Masks

I had a conversation with a friend that I have not talked to in months,

we had a falling the last time we spoke, 

but something in me wanted to connect with her, so I did.

She asked me if I came out to my parents and I said no.

Immediately went ballistic and emphasized that you need to come out now.

The two main reasons being that I needed to live as my true self and that you are stronger than this.

First of all, whether I choose to be out to my family is not the soul-defining aspect of my strength second,

Second. even as my true self, I am not actually free. 

I live in a world where gender is so racialized, in binary, and so neatly boxed by colonization to where I am either worthy of my own violence or a spectacle. 

We all wear masks every day,

whether we go to work, school, the people that you romantically admire, the people who call you a nigger faggot in public and/or the family that we are born into, especially when going home for the holidays.
It is a way of survival and protecting yourself from danger.
It
It is not to say that we are lying to ourselves.
In each mask that we wear, we identify with certain traits that allow us to be.
Whether it is the bright red gellabaya that my auntie gave to me, my mom's curried chicken, the times where my brother and I would mimic DJ Khalid when we're high.

Masks are complicated, it gives us space where we are partially seen and not seen.
There are very few spaces where we are fully seen.
Unfortunately, that is partially how the world works.