How It Feels To Conquer Your Shame

How It Feels To Conquer Your Shame

One boyfriend wakes in the middle of the night, clawing the air. He’s seeing the bathtub where his father used to hold him underwater until he stopped crying. I hold him to my chest, try to see it with him: the thin trailer walls; the globe light lousy with insects; the woozy outline of a father whose raging face bubbles out to become, for a moment, a smiling one. I tell him to breathe. I tell him his head’s above water now, he’s breathing. But none of this is enough.

For years I thought this was what being in a gay relationship was, he says. I thought it was nothing but violence. I thought I would end up like him if I ever kissed a man. Another boyfriend tells me a stepfather held him down, forced him to perform...continue reading