History Repeating

Faggot!

I'm thirteen and shards of glass spray up toward my face. The bottle, sailing out of the passing car window, lands at my feet, shattering, making me jump back in terror, making me scream, making me seem, to the men in the car, just like a

Faggot!

They shout one more time before speeding off.

I'm thirty-eight and shards of glass spray up toward my face. The bottle soaring from the apartment window, lands a foot away from me, in my own Backyard.

Faggot!

This time, I do not jump. I do not scream, I stifle it. I do not act like a

Faggot!

They scream one last time as I retreat back into my Harlem home. I do not return to my garden.

These two memories always rush forward when I become angry. When I'm overcome with a sense of injustice.

Last November, for weeks after the passing of Prop8, I was thirteen again, surrounded by broken glass. I was thirty-eight, too, and afraid to be in my own yard.

And now it's another November and I wonder if any of the good citizens of Maine were in that car or in that high rise. Are they the ones? Did they call me

Faggot!

Did these good citizens of Maine throw bottles at me?

If they did--they missed.

Still here. Still in one piece. I was not cut.

I was scared, true.

But I was not stopped.

I will not be stopped.