Car

Sitting in the booster seat I was 6 years old. We were driving around downtown after going to the movie theater for my birthday. I was admiring the rainbow flags hanging from the street lamps and asked my mom what they were for. She said they were for weird people but I didn't need to know any more because I was too young. So I looked out the window at the bright flags bringing color to this gray and brown city.

Sitting in the back seat 9 years old. I told my dad about the plan my best friend at the time and I made. We planned how we were going to get married someday and how I would dress up as the boy so she could wear the pretty wedding dress. I didn't know I wasn't supposed to make up fantasies about that. My dad yelled at me for the rest of the way home, about how I was a girl and I needed to marry a man. So I looked out the window at the bright red and orange trees with their dying leaves.

Sitting in the passenger seat 12 years old. The radio came one talking about LGBTQ+ and my mother immediately turned it off. She told me how fucked up being gay and trans was and how uncomfortable it made her to see boys in makeup and dresses. She told me how disappointed she would be if my siblings or I were ever fags. I just nodded as I wiped the tears coming to my eyes but I couldn't agree with her. So I looked out the window at the yellow light which had once been green.

Sitting in the trunk 14 years old. Nine of my friends were squeezed in the car after a quick trip to get slurpees at seven eleven. They were talking about how messed up it was that our school was going to allow unisex bathrooms and let boys use the girls bathroom. They said how if they saw a transgender in their bathroom they would beat them up. I kept my mouth shut in fear of my life. So I just looked out the back window and sipped the blue and purple icee.

Sitting in the driver's seat 17 years old. No one accepts me and no one ever will. I think about how easy it would be to crash this car and end it, but I have a poem to write when I get home. So I looked out the window into the blackness of night...