I am gay

I am petrified

I feel the ground on my feet, step by step

I see drunken men shambling across the sidewalk

I wonder how people can bear to live like this in other, less accepting cities

I flinch as a one of them approaches me and asks “How much?”

I run, and hear his cries fade into the distance

I try to pull my shorts down

I am disgusted

With him

With the world

With myself

I touch my hair

I pray that my pink streak is still hidden behind the careful layers I spent hours manipulating

I understand that I am not safe where I am

I hope that I make it home alive

I hear people all around me, and I feel safer

I enter the train station, praying for somebody to be there

I run as I get chased by a man who “wondered what I wanted to do with him tonight?”

I bit back tears, scared

For him 

For me

For everyone like me

I shake as I put my key into my houses lock

I dream about shadows

Creeping along my wall

Getting closer…

and closer…

and closer…

I wake in a cold sweat

I shiver, and feel as if I had run a marathon

I walk to school

I see people giving me dirty looks

I hear them muttering slurs under their breath

Is it my hair?

The way I dress?

I was ashamed because

I was gay

Two years later

I am still scared

I am still asked “How much?”

I am still faced by my nightmares, both awake and asleep

I am still hit

Physically

Verbally

Mentally

But I know now that no matter how much they strip away of me

There is one thing they cannot touch

And that is that

I am proud because

I am gay