This Used to be Easier

by Katia Rose

‘Hello, Derek. Welcome to my place. Don’t mind the homeless lesbian hiding under the bed in existential terror. Would you like a drink?’”

“Meg, I’m a gay Asian man. I’m not going to some small, backwoods town that’s literally called Chapel Creek. It sounds like somewhere they’d try to exorcise me with holy water.”

She was my favourite person in the entire world, and now she’s just a ghost that flickers out of view every time I spot her.

she made it part of her because it meant more than all the pieces of herself she left behind.

“This used to be easier, didn’t it?”

This small town made us into small kids with narrow visions, and maybe I don’t need blinders to feel safe. Maybe what I really need is to open my eyes wider than I ever have before.