“What if one day the feeling of having a dirty secret overwhelms me? What if I crack under the

“What if one day the feeling of having a dirty secret overwhelms me? What if I crack under the strain of never being out enough? How can I be out to the woman I’m standing next to at the bus stop, the child who smiled at me in the store, the man who asked me to spare a quarter? What if I black out and I wake up alone midday in a house and I’d been napping and I find I’m married to a man, an honest man who’s devoted to me and I’m late to pick up the kids? What if all I do is sigh because it’s not as late as I thought and I race off to pick up the kids with two umbrellas because it’s raining but it wasn’t this morning and I don’t want them to catch a cold this early in the season. I imagine the joy of kissing my husband in the supermarket and the wistful smile of the old woman who sighs quietly: “Young love.” Mother and sister would come to the house for Thanksgiving because “it feels so good to have a man in the house during the holidays.I can sink into the comfort of being mother, wife, sister-in-law, grandmother; not always asked to decide, uncoupled in a family portrait; not strapped with the awkward title of “aunt”.I could live a life of gender specific pronouns, answer truthfully about boyfriends, and mean only “good friend” when i say it, and leave out that desperate qualifier: “really good friend”.Sex would be a friendly ritual, always finite, never frightening. I could focus on respect while he fucked me, how i know he respects me and how it really feels kind of good when you eradicate that underlying image of the empty hole, longing to be filled, and try not to dwell on the satisfaction he thinks he’s getting from filling it.Double income. I could keep my own name, maybe hyphenate for a liberated feel. We could have anniversary dinners in lovely spots and he’d dash off to the waiter while I’m in the ladies’ room, so they can bring out an aniversary treat before the bill and the waiting staff would feel a warm glow. What if I find myself with a more weathered face in a park, laughing, and saying “I was so young”, holding hands through the park with an Old Spice who squeezes my hand and says “I feel better honey, knowing you’ve tried everything and still choose me”It doesn’t seem so far fetched, like being caught in crossfire and dying, or slipping on oil that someone else unwittingly spilled. I could chase a rabbit through the woods for sport and find myself  falling down a long dark hole which ends in a life from which I can’t escape. It’s the word “phase”. It’s finally coming out but still being called “gay”. It’s being fucked and sucked by a woman until you feel you could cry, all the while feeling in the back of your mind that no one knows what you really do.You’re not waiting for a man.I’m not waiting for a man.I just hate this eerie feeling that a man is waiting for me.- from the movie “Go Fish” (1994), dir. Rose Troche -- source link

More pics about