I Was an Empire - 2. Write "She's Gay" on My Headstone

From the first time I got my own stereo
and tuned the dial to country music radio
I never expected that kind of station to be a petitioner for pro-LGBT policy.
But 15 years later when I heard someone who sounded a little like me
croon the words, “I’ve got a girl crush,”
I thought my cowboy boots might have finally accepted me.

Of course, it wasn’t like that.
She proceeded to ask herself the same question I once had
but determined the opposite.
When presented with a choice to be with me
or just be me, she chose mimicry.
It’s a type of forced heteronormativity
that blinded me for years to the truth of my sexuality.

Songwriter says, “I’ve never heard one like that about jealousy.”
And I replied, “That’s because you’re not supposed to take a knife
and cut the heart right out of me,
flip the script on something I thought was my beginning.”

And isn’t that what we have always done?
Take the words used against us and change them, twist the narrative
until it took me years to learn the truth my own history
the color and blood of it?
I was ignorant as anyone flying a confederate flag in my home states
that weren’t even a part of the Confederacy.

We have to admit to the parts of ourselves that are less than savory:
I, a steak grilled and placed on the picnic table
at some redneck barbeque for them to hate at
after I finally stopped hating myself.
I am the kind of straight-passing person who’s always been allowed to be proud,
thankful to be able to wear at least half this love like a badge of honor
as long as no one had to hear someone sing the heart of it.

The bar is set so low that I only ask
that you don’t change the love song’s pronouns
when you ask me to sing it
but you mangle my words anyway.
So instead, I am here to rewrite queer into every country song like:

That don’t impress me much
because man, I feel like a woman,
And I’m not just jealous of one.
I want to be free to feel the way I feel:
because I have a girl crush.
I will admit it to everyone,
how it’s such a heart rush, lifting me up.
And I’m coming over,
but if I die young:
bury me in rainbows instead of making me one.
If I never knew the love of a man it was because
I knew the love of a woman instead,
holding my hand
and no one died because of it.

This is a happy ending
Even if the lyricists didn’t come up with it.