Those Who Matter

I watched them.

I watched their cold, calculating faces.

The flat frowns lacking light. The sharp eyes wrinkling divides of disparity at their corners. The inner search behind bored pupils for words to beat me down with.

I told them the truth about myself, after weeks upon weeks of fearing what they would think. Even though I knew the answer.

I told them the real dreams and desires I had, after deafened by the screeching question in my mind of whether I’d be supported. Even though I knew the answer.

Yet as I sat there under the long, painful silence of scrutiny, forcing myself not to wriggle under their gazes, a light flickered in the darkness of my mind.

And I remembered the friends that know more about me than they do.

The peers from my communities that cheer every step I take.

The chosen family, who loves me for who I am, more than this family by my birth.

My eyes blinked the warm tears away before they were seen, as my chest swelled with a fearless, yet comforting, embrace around my clenched heart.

Finally, lips parted on their side. But I spoke first.

“You don’t have to believe in me.”

The words were resolute in the air that stunned them; myself included. The hint of a smirk twitched at the corner of my mouth as my chin lifted ever so slightly. The faces no longer creased in judgement, but were agape in awe.

“Because I believe in myself.”