It's time to stand up.
That is challenge enough...
Right out in the middle,
where I've been hiding,
where I've been strategic,
where I've managed my coming out,
...one veil at a time.
It's time to stand up,
to ask you to look when you would rather look away,
when you would rather explain me than see me,
when the chasm of shame, shames us both.
It's past time for settling for acceptance within limits,
to stop trading performance,
to stop protecting you when I'm really protecting me,
to stop denying my friends before the cock crows.
It is a time to be ok,
whether you can give that to me or not,
a time to risk your reactions,
to have a suitcase packed in the back room
with a whisk broom for my dusty shoes.
It's a time to be willing to seem garish,
unfinished,
with too many blind spots to keep covered,
too many things I haven't thought of,
too much the second grader calling my scrawling art,
even if it is art.
Nothing else needs to be different, and so,
It is time to stand up.
