i was so close.
i almost said it this time.
my mouth opened, but my heart raced and my mind was blank due to the butterflies angrily struggling for freedom in my stomach.
i always said i would tell her only on a "need to know" basis. if i had met someone she would need to know. and while nothing's really changed, i want her to know. just because.
i feel like i'm lying with every conversation. each silence is a testament to my inability to come forward and fess up.

she'd be fine with it, i'm sure. she'd ask questions and secretly assume that it was a phase, but she'd be fine with it. she woudln't be appalled or offended or upset. she'd think i was influenced by the new liberalism and my friends, even though no one was saying anything in grade eight when i decided.
i wasn't one or the other: i wasn't us, i wasn't them.
i was somewhere along the spectrum, in the green untouched surface of the happy inbetween.
it doesn't mean confused, it doesn't mean unsure.
it's not that i'm unhappy, experimental or amused.
i'm right here in the middle- looking left, looking right.
trying to be proactive, but obscurely out of sight.
fuck, now i'm writing poetry. which was not at all the intent.. sort of slips by sometimes.

"but i wouldn't say it."*

[* the above words were intended to read "but i couldn't say it", and i only realized afterwards, that i'd inverted one letter. the one that makes all the difference. so i'm leaving the text as is.]

even ben thinks she has a right to know. everyone else knows.
i thought she might ask when i openly attended the pride parade, the bars, the catalyst meetings..
i've meant to tell her a thousand times before- kept hoping the moment would arrive and the words would just fall out, without the effort of thrusting them past a choke.