Zemerald

My mom just said “who was that science boy…Timmy? Timmy Testosterone?”

oh yeah and i can’t believe it’s taken me this long to bring this up but i’m absolutely not here for people shading the “american girl today”/”my american girl” line because 

Also: SERVICE DOGS. 

i. maybe it’s 2015 and gay marriage is legal in all fifty states: but when someone asks my sexuality, my tongue still sticks to the roof of my mouth for a moment. ii. my best friend in the front seat asks over her shoulder, “if you’re 80% gay, does that mean you only love him with 20% of your heart?” iii. the first time i kissed her, the boys around us made it about them, about their howls. i stopped breathing on the cusp of her lips. i was made holy by her. iv. in church, we bow our heads. how can i move my mouth in a prayer for forgiveness when i fully intend to sin again. i say, “forgive me father” anyway, just in case it sticks. v. my father does not forgive. i say, “she’s hot,” absently. his face turns white, then red. “not in my house,” he says. vi. the first time i come out in public, it’s to a boy smoking cigarettes. he spits and laughs. “bisexuals aren’t really part of this discussion, sweetie.” my girlfriend holds my hand and i don’t throw up. i learn my place quickly: gay rights do not belong to me. vii. they are ace. the two of us make jokes back and forth about the cloak of invisibility we must be harnessing. when they are too drunk, i walk them home. when i have fallen yet again for the wrong girl, they hold my hand while i tremble. we do not go to the pride parade, where we do not belong, where i will be a breeder and they will not even be acknowledged.  viii. “but are you really gay? so do you love him? so do you love him?” ix. it is fine and we just won’t tell her parents. it is fine and my grandmother can’t ever know it. the world is different now, i hear. in frat houses, i am the picture of their wet dreams. on tv, i’m just a picture, the girl who is “just experimenting.” in “my” community, i am only allowed in by the skin of my teeth. x. it is 2015. he asks me if i’m “like that” and i feel my whole body exploding.

this is the cutest vine under the sun because my god

Poly makes it possible to be a small-but-good thing in someone’s life, and vice versa, without having to put any more expectations on that particular relationship. It has enabled me to play more relationships by ear, to ‘see where things go’, without feeling under pressure to find the one ‘perfect’ mate. With a rather beautiful irony, that has also allowed me to meet and develop strong relationships with people who turned out to be much larger features in my life than I expected them to be, whom I would have automatically discounted if I had been looking for a monogamous partnership, simply because I didn’t believe we would turn out to be as compatible as we actually are.

People today do not even know what children are actually like. They only know what children are like in schools. Collecting data on human learning based on children’s behaviour in school is like collecting data on killer whales based on their behavior at Sea World.