Bubbles and Bullets

For eight months they thought I was gonna be a girl.
For eight months the room I was to sleep in
was all yellow and ribbons,
so my room ended up barren
by the time I was carried in for the first time.
It was three years after they had lost Adam.
I had become my family’s baby
during one of the coldest months in New York,
when the sun rose in Sagittarius.
That night,
the stars were aligning to form half a horse
but I have yet to be half-man.
When I left my mother’s womb
a soap opera was on called “Ryan’s Hope,”
and they decided that was a good enough name.
Sometimes we’ll look anywhere for hope.

They brought me home
wrapped in bubbles and bulletproof vests
hoping the world wouldn’t turn my
straight A’s into spiraling failures.
In me, they were looking for the reason to keep on.
My father cradling me like a trophy,
wrapping my veins around his chest,
and clenching my slightest talents
like a soldier holds the flag in his fists.

The day my mother left was the same day
we felt like we lost the war.
It was the day
my brothers and I stopped forgiving our blood.
She left our home so broken,
and didn’t leave the glue to fix it.
I crossed the stateline once to see her
and phoned her often hoping I wouldn’t have to face the hate.
But we both know that’s not a reason
to keep something going.

There were parts of her that were my best friend.

Hope followed me to dorms,
but it left its bags at the door with disaster,
leaving the sound of terror in the halls.
Three weeks after I went to the university
two planes flew into the World Trade Center.
Backstage, during the closing night
of the only musical I did in college
we found out we had declared war.
The night of my graduation
my parents asked me if I am gay.
I nodded my head,
yes
(trust me, it wasn’t pretty).

We turn to the dust beneath our feet
and hope for something majestic;
we’ll dream a fountain from the faucet,
look to an apricot to find a sunrise.
And though sometimes life isn’t always a peach,
we have to do more than hope for something.
I might not be perfect, you all,
but I have places I want to go.
I might hope
but I’m also going to move, ’cause
there aren’t enough Obamas to get me where I want to go.