“Honey, would you please pass the corn?”
“Mom, I like girls.”

I heard you cried once when I was born
and again when I murdered your perfect daughter
The daughter who would marry a cleanly shaven,
witty young gentleman in a church that poked the sun
The daughter who would give you a handful of grandbabies
with their father’s nose and your dimples
I’m terrified I might have killed you too

You shredded my posters of One Direction
along with my faith in our relationship
as you screamed about every lie you believed I told you.
As if being a fan of a boy band meant
I was banned from falling in love with a girl.
I knew your ears, along with your mind, were shut tight
when I yelled back
“You’re breaking my heart”
and your judgment just drowned me out
with the pops and crackles of its burning

You grasped to flimsy causation
and my bones disintegrated
with every clichéd assumption you whipped at me
“But you’re so pretty”
“You’re too young to know who you are”
“You just haven’t met him yet”
“It must be a phase. God, let it be a phase”
But I promise you
my God won’t listen
because despite how you read Leviticus
my heart tells me every day
that He crafted me into this beautiful little dyke
and Jesus loves me just as much
as he loves my straight best friends

Mom, I’m sorry my hair is long
and that I wear dresses sometimes
And I know it must be confusing
because yesterday I had a shiny boy on my arm
And today I briefly opened my soul
to show you the girls who live there
And I know you can’t swallow it all just yet
But at least try to taste a bit of this:

The eyes you saw that April morning in ’96
are still the same big, brown, curious eyes that are today
begging you to like even my gay parts.
I still love writing
and dancing like a three-legged reindeer
Singing made-up lyrics with you
to songs we’ve heard more times than we’ve
watched “Honey Boo-Boo” together
And I promise my dream is still to have a gaudy wedding
with the love of my life
and to give my daughter
the dimples you gave to me

I don’t need you to wave a rainbow flag
But I do need you to wrap your strong arms around me
when she says good-bye
And to cry for a third time
when she says I do

Mom,
I just need you to love me the way you used to.