He shouted “Repent” since the sign was not sufficient, I guess. I found myself going up to him while topless Amazons danced in his face. I found myself going up to him to say this: “I love you. I have nothing but love for you.” I couldn’t help myself.

“The morning after the horrific shooting, and the days that followed, I understood part of my father’s fear. Animosity towards LGBTQ people has not gone the way of black and white T.V. sets, phone booths, or travel by horse and carriage. It was and is very much alive.”

“Dating broken white women became a way to reprise a powerlessness that years of sexual abuse and generations of blackphobia had tricked me into believing in. I drowned this feeling of powerlessness in weed and seeking out relationships in which I could engage in yet remain completely hidden from view.”

“But unlike the missing 43 from Ayotzinapa, I was going home. And it’s what I store in my memory each time I read an article or update about the disappeared. I am home. They are not.”