Privilege

 My teenage was a minefield of boys and men who thought ‘sixes’ were slurs and ‘cats’ were too. I came  out of this newly furbished closet when I was thirteen, confused. Called brave and stupid in the same  breath, I cursed myself for leaving the comfort of the dark too early.  

Until I didn't.  

Until I did.  

Imagine the moment when a firecracker flies off into the night and bursts into this compass of falling stars  and you come pretty close to what it was like to like boys in an Indian all-boys boarding school. I shot up  in hope, in fear, in terror, and everyone burst away from me like the sparks of a firework too weak to light  up the sky, fizzling away into nothing with everyone leaving me behind. I hung out with the few girls that  

were with me and then I was the ant to every boot that stereotyped me into every joke, every side glance  and mean sneer that completely forgot why I hung out with the girls in the first place.  

My girls, I would be nothing if I didn't stand for them. I am too weak for legs of my own, but those boys  had something else coming if they could spew sludge on my sisters so I hung out with them. We talked  and laughed and slept in class and proved them all wrong when I could still solve a problem and be  Aurora in the same moment. Their eyes, their pin drop of anger and regret was enough.  

As you can see, I was never much for sport, I had been hunted for it too much anyway, I did my best to  hone my craft. Sounds too much like something out of a spellbook but that's exactly what it was: gathering my words and wit, potions for a mind like whips to rally cavalries to rival the sun, and tusks for  tongues for when they tried to hunt me again.  

They never made it past the treeline. 

It was the 10th grade, threshold of sixteen, and they realized well fuck, I might actually be cool. Their  apologies were in everything they did: invitations to football, lunches together, conversations without the  words that used to hurt me. Balls and sacks finally dropped when we graduated, and they told me they  were sorry: tissue paper apologies for nuclear holocausts, and I didn't say a word. More than their words,  it was the way they paused in the middle of conversations, figuring out the mechanics of words that were  all too easy and hurtful to say but didn't, instead opting for something more wide-eyed and green fields of  grass like - inviting and surprisingly soft. It was in the way someone got me rainbow cake and gave me birthday bumps like all the other boys, and I went to sleep with an aching body and blissful smiles. 

Forgiveness, sometimes, doesn't come as easy, but changing the minds of a hundred angry young men  comes pretty close. Maybe the pain of it all was worth it. 

And perhaps, I am the luckiest of us all. My parents already knew so imagine my surprise of being here.  So many others are not. They have to hide behind their beautiful voices, their singing hands and sculptor  fingertips. Hands and minds of a blueberry kind - they change their hue with each peel, each level that we  have the honour of knowing. You can expect magnetic bracelets with a tiny rainbow hidden in the clasp,  and unicorn cupcakes as long I am here. Some think that being rainbow is all my life is about, and I can't  tell them that there are too many who can't be. In closets or not, in knowing or not, these arms are always  yours for hugs, for a hand to hold. Home is where the heart is, and mine is with you. Always.  

Always.