Lacey Cohen

Forfeit

She has the audacity to tell me I have it wrong as if I haven’t been thinking about it every single day of my life since the day that it happened. I don’t have it wrong. Everyone says I should be the bigger person. We’re adults now, then we were just kids, but we’re adults now. I say it to myself too sometimes. Who even cares? I’ll say. You’ve been out for the better part of a decade, does it really matter now? See the thing is, I can’t just undo the internalized homophobia that lies latent in every corner of my mind, ready to pounce with not a moment’s notice. I can’t just forget about the few years in between, when I was so deeply closeted that I was willing to hurt people that I cared about in the name of maintaining the illusion of heterosexuality. I can’t turn off the fear of getting too close to someone lest they get the wrong idea. I know it’s me who likely has the wrong idea, the idea of them having the wrong idea, but regardless, it doesn’t go away. It’s not fair that the person who gets hurt is always the one who has to be the bigger person. It’s not fair to hope that everything could change with a simple apology, and then reaffirm that it wouldn’t when an apology never came. I don’t wanna be the bigger person. I shouldn’t have to be the bigger person. I’m so fucking tired of being the bigger person. But I’m going to go to sleep tonight, dream about the mundanity of being gay in any random aspect of my life now, wake up, read this back, and realize it really doesn’t matter anymore.

Lacey Cohen is an emerging gay, Jewish writer based in Brooklyn, but she is a true and proud Michigander at heart. Lacey received her Bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan, and her MFA from Long Island University. Her work has been featured in HAD, Bending Genres, and Punk Monk Magazine, among others. You can find her at LaceyCohen.com, or on Twitter @Laceyrco.