u/Hoshi_luvsu

Dear, Sylvia Plath
We miss you so
The words of a poet
Lost and untold

They dissect a bird
And diagram its tongue
They cut the chord
That articulates song

They flayed a beast
To marvel at its mane
They wreck the rest
From which the fur began

They pluck your heart
To find what made it move
They halt your clock
And unsyncopate your love

An admonition that we were warned
An admonition that we ignored

This poem is heavily inspire by: “Admonition” — by Sylvia Plath. I want it to be an homage and a response to her and her poem.

I was a Grade 9 student, and it was a weird day, to be honest. The school made us do this strange thing where we had to go outside, and they would call us back into the classroom one by one in alphabetical order.

We were all outside, and when my name was called, I entered the classroom. By that time, around a quarter of my classmates were already there, along with this boy who was really popular. He was the best player on our school’s basketball team. I wouldn’t say we were friends, but he would tease me sometimes.

Anyway, I went into the room and closed the door in a really feminine way. That boy immediately teased me about it and asked if I was gay. I don’t know why, but it annoyed me. Why did he care?

At that moment, I wasn’t really thinking. I hadn’t planned to do it; I just did. I remember telling myself, “So what? My sexuality shouldn’t matter this much.”

So I told him the truth. I said, “Yeah, I’m gay.”

The moment I said it, he seemed to think he had the right to announce it to the whole class. I thought I would be annoyed, but then I realized nobody was reacting negatively. They actually seemed kind of happy for me.

Then the next student came into the room, and the basketball boy said, “This person is gay!”

Another student came in.

“This person is gay!”

He kept doing it over and over until everyone was in the room.

Part of me wanted to tell him to shut up because, honestly, no one should ever be forced to come out. But at the same time, nobody was reacting negatively. It actually felt safe—almost freeing.

Of course, that boy was an asshole for doing that, and what he did wasn’t okay. But somehow, it freed me from a silence that I thought would last forever.

So I guess the first people I ever came out to were my classmates.

I still can’t believe that a class in a Catholic school—where many of the boys held misogynistic and homophobic beliefs—took the news so much better than my own parents did. Sure, some of them joked about it, but they still accepted me far more easily.

This all happened long before I came out to my parents. It took me about five or six months after that incident to tell them.

Well, actually, I only told my mom because I was too scared to tell my stepdad. I hoped she would tell him for me.

I sent her a long text message, and I cried while writing it because it was one of the hardest things I had ever done. I sat in the bathroom crying and waiting as the three typing bubbles appeared and disappeared.

When her response finally came, it was a crying emoji.

She told me she was sad. I don’t remember everything she said, but I remember her telling me that she was crying too.

And honestly, my heart broke.

At the time, I couldn’t believe she was my mother. I remember thinking, “How dare she?”

We had a long conversation about how I knew I was gay, but afterward, she asked me to move to the UAE, where she lived and worked, and continue my studies there.

She never explicitly said why, but I knew it was her attempt to “fix” me.

Because of that, I kept telling her that I didn’t want to move, again and again.

Yet here I am.

I’ve been living in the UAE for two years now, and all of those attempts to “fix” me didn’t work.

I’m still here.

I’m still gay.

And I’m living in a country where being openly gay is illegal.

I always tease you for having a “twink” body or for looking like someone who could easily be mistaken for being gay, but the truth is, you’re not.

Every time I tease you, you tell me that you’re not, and every time I hear that, I wish you were. The truth is, I have no right to wish that for you—but I do.

I wish you’re just closeted and not ready to come out yet. I wish you’re one of those boys with conventional beliefs who is in denial of his sexuality. I wish, and I wish, and I wish—but you’re not.

We’ve been friends for more than a year, and because of that, I know you’re not. Even if you never say it to me, I know. And it breaks my heart that I know.

I wish I didn’t know. I wish I could just blindly believe in my delusions until we graduate, go to different schools, and gradually build different lives.

But I know.

And it breaks my heart because I love you.