10 Reasons Not To Come Out To Your Stepdad

1. A week before I went to college
   you took me to the diner
   and explained in a bad Confucius accent
   “Virginity is like balloon. One prick, all gone!”
2. This paled in comparison to the joke you told me when I was ten
   Why don’t lesbians eat meat?
   They’re vaginatarians!
3. I’m pretty sure your midlife crisis was becoming a redneck
   While my friend’s dad spent their college savings
   on old cars
   and boats or other manly toys
   you cheated on mom with Glenn Beck
   and began sending me emails
   regarding the validity of
   Barrack Hussein Obama’s
   birth certificate
4. Because my bisexuality will remind you
   that you didn’t donate your blood into me
   remind you my biological kindling
   lit an inferno reasons to relate men to gasoline
   you weren’t here early enough
   to make me less flammable
5. Because you will think this has to do with hating men
   Instead of loving women
   loving warriors beside me
   a funhouse of mirrors
   that show my form only more radiant
6. Because you won’t understand
   I am not in my moon goddess phase
   I am searching for sun
   Looking to evaporate between hydrogen and helium
   bursting with so much fire
   I could never let the passion drown
7. Because it was so hard
   getting you to love me
   in the first place
   to rent real estate
   in the suburbia of parental humble bragging
   when you are proud of me
   I feel like I’ve paid off mortgages
   off every home conquered by the recession
   that my picket fence
   is not picketing the crumbled tissue
   lining my organs
8. Because I love you too much to make you change
   make you realize that Confucius
   is not the person to give sex talks
   release a pocket of prejudice
   that makes you feel better than something
   when you have given up everything
9. Coming out
   doesn’t feel like leaving a closet
   it feels like running into a cage
   and you are not good at directions
   or picking locks
   picking a new side
   I know you will pick my side
   you do not stand on sidelines
   you are a pageant mom in hockey jerseys
   a gladiator in ugly orange sweaters
   that you really should really take off
   take off
   down a new flyway
   migrate someplace warmer than the glacier
   you put me in
   when I’m no longer afraid of heights
   we can soar together
   but until then
10. I’m terrified you will fight my future wife’s dad over who gets to walk their baby girl down the aisle.