I will never again cultivate a romantic relationship with a cis person on purpose, not in this life. I have been hurt too badly, too often, by too many people. T4T only. Inscrutable genders from outer space to the front, those that can be best described as “smell of campfire” && “a great pink shape.” && those best described as “a single chandelier earring dragging across your chest while we fuck.”

I found a different self slowly, learned to exist as if with many different goggles on at once. Always speaking from my mother’s kitchen in the Silicon Valley and, at the same time, my grandmother’s crowded living room in Punjab. In these years, I would feel the sharpness of many kinds of difference, marginalization. But when I looked down at myself for signs of why I felt so other, all I would find was the color of my hands.

In general, my bi friends understand the alienation, erasure and self-doubt that comes with being bisexual in a “can’t you just pick one” world. By seeing and believing each other’s negative experiences, we help each other reduce the harm of those things.

Kelly cut off all her hair and started dating Katie. I started chasing around after a guy who looked like Ellen DeGeneres and trying to make sense of the mess in my brain.

“It wasn’t until I kissed the second girl that even my therapist at the time laughed at me and told me maybe it was time to accept that my sexuality was not as cut-and-dry as I’d always imagined.”