I'm not sure if you understand what it feels like to have so much pain. Something intrinsically wrong with you that medication, nor god, can fix. It makes you so different...you walk into a place, you look around, and you realize you're the only one like you in that entire building. You're a freak hidden in a body that so many consider a friend. You hide yourself from your family, from a lot of your friends. From those you love. You're so different, that it makes your soul hurt each time you look in the mirror, because you can't comprehend, you can't figure out...what's wrong with me?

You try to change. You try to do things the way you're supposed to. The way nature intended it, according to everyone else. You stand next to the people you should date, go to the places you should go, like the movies you're supposed to like, vote for the policies you're supposed to vote for. But no matter how much you put on the false face, you're still you. You're still a disgrace. You're still different.

You're still wrong.

You're still gay.

It's something I live with every day--something I try to change. I go out with boys, I try to pull myself away from the gay movement--to not let it affect me so horribly. To not let the overwhelming hate people feel for me get me down. I try to prove people right who say it's a choice...I find boys who are attractive, who are intriguing. Who have perfect personalities. I date them, I dance with them, I kiss them. But I feel wrong. I feel disgusting. I feel dirty. I want to cry.

Weakness is my middle name. I find a girl who makes my heart flutter and my palms sweat, and I give up. I try to find a peace, convincing myself it won't be so bad. I give real smiles when I'm with her. I feel like I'm floating on air. Inside, that peice I had been trying to force fit has been replaced with one that goes more naturally into place. I kiss her, and it feels okay. Not dirty, not wrong, so I kiss her again.

But then it happens. A second date, I'm holding her hand on the way inside of a Taco Bell, and those words are spoken. "THEY'RE GAY!" A group of teens watching us walk in. Our hands part, our faces turn red. Our masquerade of safety is broken. We're brought back down to our realization of our dirtiness. This happiness is wrong. This comfort is wrong. We spend the rest of the date in silence, all too concious of their stares of disgust and hate and I feel like I want to die.

I go home that night. I stare in the mirror. Blue eyes stare back through blond strands. The epitome of the accepted girl in todays society. I'm perky, I'm bouncy, I never let on how much it hurts. I never let on my dirty secret.

I stare in the mirror, into the eyes of a reflection I hate, just because of that one part of me. If I could change, perhaps I could be perfect. I could be happy. If I could be different, I wouldn't cry myself to sleep every night, I wouldn't hide from the news, I wouldn't feel ashamed when looking into the eyes of my family. If I could be better, if I could just be straight.

And I scream. Home alone, I scream at the top of my lungs and tears streak down my face as I rail against the God who condemns us yet makes it so no matter how hard I attempt to be better, I can never be. And all I manage to spout out is one phrase, which is the mantra of my very existence.

I don't want to be gay...

---

This is because of something that happened when I went on a date with a girl the other day. I know on here I seem rather secure with my sexuality, but it's different--over the internet, I mean. Those of you who say it's a choice, I invite you to spend a day inside my head. I've struggled and I've tried, but it doesn't work.

I'm gay...I'm stuck this way. And I have to handle it. And I wish others would stop judging this. Because...well...we're queer, we're here, even if we don't want to be. So don't think I chose to be this way...I didn't. I didn't choose to live every day depressed and hurting. I didn't choose to lose my friends and many of my family because I'm "dirty and disgusting." Because I'm a disgrace. I didn't choose to lose my friends, and I didn't choose to feel ashamed every day I stare people in the eyes.

So yah...I didn't write this to convince you...I wrote this because last night I was up all night crying, depressed, and wanting to kill myself. Because I can't help but wish that I were straight and normal.