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hotgothmommy · 2 years

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Looking back, I think I always knew. It was quiet at first, buried deep down inside of me, like the lost sock in a pair, perpetually swimming amongst an impossibly large pile of unfolded laundry. It started with little things, like making my G.I. Joe action figures hold hands. When I got older, it became moments spent lingering a little bit too long in the men’s underwear section. The final straw was Cedric Diggory. But when I reminisce, the skinny jeans stick out the most. They dominated my wardrobe, and they were the catalyst for my first ever encounter with the word.

Impressively, I had managed to avoid the word for my whole life until one fateful day in the fourth grade. I had just finished using the bathroom, and as I washed my hands, Turner approached. He was at the top of the fourth grade recess hierarchy, and he always dressed like he was trying to win a Kurt Cobain lookalike contest. He passed me as he walked down the hall.

“Nice jeans, fag,” he said, sneering.

Time stopped. My heartbeat got loud. My ears became hot. I didn’t even know what the word meant, but his sheer conviction in saying it made my insides squirm. Was this some sort of new slang I hadn’t heard of, meant only to insult skinny jeans wearers? Turner disappeared down the hall, as though he had more insults to deliver elsewhere, and I stared at myself in the mirror. I repeated the word in my head over and over. I looked it up when I got home that day. In a way, I was relieved. Surely, Turner was confused. After all, I didn’t like boys. I pushed it out of my mind, and that weekend, I begged my mom to take me shopping for new jeans so that Turner wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

I didn’t let myself think about it for years. Sure, I stared when our neighbor’s son mowed the lawn shirtless, but I figured that was normal. I never had a crush on any of the girls at my school, but that was just because none of them were my type. One day, I would meet the perfect girl, and all would be right in the world. In the meantime, surely there was no harm in me constantly replaying that scene with Chris Evans where he was only wearing a towel. But deep down, it lingered, and with every vapid middle school girlfriend I forced myself to endure, the reality began to set in. I told myself it was temporary. It was just something a select few people went through because God was testing them.

My dad scoffed at boys holding hands in public, and he told me not to talk to anyone harboring same-sex tendencies. The pastor at church looked me right in the eye as he detailed the violent and dramatic deaths of gay people in the Bible. Fire and brimstone didn’t sound so bad—at least it would be quick. I tried my hardest to escape the feeling, but it was like a bitter taste in my mouth that never went away, no matter how many times I brushed my teeth. After a pivotal viewing of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, I gave in. Robert Pattinson’s jawline was powerful enough to awaken something in me long repressed, and my life was never the same.

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hotgothmommy · 2 years

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HACK N SLASH

Heyyy blog buddies. I wrote this about my favorite t-shirt that is no longer with me😔

My brother and I used to spend all of our free time at the thrift store panning for gold. We would scour the clothing racks every weekend, and we never left empty-handed. The employees knew us by name. Our wardrobes were entirely thrifted, and yet the perfect t-shirt eluded us. With hours and hours invested at the thrift store, we joked that the perfect t-shirt simply did not exist. We would call it “The One”. Our weekends were consumed in pursuit of The One, but neither of us ever believed that we would actually find it. Some shirts came close, but they were always too small or too wide, or covered in dubious stains. Then, two summers ago, I found The One. It was black, and the sleeves were the perfect length to conceal my skinny arms. “Hack and Slash” was slathered across the front in faded white letters. When I pulled Hack and Slash off the rack, time stood still, and the stagnant, second-hand apparel scented air blew through my hair for a brief moment. I showed it to my brother, and we both knew that we had finally done it—we had found The One. That summer, I wore Hack and Slash almost everyday. It was always on my body, or flung across my bedroom floor in true adolescent fashion. I sweated in Hack and Slash, cried in it, spilled various liquids on it, and ripped a small hole in it in a drunken haze. I never figured out what “Hack and Slash” meant, but I think that was part of its charm.

#i miss you #hack and slash #please come back #cotton blend embrace

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