Honeybee

by Trista Mateer

If her mother brings up Leviticus in polite conversation and my mother laughs when she hears the word bisexual, how much room do we have to breathe in the middle?

I never even understood the way light could flood a room until I saw you walk into one.

And I know—I know I have a heart like a wild thing with snapping jaws and matted fur but I’d hang up my hands on hooks for you, pluck out all of my sharp teeth for the chance to be easy.

I had to ask for directions seven different times in LAX. It’s a monstrosity built almost entirely out of anxiety. It’s a shrine to nervousness.

It is okay to leave. It is okay to feel smothered by the weight of a life you didn’t want or a relationship that doesn’t taste the way you thought it would. It does not make you hard or disagreeable or unreasonable.

You are not defined by the people you walk away from, and you are not defined by the people who walk away from you.

Amazing, all the things you can look past when Christ gets involved. Amazing, all the things you can’t.

My worth is not defined by a man and neither is yours.

A Brief Note On Biphobia I’m not going through a phase using it as a stepping stone more likely to cheat on you just greedy secretly actually gay secretly actually straight inherently also polyamorous promiscuous because of my sexuality only into and always up for threesomes still trying to make up my mind attracted to all genders equally attracted to anything that moves experiencing less discrimination benefitting from “passing privilege” more likely to spread STDs heterosexual while I’m dating a man homosexual while I’m dating a woman transphobic or confused but I am tired

Breathe in air that has never witnessed your heartbreak before. And then let it out.

I know this isn’t what you wanted it to be but you can still make something good out of it. Bless all the good I made out of it.

I read somewhere that it’s okay to miss people even if you don’t want them in your life anymore; and I hope that’s true. I hope everything I feel is okay.

I found out secondhand and skipped all five stages of grief. (I went right to tequila.)

Embrace the days on which you are still hurting. Sore muscles have always been a sign of growth.

I do not believe all love has an expiration date; I just believe ours did.

I STILL DON’T FORGIVE YOUR PARENTS FOR RAISING YOU TO BELIEVE YOU HAD TO MARRY THE FIRST MAN WHO TOUCHED MORE THAN YOUR HEART, BUT I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY

It was not brave to break like that. It was not brave to write those poems. It was not even brave to stop. It was just hard.

When I use the B word, all I can think about is the first time bisexuality came up with her in conversation and she laughed.

I swoon every time they call me baby, but I tell them I don’t know if I want to get into things. I second-guess myself into a corner. What if it is just a phase? What if I change my mind? Do I really need to put my family through that kind of thing?

My coworker asks me, Why do lesbians use dildos? Why don’t they just fuck men? And I want to say, have you ever met a man?? but I feel like the joke is too gay and I’m always trying to convince everyone I know that my sexuality is a revolving door which never stops spinning long enough to check IDs. Still, somehow, I am always getting carded.

When the Supreme Court ruling comes through for marriage equality, I sob quietly in the bathroom, but I don’t know if I can really celebrate the way that I want to because I don’t feel gay enough to talk about the struggle, but I’m not straight.

My mother finds me in the morning to ask if I’ve heard the news. She says, I SUPPORT YOU BECAUSE YOU’RE MY DAUGHTER BUT I DON’T AGREE WITH IT AND I DON’T THINK IT’S RIGHT. I say, then you don’t really support me, and she doesn’t say anything.

My strength is defined, not by what I continue to carry, but by what I have allowed myself to put down.

I’ve realized that it’s not as important to remember where I’ve learned things, as it is to just learn them. I don’t always have to trace everything back to its source.

You may have been part of the healing but you don’t get to be a part of what’s healed.