Keep it in the Closet

Love.  Unfortunately, I don't feel as if I have been in love in my adult life.  I haven't had that feeling.  That extreme emotion for someone else.  That selfless feeling that makes even the most simple of us, poetic.  I can recall a time where I felt something for someone, stronger than like, but not as powerful as love.  And now, as I kind of sit, beginning to sulk about my lack of love, I think further to others of us, who feel love and can't express it. 

I'm sure that most people reading my blog by now have heard about the courageous movement of Frank Ocean (I started this a long time ago, by the way, and am just now sitting down to finish).  Coming out as a black man, I can only imagine is difficult.  The black community has a history of isolating scriptures in the Bible to condemn some, but ignoring other scriptures that would condemn more "accepted" behaviors, claiming that time or present day mores trumps the writings of the Old and New Testament.  As you have read in my previous blogs, however, this is not a religious entry.  I digress.

Okay, so we have established that Ocean is black, let's now add that he is coming out as a R&B/Hip-Hop singer teeterer that has not yet reached his prime.  Hasn't reached the place where people love you regardless of what you choose to do with your life.  Case in point...Robert "I didn't put the R in R&B" Kelly.   Yea, I went there, but again, I digress.

Reading Frank Ocean's open letter about his first love, makes me not only want to experience love, but makes me hurt for so many people out there living, loving in silence.  Loving in fear.  Fear of being judged, mistreated, and unable to experience fully what is pushed down our little toddler throats as we grow up in a heterosexual society.  From a very young age, we are asked about the opposite sex crush in our class.  We are taught to sing "first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage."  We make sure to pair up Barbie and Ken, to emphasize our definition of what love really entails.  Because love could not, absolutely could not exist between same sex pairs.

But what if it could?  Let's just imagine that love is about personality, chemistry, or a spiritual connection that extends far beyond race, color, religion, or even gender.  Could love exist then?  Who decides...