You Should See Me in a Crown

by Leah Johnson

When you already feel like everything about you makes you stand out, it just makes more sense to find as many ways to blend in as you can.

But the hardest ones to hear are the ones she says with the most authority: Girls will run for queen, and boys will run for king—there’s definitely no accounting for people who might not identify as either. And the hardest for me to ignore, same-sex couples aren’t allowed to attend together. They can dance with each other once they get there, maybe, if no chaperones care enough to stop them, but they can’t officially go as dates.

Silence and shame aren’t the same thing—not by a longshot. But sometimes silence is simpler.

I’ve never felt quite like this though. Like I don’t know if I’m running away from something or to it. All I know is that I’m tired, so incredibly tired, of having to run at all.

I try to channel the confidence of a mediocre white man in a boardroom: untouchable.

Lmfao!

It’s the weight, the impact, of being different in a town that hasn’t learned how to hold us close and refuses to treat every part of us with as much care as we deserve.