Are You Confused?

“Are you confused?”

Yes  I am confused

not because I am unsure about

how I feel

or that I have any personal hang ups about

the way I feel

but you all swarm me like flies

to a pile of s–t

telling me buzzing

That there’s no way that I could be

this way

that I’m either one or the other

that I can’t be both

but despite the label

I see more than just two

options

I see them all

“Don’t you need both to be satisfied?”

My identity goes by many names

People with their ad lib definitions

create their own meanings for my way of being

To them

I am this insatiable beast

this sly fox who takes whatever it can get its paws on

that because of my desire for more

than one kind of person

I need more

than one kind of person

to be satisfied

“Aren’t you just       ?”

Homo?

Hetero?

I am as homo as I am hetero

yet neither captures me within the nutshell

There is no closet for me to emerge from

My closet is full

full of the skeletons of the hopes

my hopes that I will be understood

You see   the man

the woman

the queer man

the queer woman

the person

they are all beautiful

to me

To you this is a phase

this is a passing whim

this is curiosity that will be settled

but to me

for me

this is me

“I just don’t get it.”

I suppose you wouldn’t

when it is not your own experience

when all you can do is speak

and not listen

When you call me greedy

when you curse me for being able to ‘pass’

when you tell me that I have strayed

when you color my pride with shame

when you make me ashamed of being me

in every space that I occupy

But no more

You are not ashamed to be who you are

You have no reason to be

And neither do I

So I will be visible

in my blue    pink and purple

All that I ask

is that you look beyond my stripes

and see the me that resides underneath