my name is burden

chat, i am so done rn

Photo by Vinay Tryambake on Unsplash

I keep going to bed late.

Like late, late. I should be waking up around 5 am, not finally making it to bed at that time. Then I sleep for 9+ hours and wonder where time went. What happened? I don’t know anymore.

The more it feels like I start figuring things out and putting pieces together, the more I realise just how lost I am. Maybe it’s because I don’t feel like I belong anymore. Like, there are just pieces of me that the universe can’t accept.

Some might assess from a distance that I’m just restless. I probably am.

Then I just expect that they might paraphrase St. Augustine. “Y’know, our hearts are restless until they find rest in God.”

Little does anyone know that I’ve drunk out of that cup already, or at least the one they’re referring to. Little do they know that I’ve reached the bottom, and I’m still empty.

Sometimes I wonder if our hearts have more than just a God-shaped hole. Maybe they have a hole with the name of love scrawled over, and God is just a part of that love. All I know is that there’s something still frustrating me. Something that’s standing in the way of happiness.

Perhaps it is restlessness.

I’m tired of feeling like I have to keep coming out to people who should already know that I’m gay. I’m tired of repeating it, then getting slapped in the face with “why have you made it your entire personality?” At this point, I just want to exist and not face people walking away from me.

Sometimes I wish I could just yell at the top of my lungs and just let everyone know exactly how I’m feeling. Sometimes I wish people just knew how much it hurt inside – how I struggle to get up each day because I keep asking myself if any of this is really worth it. Maybe I’m just desperate to be understood.

Sometimes I wish I could share the exact sort of pain I feel with the people who just brush me off. It’s just a huge burden, because little do they know that I hold my pain deep down on the inside, along with all of theirs. I hold the feeling of rejection along with their fear of being insignificant. I hold the feeling of exhaustion along with the incessant anxiety of others.

Some days, I wonder if I have just been labelled with a name, scrawled in permanent marker on masking tape that’s stuck to the front of my shirt. The name is “Burden.” The name is my greatest fear. The name is what I both desperately want to be to others, but instead, I am stuck being precisely this for others.

And, yeah, I want to be a burden, but I’m afraid of being a burden. So I edit myself to be okay when I’m not okay. I apologise profusely for every little thing I worry about, and never get any reciprocation of this. When will I get apologised to, but, oh, wait. My bad. I forgot. My name is Burden, and I am just a receptacle with that name, just like the bin is a receptacle for trash.

I don’t remember asking for anything like that. I don’t remember asking for a crushing level of empathy. Yet instead, I’m carrying the weight of holding my pain in because I know that I won’t get that same level of love or empathy in return.

One cruel thing that life keeps teaching me is not to open up. To hold it all in. To keep it all to myself. Every single time that I’ve let anything seep out, I get hurt. I get told off. I’m let know that nobody cares. Only I do, and, God, it’s so lonely.

When I came out, my parents' first action was to silence me. To slap duct tape over my mouth and wrap it around my head. I was vulnerable about myself. I was honest and open, and that wasn’t acceptable.

I couldn’t be gay. They never would have brought a kid into this world that could have ever been gay. That’s impossible. No son of theirs could be like that. God doesn’t make people gay. It just doesn’t happen.

Well, cruel reality, but here I am. Does the imago dei no longer extend to me simply because I’m gay? Am I just some alien creature now? I know – you just think I’m possessed. Overwhelmed by demonic forces. Infected by darkness. Helplessly evil and rejected. That’s what makes me unacceptable, isn’t it?

Last I checked, being gay was about loving people of the same gender. Last I checked, the roles of yours and mine were flipped. Last I checked, homophobia was hate and undesirable and being gay involved love. Well, excuse me, evidently I’m wrong. Evidently, I’m now actually in the wrong.

I was billed, but wasn’t even given the receipt. I still don’t actually know what I’ve done wrong. I just know I’m guilty of a crime I can’t control. I was born into a world that criminalises people like myself just for the way they are born, and then makes up excuses for why we’re guilty.

“You aren’t actually born that way.”

“You’re not really gay, just confused.”

“You’ve let the devil take over your mind.”

“You’ve brought this on yourself.”

Yeah, whatever.

Yet it doesn’t excuse how debilitating it is. I feel like I’m crawling in my own skin. Groaning at the fact that nothing I ever do is good enough. Some might just say I’m supposed to accept that. I’ve already tasted that poison before, and it was nothing more than manipulation.

I doubt myself. Double-checking. Second-guessing.

Nothing changes.

There is no clarity, just murky waters.

No path in the woods, I’m just lost, hoping my story ends soon. After all, it’s not interesting to watch someone in the dark, in the cold, alone and overwhelmed to the point that no tears are shed.

Just pacing back and forth. Teeth clenched and nothing to say. Hands in a fist, but no reaction. The body convulsing from inexplicable grief. Too weak to run, but too anxious to sit still.

I’m stuck, and there’s no way out.

I remember how hopeless it felt growing up, and yet I’ve fallen into the same trap again. Joke’s on me, I guess. I thought I was free from everything, but evidently not.

There’s no longer the physical abuse. There’s less of the teasing, the taunting, the jeering. There’s still the paranoia of being scrutinised. Watched. Picked apart. Torn into pieces.

Yet there’s a greater abuse. Remember, my name is Burden. I’m stuck watching my siblings in chains, unable to escape the same prison I once was in.

And just like that, suddenly the world feels flipped. The bars holding them in are the bars keeping me out. Maybe there’s a hope that they’ll break free when they’re older. There’s hope that they might have the same doubt as I. The prison they are living in is one of manipulation. The walls made of fear and the bars made of lies. I know it all too well.

Yet there’s no guarantee, for which reason I would like to weep, but I can’t because it’s too much. I just let it pile up in my body, like mail used to pile up on the kitchen counter and keep sitting there, overflowing, but never falling off and spilling onto the floor. So I keep holding it all in.

Here I am standing, wanting to hide my face in shame, but not being able to look away.

Asking myself if this was my fault. Blaming myself for the crime of which I do not know. A sentence rendered for the unnameable. A separation that feels eternal.

Was I a good brother? A good son? A good friend?

Am I a good human being?

Will I ever be enough?

I’m paralysed by my feelings and these questions. My heart sinks as my parents shame me again. As my brother disowns me. As the pain of abandonment sets in like a flood.

I feel ashamed of how I grieve. How I clutch on to what’s left of myself as I burn away in the fire of my pain.

I keep holding out my heart to receive love, but instead, the blood coursing through my veins is saturated with bitter grief and melancholy. I keep hoping that something might change for the better, but instead, to my detriment, it just gets worse.

How am I even related to these people?

How am I the only one with any sort of guilt or remorse as everyone stands around me, remorselessly throwing more and more coals into the flaming furnace? Surely the fire will grow so large that they burn with the same pain. Yet it never seems to happen. They have no regrets for what they have wrought. No apologies for what they have done.

Yet my only prayer in this nightmare is that I don’t become like them. That my heart can’t hold so much hate that I turn my eyes away. That I could have the same eyes towards them as the eyes that my God has towards me. That I never confuse hate for love and love for hate.

In the midst of this, I stop to ask even more questions, relevant or not. I’m not sure I really care. Or maybe I care too much.

God, am I strong?

Why me?

I start breaking down. I still don’t know if I’m enough. My body is still paralysed. I don’t know what to do. Yet I continue to cry out.

Why did you give me the name “Burden?”

Why did you give me so much empathy, so much so that I constantly walk this earth with a broken heart?

Why did you write my story like this?

Does it get better? Please tell me it has a better ending? I beg.

I’m not sure I like this book now that I’ve made it to the 21st chapter. Yet I have no choice but to keep on reading.

The pages are mostly blank at this point. The words are simple and spaced centimetres apart. I’m getting tired of reading the word apathy over and over again.

Mostly, I daydream about being able to rewrite the first chapter so that I had parents who loved me. Or maybe the ninth chapter, so my older sister was never taken away. I get exhausted. Would I even be me if the parts that I wish were different were edited? I doubt it.

I just wish I didn’t have to redact my story every time I told it. I wish I hadn’t told people that I was okay, despite my story, when I decided not to redact the bad parts. I wish I were able to be more than just stoic. I try to remind myself of reality. I still feel helplessly unaffected.

Pain is a drug I never wanted an addiction to. Evidently, I’m tolerant, but that doesn’t make me any less drunk on it. Most people use drugs to get high and numb the pain. My pain has done the opposite, pushing me to ever greater lows. Numbing out my life. I forget the last time I felt anything.

I wonder if I annoy people by asking if they’re okay. I wonder if people find it annoying when I check in on them. I wonder if they realise that I just wanted them to check in on me for once. I wonder if they know that I just want a conversation that brings me back to what life once was.

I wish I wasn’t just a debate. I wish I wasn’t just a pawn on a chessboard. I wish my future wasn’t constantly in question.

I wish I didn’t have to continue to feel like I have to hide myself. I wish I didn’t feel like I had to lock myself in my room all day just to figure out that I can’t find any peace.

Most days, I think I just want love, but I still haven’t found it. Not at the bottom of the “God-glass” I was given at church. I don’t even know if I’ll be able to ever go back. I don’t know if anyone minds that I’m not there. That I’ve been missing from the pews for months. I’m just a heretic after all.

I pause to check my eyes for tears. They are still dry. I wanted to cry anyway, but I can’t.

Do I belong anywhere?

Most would say I’m not Christian anymore.

My parents would claim I’m following the devil.

My friends would claim I’m following myself.

To be honest, I don’t know who I’m following some days, but I know those options aren’t on the list of possibilities. I think the name of the person I’m following is Jesus, or maybe Christ, or maybe both. But the angry shouts claim otherwise, and I’m not sure. I start distrusting my eyesight. I am myopic after all, at least that’s what my optometrist told me.

I try to peer ahead a few chapters, but the pages are stuck. I can’t, so I start imagining, but my brain is empty.

I know what I want, but those around me would say that I’m going to hell for having that.

Sometimes I wish they would listen to how happy it could be if any of those things happened in the next few chapters. How happy I could be. They would say that it couldn’t possibly ever make me happy. So I slip back into doubt.

But I want to be loved and to love somebody. I keep watching gay films and TV shows to keep my hopes up. To fill the black space in my brain. To keep the hope that it could be like that for me someday.

Yet, I keep being faced with the news from the world. The people running our country, some p*d*ph*l*s, some angry, homophobic, closeted people, and the rest having some sort of dark, sexual immorality floating around them. All of them using the name of Jesus as a cover. Trying to do all that they can to get rid of that option. To disqualify same-sex couples from adopting. To make it illegal to marry someone of the same gender. To erase queer people. To make sure that people like me don’t exist. Demonising us for the sins that only they are guilty of.

I don’t even know what crime I’m guilty of besides existing at this point. The way these people act, evidently, people like me are better off d**d anyway. I mean, that’s one way for them to solve their problem with the queers. Deny us visibility and acceptance. Deny us lifesaving medical help and mental health resources. Watch us become hopeless. Wait for us to k*ll ourselves. Evidently, that works.

I heard that I’m just going to end up r*p*ng any future children I might have anyway. That’s what floats around. I know it’s just projection. That cis-hetero men are far more likely to be vile like that. Yet, evidently, that’s how strongly they feel against people like me. That they would lie like that.

Evidently, they throw people like me off of buildings in the Middle East. If I were open like this in another country, I would be immediately put to death. Or jailed. Or beaten. Truth is, I’ve still sustained the lashes. Even though the bruises are gone, the pain is still there. I was still betrayed by the people who were supposed to love me most.

My heart picks up a pace. Maybe I’m not upset without a reason.

I’m tired of being a mere technicality. I’m sick to my stomach that I’m just treated like a stupid little pawn in a debate.

I’m a human being. A human being who is sick and tired of being treated less. I’m sick of being talked to like I’m stupid. Like everything I say is crazy.

Can’t you freaking hear yourselves? Don’t you even have any sort of compassion that people like me are dying every second because they are told that the world could never love them? Evidently not. You continue to tell them with your words and actions that they aren’t worthy of love.

Don’t you know how helpless we feel? That we have to wait for straight people to decide whether we’re valid. That we had to wait until this century to be even given the legal right to marry each other in this country. We have been discriminated against across every chapter of history. And yet, we still have to live through the same nightmare today. That at any time our right to exist as normal human beings could be taken from us at any time.

I’m tired of letting people pretend to be stupid, as if they don’t understand. I’m tired of all the people who claim to be “christian” acting like martyrs at the hands of people like me.

It’s like they expect us to be mad and upset enough to want them to cease to exist. I’m sick of hearing how trans people are the ones shooting up schools and killing the idols of the religious right. Statistically, they aren’t. Statistically, y’all are struggling with animosity towards each other, and we are stuck on the sidelines watching a burning house and getting scapegoated for it.

In fact, it feels eerily similar to how Nero blamed Christians for the burning of Rome, which was caused by none other than him. Only now, it’s queer people vs. all the people who claim to be “christian” on the political right. Yet, I hope that God still grants all these people mercy, no matter how inexcusable their behaviour is. I know I would be sick to my stomach at the thought of having the blood of queer youth on my hands.

So, I’m done trying to act like I might be wrong when I know with absolute certainty that I’m not. I am convinced that even queer people who don’t even claim faith in Christ are following him better than those who try to antagonise them at pride parades. Yeah, the ones with poorly designed signs that urge us to repent of sins we are not guilty of.

I take a breath and calm down a bit.

I don’t feel any lighter, to be honest.

But maybe someone will understand when they read this. I doubt it.

I start to try to remind myself that I actually matter. That God does love me no matter what. That I still care about him.

The angry voices are deafening now. I am starting to let them in again. I begin doubting myself all over. God help me. I don’t know how much longer I can take this.

I’m just helpless. My footsteps grow weaker. My voice grows faint. I can hardly hear my own thoughts anymore. The voices outside start to become indistinguishable from mine.

I’m merely a cog in the machine. A mistake. An error.

After all, my name is Burden, and no one will listen.