#whenever i explained the story to my middle school friends they'd look at me like I'd grown a second head 😭

[usahanna]

Imagine being 12-13 years old and being so obsessed with a crackship and a specific set of characters from different videogames that you make up an entire storyline filled with drama and slowburn just so your ship can bang

[yurhighnessmio]

✍You are the owner of a magic backpack; Every morning you stick your hand in and it contains exactly what you need for the day. One morning it contains a gun.

Short Story #4 - February 28, 2022. Monday. 7:22pm

🌟

Children—one of the most terrifying creatures that could ever wake you up in your room in the middle of the night just because they want something from you.

"Lia! What the f—" I rose from bed when I saw her figure standing at the foot of my door, silouette by a dark shadow—the greatest horror any person can witness in the deadest of night, "What–Why are you up?"

"Because God said so, why else?"

I plopped back down, groaning, "Go back to bed."

"You dare defy God?"

I sighed, "Tell me the real reason why you're up and I won't make you go back to sleep."

There was a pause, "Are you saying I'm lying?"

"Lia."

"You doubt The Holy Father!?"

"3."

"The Holy Mother would be disappointed in you if she kne—"

"2."

"What in the world is wrong with you!?"

"1—"

"Okay! Okay!" She pleaded, "I heard something knocking in my bedroom window and I totally pussied out."

"You're 8!" I exclaimed my drowsiness away, "Language! Please!"

"English."

I cringed, "...You think you're funny, huh."

"If you mean funnier than you, then maybe...Well, okay, actually—yeah, yeah I do."

I groaned, sat up, whipped my bedsheets open and said "Get in." in a voice that cracked the earth in half.

She cheered, "Yes!" And proceeded to hop into the bed, leaving the door open and her slippers  thrown to the foot of the bedside table. She snuggled to my corner and under the sheets with her eyes shut immediately. Moments later, she's out.

Only, I don't fall back to bed. Instead, my hand made their way to the roots of their hair. The strands that pass through my fingers offer to me a gentle reminder that I'm not alone. Thank God I'm not alone.

I get on my feet and make my way to the kitchen were I hid an important item in one of the top drawers. No one knows about it. Not my friends, not even Lia. No one. Because whether I explained it to someone or briefly tell them about it, it wouldn't have been believable enough to begin with. They'd either think it too coincidental, a joke, or a flat out lie.

So I kept the thing to myself. See, this thing is something special. Supernatural, if you wanted to call it that. Due to the fact that I have never seen such thing do something so fantastical.

It was a bag. A plain looking one—all black, two zippers, shoulder straps, that's it. Nothing special. But daily, before the morning starts, I stick my hand in and what comes out is all the necessary essentials that I will eventually need within that given 24 hours.

Although, it isn't always the case that I take out all the essentials I need at once. That would be too suspicious even for my little sister. So normally, I stick my hand in whenever I need something and out it comes right after.

Due to that, I do bring it with me a lot. Other times, I drag it around the house. Sometimes, when going out, I grab nothing else but that bag and go. A lot of the times, I use it for work and school and I keep it with me 24/7. It sort of became a working habit.

But it's helped both Lia and me so much just getting through a normal weekday that I get paranoid of the idea of it going missing. Of course I am. Anyone would be, honestly, if they had something like this in their power.

So when I stick my hand in, hoping to get maybe, a bottle of water for my thirst. Instead my hand fumbles on something dense, textured yet smooth, and with heavy weight. Curious, I took a grip and take it out—a gun.

I freeze, nearly throwing it to the ground.

What the heck, I cursed, What the—Why the hell is there a damn gun!?

Upon instinct, I stand back before getting the resolve to shove it in the bag again and step away. I keep my eyes on it as if it was an enemy. Only noticing my paced breathing when I put a hand on my chest out of shock.

It's okay, I reassure myself, It's fine. We wont actually need to use it. You're just shocked. That's all. Okay? Ho-kay.

I step close, lifting the bag only to feel it almost weightless until I peek and once again see the presence of the gun inside—with the bag weighing on my hand when I do. My heart doesn't stop its intense beating.

I hear a knock.

"Who is it?" I answered from the kitchen, peeking into the hallway that leads to the apartment door.

There was no answer.

Silence stirred as I instinctively strap the bag over my shoulder.

There was a thrash at the door. One, two, and three—as if something was aiming to knock it down and open.

I turn around.

"Open the door! This is the police!"

I freeze.

"Shit." I go for it. Sprinting to my room where I locked the door and shook Lia up from her sleep. "We need to go. Hurry." I say to her face, drowsy, confused, then crumpled, "There's no time."

A large thump could be heard outside. The door.

Quickly, I grab her arm and pull her to the bedroom window where the emergency stairs run to the lowest floor of the building. "Go. Go!" I said, urging her to haste.

She runs down without question.

I follow immediately, my feet on the window frame when I hear a thrust at the door. A demanding voice screaming for me to open it. "Open the door!"

My hands fumble to the bag, I hold the gun.

The door falls down.

I shoot.

🌟

Questions?

Comments?

Advice?

No?

Have a great day.

[sagestupidity]

Upcoming long-ass post ahead. Warning you now. It goes deep and it is long. There is a lot of personal information, but I wanted to get it out there for pride month. There is a tl;dr at the end. If tumblr mobile allowed for a page break like the old days, I'd use it now

Tw: homophobia, religious bigotry, sexuality, biphobia

I remember the first time I heard about homosexuality. I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, at daycare, in a tree house with 2 other kids my age. They had just learned a new word and were throwing it around every other sentence that day. Lesbian. "What, are you a lesbian?", "so and so is a lesbian hahaha" "only a lesbian would say something like that". I had no idea what this word meant, I was a sheltered 8 or 9 year old. These daycare friends explained what it meant. "It's when girls like other girls, like boyfriend and girlfriend, but they're both girls". For a half second, my world was rocked. I had no idea that was something someone could do. That was a option? 🎆. Before I could even think about it further, the next sentence came out of their mouth "that's so gross, right?". Well shit, they were explaining it to me, they must have been the expert. "Yeah, that's so gross". I couldn't possibly be a lesbian, I'm not gross, I'm Megan, I like bubble baths and art and fairytale stories of princes and princesses. I'm not gross, and therefore definitely not a lesbian.

When I got a bit older about ages 10-12, my parent's signed me up for a week of vacation Bible school out in Pine Idaho every summer. For most of those summers, I went with my mom's boss's granddaughter who was about my age. Her name was Alex. She was super cool and a nice friend. Very much a typical tom boy. Had a bionicle collection, wore a lot of sporty clothes, even got some of her clothes from the boy section. I was sooo jealous of how cool Alex was. But whenever I was shopping with my mom, and tried to pick out less feminine items, I'd get lectured "that's for boys Megan, you can't have that, it's weird that you like this, Megan". no matter how much I liked it, how much I thought about how Alex was allowed to branch out like that. Why couldn't I?

From then to grade 7, I was in my femme bubble. I wore a ton of pink, because I looked up to Elle Woods from legally blonde. I'd have an occasional crush on the class emo. Loving long hair and eyeliner on guys, but otherwise despising everyone else in middle school because i was getting bullied mercilessly. I reclused into books and movies, like Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean

I was transfered to Idaho arts charter school. Where the girl to boy ratio was about 7 to 1. We had no sport program besides competitive dance. My family started going to a WELS lutheran church, and for a while, none of this conflicted. Little did I notice, that my church and my upbringing were compiling into some bad homophobia on my part. I was taught that gay people were against God and were going to hell. Gay people were "gross" after all. I was told by my own parents that if I *became* a lesbian, they'd drag me to the pastor's house and have an exorcism performed on me. The idea of even kissing a girl with romantic intent made my stomach flip and my chest hurt. That's just proof of how disgusting and wrong it is... right?

But being in a school dedicated to the performing arts eventually caught up with that. Sure there were gay kids at my school. Our main export was musical theater and dance. But I wasn't friends with any of them, so it was fine. Until someone from my friend group came out. For his privacy, I'll call him A, since I still know people that know him IRL. I had been friends with A for a while before he came out as gay. I wouldn't say we were close, but I'd say we were friends. When he did come out as gay, it was like a dumb homophobic light went out. A wasn't any different just because he was gay, he was still my friend, and nothing changed except my worldview.

Nothing.else.changed.

Whenever I brought A up when telling a story to my parents, they'd interrupt with "you mean the friend that's going to hell" as if that was his name and they were correcting me now that he was an out gay teen. I dug my heels in and became a gay ally for my friend, A. Delving into gay rights as a special interest.

By the time I was 16, I was approaching the next metaphorical hurdle. I noticed I didn't really have any crushes... on anyone. I had friends. I liked fictional characters from books and anime and the occasional celeb. I just thought I had high standards for boys I would date. But I couldn't like girls. What would that even look like? It was pre 2010. The only girls into girls I ever saw were on posters in boy's rooms, or straight girls kissing to get male attention. It took a lot of work to realize God didn't hate gay people and even more work to realize that that could apply to me too. I came out as bi to only my friends at age 17.

I graduated, went off to college. Got a dorm mate, who we will call M. M was also bi, and she had the experience to back it up, supposedly. More experience than me, who hadn't really dated anyone at all. M somehow forced me back in the closet. She insisted I wasn't bi because I had never dated or kissed or anything with a woman. I had just barely had my first kiss with anyone that summer. I was only "bicurious" because how could I possibly know until I finally had experience like she did. So I shrunk myself, and only saw boys, because they gave me attention. Girls only saw me as straight, because I wasn't bi, I was "bicurious".

It took a lot of work to bust out of the bi closet a second time.

I lived my life as a bi woman. Constantly changing my spot on the kinsey scale until these past 7 years or so. I made a realization.

I don't really like guys. I'd sleep with them. I appreciated the validation I felt when I did. But I didn't really like them.

So I juggled with the queer label. Because my sexuality was complicated. Sure, I'd sleep guys, didn't mean I was attracted to them, it's not like it meant anything.

Any time I tried on the lesbian label, I'd get yelled at by a lesbian for being biphobic. They'd say stuff like "lesbians don't like guys", "stop bring men into lesbianism" "lesbians don't want to sleep with guys". No amount of me explaining that I don't like men would convince them. So back to the queer label I went.

I got married to a woman in 2019. And was content with the queer label.

But this year, 2021-

I started reading The Lesbian Document™. Learning that my occasional crush on a male celeb didn't really count as attraction to men.(sorry Bo Burnham).

I made a bit of a realization. I knew I didn't really like men, I was just ok with the idea of sleeping with them. But the idea of being with men felt similar to binge drinking.

They were both

Easily accessible

Toxic

Dangerous/thrilling

Coping mechanisms for deeper issues

I realized I was using the idea of sex with men as self harm, and I should probably stop that.

To wrap up this whole long-ass biography- I'm coming out a third time.

My name is Megan.

I'm 28 years old.

My pronouns are she/they.

And I'm a lesbian.

tl;dr: