smear the queer

At least you pay attention enough to hear that I'm wheezing into the phone. Well, I guess it's pretty easy to hear the wheeze when I'm laughing out loud at your question: I wonder why it is that you get like this?

Do you mean how I can't breathe? How I've got some critical flaw when it comes to what's within my chest? Don't make me laugh. No really. Don't. Because it really hurts this time.

I answer you as plainly as I can, trying not to betray any emotion in my tone: Well, I get sick like this sometimes. And I have a lot of issues in terms of breathing. Do you remember the time when I was 12 and I got really bad bronchitis and I was out playing soccer in the middle of winter?

You grunt: hmmmmmnnn.

I'm so sick of this story. I'm not going to tell it anymore. It's not about being tough. It's about surviving. And I'm capable of so much more than that now.

In it's place I'll think about other things from that time. The cute, older girl on my team who gave me a NKOTB tape and how I didn't even like them. But that she must have known me better than I knew myself because I would eventually spend hours lip-synching to the songs in my brother's room. Maybe I just learned to like it because she gave it to me. How when people asked me which one was my favorite, I knew they meant which one did I find most attractive. I'd pick Jordan- but because he was the one I wanted to be like. I wish I could dance like that. I wish I could write songs that would have girls lusting after my rat tail and confessing their undying devotion.

Instead of teaching my body how to move like that, I spent time seeing how far I could push it. It wasn't enough to be good. I had to be the best. Then maybe I'd get noticed. My heart would flutter as much as it could when she'd say that I scared her- because I went out so far and went so fearlessly. But the fact is I'm too short. My hands are so much smaller than anyone would have guessed. And I never could quite breathe right.

I've certainly made do with what I have, but I had to work so hard for things that never brought me what I wanted. It's difficult to find what will stand in for those feelings. Because I want her to feel my arms and know that I can carry her, that I can pick her up, that I can hold her down. It is scary how far I'll go and how fearlessly.

I can see how it doesn't make sense- how hurting and failing can make you push even harder. But I know I'll always get up. And I used to make any excuse to try and go as far as could manage. Even just playing 'smear the queer' (it's like the whole world knew before I did) and hating falling but loving seeing how many people I could take on before I fell.

And the consequence is that sometimes I get so I can't breathe. And sometimes my shoulder feels like it wants to rip away from my body. And I love the feeling of sweat rolling down the small of my back, thinking about what her hands are going to feel like there.