The Shadow of a Wrongful Love

I write this for my queer friends, classmates, acquaintances, strangers I've passed on the street

Who feel like they're never seen, never heard, never respected

Almost like a shadow

I write this because they deserve the right to love and to own their sense of safety

Whether it's for themselves, family, friends, emotions

I know that my words could help bring them a sense of comfort and acknowledgment

As my eloquently spoken friends can do for me in times of need

I write so that I can see something I hate within myself as something to love, as it's beautiful when other people possess it

But not when I do

When I do it's "dirty," it's "wrong," it's "biblically immoral," it's "too much"

So that they may too see how there's no wrong way to touch, to hear, to taste, to smell, or to see the emotions and love they feel

I write for the freedom to be gay, queer, bisexual, pansexual, all the sexuals, and love safely in the eye of the public

Because love should be a safety net for all but many times it's the concrete wall we're shoved into as we are called "disgusting" and "sinful"

I write this for those who feel they're never enough

Like they need to be molded, prodded, shaped until they're deemed "presentable" or "queer enough"

You don't owe your body, personality, sexuality, gender to anyone but your own peace of mind

I write this for those whose parents love them, but conditionally

Only if they don't show their authentic selves

Only if the queer becomes a shadow, set to follow but never to speak

I write this for those who have grown to become jealous of that shadow

Who crave to let the shadow reign free and take over their bodies, their minds, their souls

I write for those who feel that shadow isn't shadowy enough, that they're going to let someone down

Even for those who keep the shadow close, even though their life is white with light

I write this to let my shadow have their moment

To let them feel the freedom of my "wrongful love"

To let them feel the gusts of hatred and the rains of sorrow

To let them be shadowed by the clouds of society

But most importantly

I write for those who are beginning to merge with that shadow

Who are beginning to recognize that the shadow seems so much more familiar

Who run their fingertips along the edge of that shadow

Flesh meeting the soft tendrils of comfort

Whose flesh begins to meld to the shadow

Pulling it down the lines of the nerves

Straight to the soul

Straight to the heart

Straight to the sources of this wrongful love

The love that desires to love the others that possess this wrongful love

Whose shadows all seem to whisper to each other

Like a game of telephone that slithers through the mazes of the forgotten

The shadows of those who have this ability to love incorrectly have grown to recognize each other

The shadows of wrongful love learning to love each other

The shadows of wrongful love learning that their love is free and full

And that their love is not wrong

Just shunned by those who do not possess even the "true" love that they themselves preach of