Hometown Hero
August, 2024
[ image description: a colorful sketchbook spread. On the top of the left page two individuals sit on a park bench at night, and on the bottom is a checkered table with a hand holding a bagel, pointing to a map of “suburbia”. On the top right page is an individual lounging on top of a suburban-style house. A speech-bubble from their mouth reads,”hometown hero". On the bottom right is a road leading from the bottom of the house to the bottom of the pages and the words “Get Going, Get gone” are overlaid over a cityscape and sunset. ]
Every time I travel back to my hometown, I’m reminded of how this place made me so small. How I used to bend over backwards to present and act in a way that would bring me safety and security. In the four years I’ve spent away from there, I’ve been learning how to occupy my true form, my most authentic way of being.
But in those brief moments when I travel back, when I step in the bagel store to get that scrumptious, pillowy, delectable cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese, the stares I’m met with remind me of why I made myself so small, so palatable, for so many years. God forbid I order a bagel in smalltown Connecticut whilst looking gender variant and disabled!
On the other side of the coin though, are the hometown heroes – I know we all have them. In my town they usually take the form of the football or lacrosse team star, they go to college just a couple hours away to come home on the weekends, they’ll probably work in New York until they find a spouse, and they’ll promptly move back to our town to raise their alarmingly white, anglo-european family.
I have this fantasy of grabbing them by the hem of their vineyard vines or Lululemon top and asking them how they do it. Of course they’ll be closeted in some way and craving the escape that I embody. And I’ll seduce them with not only my unbridled queerness, but with the idea of escape, of living authentically, instead of the cookie cutter mold expected of them. So, I obviously wrote a poem about it:
oh hometown hero
how do you do it?
in this maze of suburbia
do you hold the map through it?
you keep things so light
with memories so dark
you’re a late august sunset
a joint in the park
oh hometown hero
do you crave escape?
do you tow the line?
do you lie in wait?
do their stares ever shake you?
do you always feel safe?
do you notice us outcasts?
or will you take up our space?
oh hometown hero
i see what you hide
in your eyes are the ghosts
the forgotten, the divide
of those who belong
and those who will flee
what separates us?
you
and me
oh hometown hero
meet me at night
tell me what it got you
the banality, this life
kiss my queer lips
taste the paths not taken
i hope it’s worth it, hero
the lies and the aching
cookie cutter houses
and manicured lawns
but each road’s a way out
get going, get gone
