want to taste the skys and walk in greener pastures, where theres something to entertain me other than a movie or window shopping with money i dont have. it seems like theres nothing of substance anymore even in this god forsaken no mans land. i was talking to god (or myself which ever one) and he promised that things would be getting better. they keep getting more and more ominous. my life was threatened. i got into an accident hours after repairing my bearing, now i have two that are bad. I just cant see the opportunity to get out coming. but i know that im going to get out if its an afront to jesus christ himself. Im the only one i know thats real, ive been neglecting myself to provide a way for others to feel. im tired of growing number day after day. as more and more moments of my life slip away. i cant promise that im doing okay because in truth i dont know anyway. im getting more attached than id like to be to my cuddle buddy. but hes abandoned me for spring break in dc, and my friend victor and my brother and his friend all went to lauterdale for the next three days and im left with nothing but myself. ive never felt more alone. even my friend brittany has someone. i try to surround myself with support but everyones happy around me and i feel like im the odd man out doomed to walk eternally alone, everyone i date or screw is either heartless pointless or insane. why must i be the only person i know incapable of bonding with someone who wont cheat or use me for a one nigh stand and then decide after theyve gotten underneath my clothing that im not what they are looking for becaus they are too afraid to feel that they dont want to figure out my personality and so they push me away?. I swear to god im not difficult im the most easy going relaxed person i know, . Everyone around me is happy, Brittany is dating my cousin, sarahs got a new job that pays well. jeris got a new love persuit .. and i have what amounts to a meaningless sex partner who here lately has made it so i move my plans around to go see him and then at the last minute he decides to go drinking or hang with friends or that he has too much work to do, im being extremely understanding but part of me knows that hes trying to pull away and i dont want him to, i think hes found someone else just like everyone i fool around or sleep with, they cant be ready for another relationship when they meet me, but as soon as they have a fling with me and i feel like maybe i have at least a friendship with benefits of intimacy and then i find out they are devoted to this person they met while they were screwing me. Its so unfair, im not a bad person, im fairly attractive, and im honestly the most devoted to love person i know, i would do anything for someone i love. And yet im to difficult to bear the thought of being in a relationship with, why? ive gone slow ive gone moderate ive gone fast track either way it doesnt work out for me but it always ends in some long term fulfilling relationship with someone else who was graced with an opportunity unlike myself. Why cant i just have one thing one area of my life go right for a change, what did i do to deserve such seemingly paranormal otherworldy slap to the face. its like im trying to stand up in the surf during a hurricane, no matter how i try when i get my head up, another wave comes to topple me over and make me feel worthless like i should just inhale the water and accept deaths welcoming embrace because its all a vain effort. Why am i fighting to live if im just living to fight, why am i trying to see when theres nothing in sight, why am i trying to give when no one gives me a try, why am i fighting to live, if im just living to die. ..... the only question i can think to ask is why, for everything why, a question unanswered, though the most worthy of validation... why is it the only question i cant solve on my own but the only question im left with, the only question noone will help me to answer, im just looking for reason in a sea of uncertainty and indecision. wont some one save me from the war tide of ignorance and just give me an answer even if its perceived that i will be displeased with the response. i dont deserve much but the universe owes me an explaination its the only thing i am certain of.