WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU CAN’T SAY GAY

GROWING UP, I NEVER KEPT A DIARY. THERE WERE NO journals hidden beneath my twin mattress, no spiral-bound collection of ruffled notebooks stuffed with private confidences. I was a voracious reader who devoured books in secret, in defiance of my strict evangelical parents, but when it came to my personal feelings, I allowed nothing of myself to migrate onto the page. Writing felt treacherous, a way to accidentally reveal too much. The few times that I did manage to pen any of my feelings, I immediately shredded everything, crumpled papers stuffed at the bottom of the garbage can, hidden beneath scraps of the previous night’s dinner.

Those scribblings were too unruly, I thought at the time, unwilling to let any of it live outside the privacy of my head. Regardless, my hopes and fears sometimes erupted from the watched