life lessons

  • I Am Not the Secret

    I am not the secret,though they tried to make me one—hiding truth behind closed doors,feeding silence instead of love,teaching bitterness as inheritance.I was the boy they blamed,the brother they resented,the son who stood in the shadows of lies. I am not the sin,though they laid it on my shoulders.I am not the weight of their…

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  • Seventeen years ago my book The Uninvited was released into the world. At the time, my son Elliot looked at me and asked a question that has stayed with me ever since: “Who would want to read about our lives?” It was honest, simple, and impossible for me to answer back then. What I did…

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  • The reality is we are living in a time when our rights can be taken away faster than they are given. If you are a queer couple in the United States, being proactive is not paranoia. It is survival. You cannot wait for a crisis to prepare. Love is worth protecting and so are you.…

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  • I have died before. Thirty-eight seconds on an operating table. I cannot tell you exactly what happened in those brief moments of death, but I can tell you what I felt and why it has stayed with me ever since. Those thirty-eight seconds stripped my life down to its bare truth. They showed me that…

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  • Why do you hurt me?was the prayer I never said aloud.It lived in my mouth like a dying bird,fluttering, breaking its neckon the cage of my molars. You looked at me likesomething ungrateful.Something wild you forgot to tame.I didn’t understand.Not when I still thoughtblood meant safety,that family meant shelterand not war dressed as tradition. Later—I…

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  • The Witch Said Fear Me

    The witch said, fear me, but I didn’t.And I won’t. Fairytales don’t survivewhere real living begins.No spellbook can outdo the acheof waking up and still choosing grace. Energy is a circle,not a dagger.What you put out comes back, not through magic,but through truth.Through consequence.Through the quiet way life returns what you give it. Call it…

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  • Friendships and relationships. Missed, hidden, and mourned There’s a part of coming out no one really prepares you for. People talk about the joy, the freedom, the sense of finally stepping into yourself. And that’s real. But there’s another side too. A quieter, harder side. One that lingers. It’s grief. The Ones I Never Got…

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  • The Morning After Me

    Lately, I’ve been feeling the weight of time. It’s hitting me that I’ve lived more years than I probably have left, and no matter how I try to shake it, the truth stays. One day, I won’t be here. And that day is coming faster than I ever imagined. One morning, people who love me…

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  • The other day I was going through some old family photos and came across a picture of one of my great grandfathers. I stopped and just stared at it. The truth is, I know almost nothing about him. I didn’t even know he ran a small store in the Soulard area of St. Louis. That’s…

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  • Faith

    I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what faith really means. Not the version wrapped in rules or ritual, but the kind that grows quietly inside you. The kind you don’t always have words for, but you feel it. It shows up in how you love. In how you choose kindness. In the way you…

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