My own coming out poem, written in part to celebrate National Coming Out Day!
By Martina Robinson
My mother blamed women’s studies coursework, badly behaved men, and the self-loathing she assumed existed within my personal psyche for the bisexuality I confessed that summer evening on Sasha’s borrowed cell in Jana’s house a baker’s dozen summers ago.
I remember hiding afterwards unable to answer phone for three months solid for fear of being found.
I remember moving from friend’s house to friend’s house and new assistant to new assistant. One big ball of perpetual motion.
I remember thinking it would be so much easier to surrender to my mother’s will than trying to survive this way, but deciding I was simply too proud to resubmit soul to someone else’s decision making power.
Despite the hardship, that particular summer was I remember absolute joy at never having to unqueer my house, bookshelf, life again merely because the ‘rents were visiting.
Martina is a 32-year-old disabled, bisexual woman, person of faith and multi-issue activist who ran for Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts on the Green-Rainbow Party in 2006