Identity

I cannot choose but bear it, or I cannot choose but wear my face with me, as always.

I remember sitting on the pier and looking for butterflies swimming in the yellow waves below.

Everything takes time. whether it be a short amount or the entirety of your existence. and now we enter a space where no matter how much practice we give ourselves we still feel unprepared.

I came back to Charlottesville in June, after having been away since March of 2019. The year at home awakened a long sentient being: my “true” self. Now I’m in my last year at this institution and I couldn’t feel more terrified even though I’ve wanted to leave since I’ve arrived.

A trembling that I couldn’t identify. A glance around the room—Kira across from me, Emma to my left, my professor of two years to my right. A reading I had done at least three times before. A comment that I knew made sense. And yet, I’m trembling. It may have started while my hand was raised. Look at her shoes, and hers and hers. You can see their backpacks, look at that pen. They can see you. Are they noticing you like you’re noticing them? Ah, she’s talking about my point, that’s great. I went to write down something she had said, but I couldn’t.

Four years ago, almost to the (very rainy) day, I walked down the Lawn with my mom. I remember peeking through every open door, turning away before I could make awkward eye contact with any of the occupants.

Is there truly a way to hide oneself when writing?

I sometimes feel shame while writing. Certainly, not all forms of writing make me ashamed or awkward. Most of the time fiction does not; neither does purely academic writing. What is left, then? Perhaps the combination of the two—when I wish to compose an affective piece but can only write in an abstract and impersonal way.

The longer I looked at my instagram, it became less of a museum, and more of a mausoleum. A distraught young girl haunting the hallways.

It wasn’t taking my fifth “Am I Gay?” quiz. It wasn’t being disappointed when I would get “You Are Straight!” as a result. It wasn’t my constantly looking up “lesbian love stories.” It was a Reddit thread, and the compulsory heterosexuality master doc I found there, that made me say “oh shit.”

No amount of bargaining or denial will change that simple bead of truth.

When my mom was a kid, a white boy had a crush on her. So, the KKK set a cross on fire in her aunt’s front yard. A white boy couldn’t like a brown girl. And although this piece is more about me and my experiences, my mom sets everything up. I am her carbon copy. And I have spent my whole life walking right next to her, step-in-step, hearing, seeing, being right there when the racist questions are asked, when those looks are shot in her direction. And then, when I started going out on my own, or in school, the overt racism started to be hurtled at me.