There used to be a fallen tree that hung over a stream in the woods behind my house in J— that I used to sit on, listening to the flowing water while reading or writing in my journal.

My friend K— and I used to break into a mountain overlook by my college in Frederick at night, and we would sit in silence and watch the sprawling lights of the downtown in the distance.

Sometimes we would talk. Sometimes cry.

But always,it would be just us there, looking into the streetlights glittering before us for peace and consolation.

I am trying to think what I have here, and I’m reaching.

The swing set in the old apartment complex we once lived in when we first moved here? Sometimes, but I try not to be a grown man hanging around playgrounds during the day.

The state park up the way, maybe. But it’s much too cold for half the year.

Peace has been a newcomer into my life these past months, anyway. The only real semblance of it stemming from these past three months of silence from them.

And now that it has been broken, I’m left waiting here in a semi-furnished apartment by the bus interchange, hoping to find Consolation get out at one of those bus stops.

It’s an unfulfilling wait, and I’m overwhelmed by the feeling that I just shouldn’t be here in this suburban town anymore.

I want to be near everyone again.

I don’t know what any of this means with my family, but I don’t think it will ever be good again. It will be better, hopefully –

but, no, not good.

I love them so much,
and I know tell they love me, too.
But I have never been safe around them,

and it is solely because I am gay.