I grew up
where the church bells swallowed every secret whole,
where the word lesbian
felt like spitting in public—
like something you should wipe off your tongue before it stains.
The Midwest doesn’t love us.
It tolerates us like weeds—
left alone until we grow too loud,
too visible,
then yanked out at the root.
Out here,
you don’t come out.
You just stop lying,
and hope no one notices.
“Dyke.”
I learned it from the wrong mouths—
boys in camo hats spitting sunflower seeds in the parking lot,
women at potlucks whispering like it was contagious.
No one ever said it soft,
or with love.
I didn’t have words for who I was—
just borrowed slurs and out-of-date stereotypes.
Everything I knew came from TV shows
that made us the joke,
the killer,
the lonely spinster with too many cats.
Community was something other people had.
The closest gay bar might as well be another country.
No queer book clubs,
no Pride parades,
just quiet searches—
scanning Walmart checkout lines for someone with a carabiner,
a too-short haircut,
the accidental flash of you too? in their eyes.
And even then—
you don’t speak.
You don’t risk it.
You just nod,
like two ghosts passing on a back road.
The Bible Belt is tight around my neck.
Every sermon still lives in my bones—
“abomination,”
“unnatural,”
“God made Adam and Eve.”
I can hear them when I cut my hair,
when I buy men’s shirts,
when I catch myself staring too long at another woman’s hands.
Sometimes I wonder
if this is it.
If I’ll always be
a rural secret—
half-formed,
half-spoken.
But I stay.
Because leaving feels like admitting defeat,
and I was raised stubborn.
These fields raised me stubborn.
So I plant myself here,
among the silence and corn stalks,
and I keep breathing,
keep waiting,
keep hoping
that maybe, someday,
this ground will feel like home for someone like me.
Even if it never does for me.
