I AM WHO I AM
by Apinda

I fully came out as a lesbian to my friends and some family members only a few months ago. Realizing that I was sexually and emotionally attracted to women, in my early teens, was very terrifying but being in the closet has to be the pits. You constantly have to put on a façade and keep track of all your actions, in case you stair at a hotness that passes by. I still remember my first crush. She lived right around the corner from my house. Whenever I saw her walk past, I bit the lip and at the shock of what I was doing, pray that what I was going through was just a phase. Four years down the line and girls still do it for me.

As if knowing that you’re ‘different’ isn’t hard enough, family, friends and society have to constantly remind you that you don’t belong within their little boxes of perfection. Men have this perception that they can cure us of our lesbianism by raping us, or performing any other hate crime that will remind us of our social status as women. They think that the little one-eyed snake will make us realize just how straight and homophobic we are-it won’t! One of the earliest childhood memories I have is of me chatting away with my gal friends (who had hit puberty). All they seemed to talk about was their boyfriends and how amazing the sex was. Every now and then I had to grin and sigh as if I knew what they were talking about or at the least look interested. I wanted to scream to the top of my lungs that im a lesbian, that I love girls and that I think the new girl in the group is so sexy! I never did though. I swallowed the word vomit before it came out every time.

When I came out to my father, to my surprise he smiled and didn’t kick me out of his house. He picked up the phone and told our Priest that I needed to get prayed for. After an entire week with the good Priest for hours on end, my father finally gave up on that idea and sent me to a Samgoma. All sorts of possions were mixed for me. I bathed in green leaves for a whole month but nothing to my fathers’ satisfaction. I actually felt sorry for him because I knew how ignorant and controlling he was. I guess I expected too much from him. He is just my father after all. Nothing special about that? Maybe the “I love you regardless” speech was just too much for him to recite.

After a long journey of discovery I can finally say that I am content with who I am. As one of the T-Shirts I’ve seen says it: ‘Get it STRAIGHT I can’t be changed’. I stay true to the soul encompassed by this body of mine. I have learnt to feed off peoples hate. I flourish under the lime light. I only have one weakness and that’s beauty. I thought I’d share a piece I wrote when thinking of the moment’s beauty and I have shared and the next time she’ll bless me with her presence. I loved you then, I love you still. Here it is…

I call her beauty
The keeper of my heart.
She welcomes me home
With open arms
An open soul
And open doors.

I call her beauty
The one I have
But still yearn for.
Heart turned cold
Born, lifeless
Revived, breathless
Filled with emptiness.

I call her beauty
As she lays with me
Feels me with her bare hand
That fills me with pure pleasure
As I suck the waters of her
Oh so wet island
Dry.

She is the beauty
That moans passionately
When I enter
The doors that she opens for me.
Beauty comes
Only when I call.

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