The road seems too long

I don’t know how to talk about this. I don’t know how to feel. When it first happened my very advanced slave was in shock, but quickly regained her emotional side and she started to grieve. I, on the other hand, ignored it, stuffed it. And sure as shit like clockwork my anger, fear, and pain started coming out in inappropriate ways. 

I was angry at work for no reason, frustrated for nothing, I was sullen and withdrawn and finally yesterday the real anger came to the surface. I was snappish and dark. I am not like my slave in many ways, one of which is that she is in touch with how she feels. For me, when it is too deep, too painful- I can’t always deal right away. 

So this is how I am trying to  deal  with  how I am  not letting myself feel --- through  this- through  writing. 

I don’t know how successful I will be. 

The first thing that I think is that the shootings at Pulse in Orlando, a club that not only opened when we were there, but we had gone to,  makes me feel so deeply isolated from the rest of the world.  It is the reminder of how hated my slave and I are, how different we are, and will always be.  

The false sense of safety is shattered. I have not wanted my slave to go out. To be a target. 

I know that the straights are really trying to be allies. I know you are.  So please don’t take what I am writing the wrong way.  Because this isn’t about you- although your allegiance with me, with us, has enriched our lives beyond measure. 

The queer leadership in Albuquerque has been phenomenal. They have been putting on dances and vigils since it happened. They have show how we can still come together. 

Tonight is the AEL play party. I don’t know how am going to keep it together.  Being around people. 

I’m  feeling like I want to  stay at home, love on  my horses, keep  my wife and slave safe and try to not feel  too  much.

Pulse opened in 2004. My slave and I were in Florida at the time. I remember Pulse distinctly  because the club  we all went to  “Faces” ( which was where my slave and I met)  was concerned about losing business to  the new,  young, and instantly popular hangout. We went to Pulse together and sometimes my slave went without me.  It was a huge space, well taken care of and owned by a woman who had lost her bother a decade earlier to AIDS. 

I am struggling dealing with not feeling safe, and being easily triggered, and easily upset. 

I spent time with the horses today. Grooming them, talking, it helped.  

Tonight at AEL will help to, in its own way. 

I am sorry that I am not more- together- literate- or intentional with what I am saying.

I think  that what I am  trying to  say most of all  is  as much  as violence is a daily part of being gay,  I thought that after we got the federal  right to marry, that something would have changed. 

The road seems too long.  And I am too tired to travel.