jun 25, 2017 - VOGUE Queer and in Love iO Tillett Wright

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QUEER COUPLES IN LOVE,
PHOTOGRAPHED BY IO TILLETT WRIGHT

It’s because of our love. They say it’s sick, perverse, something to be hidden from children. We disagree. We think it’s something to be shouted from the mountaintops, something to be sung about, something to bring home to Mom. We clean up mighty fine, us queer kids. We write each other love poems in chalk, find romance in nature, and get names tattooed. We like couches and movies, Chinese food and museums. We hold tender hands, we fight, we scream and storm out, we make up and make out. We buy houses, we build homes in vans, we camp. We sleep, we have insomnia, we fuck, we travel, we get sick. We have parents who worry, who want us to give them ETAs and updates. We have siblings we care for and dreams of families of our own. We have children and dogs, so many dogs. We do our best with very little, and we swim in abundance. We are proud, battered, resilient, and afraid. We’ve made do with cardboard boxes and abandonment, we’ve been lost and lonely, but we still love. We will always love.

They want to outlaw our love. They say it should be forbidden, hidden, that it’s disgusting. They want to bend and break us from our nature. We won’t be bent, we won’t be broken. We will kiss, we will grope, we will explore, we will break hearts. We will be hired, we will revolutionize, we will be fired, we will get sick. We will dream of perfectly mundane fantasies and outlandish freakishness. These will be our dream castles; we will find solace there, because love lives there.

We have other goals and dreams besides equality. We are more than just this, but this is all they want to talk about. They point us out in the hall, as if we didn’t already know. We would like to be celebrated for our bravery and innovation, in other things besides being ourselves. Their assumptions are claustrophobic. Let us breathe. Let us figure it out. We have questions, we have explorations. We have answers. Ask us.

We find each other, in corners and out in the open sun, and we stay together. We grow old, we raise others like us and different from us. We cook them food and talk them through their growth. We write wills and pay things off. We take care of the ones we love, and we leave the world a better place than we found it. We pass through this life holding hands with the ones we love, and we go out that way, too. We leave loves behind, but we are never left behind, because we love. We will always love.

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