"Have You Seen the Way She Looks at Her"

I have always wanted the type of love that could move mountains.

I have always wanted the type of love that you can feel from a mile away.

I have always wanted the "have you seen the way she looks at her" type of love.

I have always been a hopeless romantic,

a get off the train at the last second,

see your high school girlfriend at the reunion,

knock on her door in the rain,

type of romantic.

I used to overthink all the meaningless online exchanges of homework answers,

I used to constantly write sad poetry about losing the person I loved.

I used to rewatch shows hundreds of times because I knew that they got a happy ending.

I never imagined,

not in a million years,

that I would get this love.

I never dreamed I would get the type of love that could move mountains,

or the type of love you can feel from a mile away.

I never hoped for this love because to me, it had always just been that,

a dream.

I used to dream constantly,

I was the little kid in the back of the classroom dreaming about being a superstar,

or performing in a stadium of adoring fans,

or getting the "have you seen the way she looks at her" type of love.

Then little boys took my dreams and smashed them into a thousand pieces,

making me feel stupid for wanting a women's love,

for wanting the women's love.

They always got so hung up on that small detail,

I wondered why,

why they cared,

why it was weird,

I wondered and wondered until one day my mom called me into her room,

I remember thinking something bad was about to happen,

I remember thinking before I opened that white wooden door that something was wrong.

I was going through my memories thinking of all the things I had done wrong,

all the possibilities for why she was disappointed in me.

The thing is though,

I couldn't think of any.

It wasn't until she told me that being gay was not who I was,

it was a phase and that it,

like my obsession for Taylor Swift,

would pass (which it never did by the way.)

After that 14-minute conversation,

I left that room feeling an emotion I never had before,

shame.

I was always a proud kid,

proud of what I did,

proud of what I created,

proud of who I was.

But standing there,

on the carpet outside the mustard yellow room,

I felt shame.

That was the moment that I stopped dreaming of my momentous love.

That was the moment I gave up on my love I could feel from miles away.

That was the moment that I stopped dreaming of my "have you seen the way she looks at her" love,

and began coming up with scenarios for a "have you seen the way he looks at her" type of love.

You probably noticed that I changed the my to a,

I changed this two-letter word to an even more insignificant vowel for one simple reason,

I did this because that love,

the "have you seen the way he looks at her" type of love, isn't mine.

No matter how hard I tried,

no matter how much I prayed,

it just never belonged to me.

At some point over the next 3 years of my life,

I said fuck it.

And you know what's great about saying fuck it?

You know what's great about owning who you are?

You don't have to dream of the mountain moving love,

you can have it.

You don't have to hope for the love that the entire god damn world can feel,

because you get it.

And lastly,

you don't have to imagine the "have you seen the way she looks at her" type of love,

because before you know it,

you will be sending a video to your friend, and she will reply with,

"have you seen the way she looks at you"

and that moment,

that moment is worth the shame I felt 3 years ago,

that moment is worth the 14-minute conversation in the mustard yellow room.

That moment is priceless,

that moment is timeless,

and that moment is mine.