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Target<br />
I was neither the biggest kid in school nor the gayest. I was,<br />
however, the biggest gay kid and the gayest big kid. Hiding was<br />
impossible. Still, all I wanted was to be invisible.<br />
Someone decorated my locker. Someone had taken red nail<br />
polish and painted a cross on it. They wrote God hates dykes too! I<br />
felt sick. I was scared. So I closed my eyes and pretended I didn’t<br />
see it.<br />
Tayla, though, she saw it. She saw it and she went all<br />
warrior dyke, hitting the locker hard enough to break the lock and<br />
screaming.<br />
“Your God is a murderer!” he shouted.<br />
Everyone stood around and watched because that’s what<br />
everyone did. They watched.<br />
“Get your shit,” Tayla said.<br />
We walked down the hall.<br />
“You have to stand up for yourself,” she said.<br />
I ducked my head and walked a step behind her. That was<br />
how I always walked when she was mad. Sometimes, she scared<br />
me. Sometimes, she was too much in people’s faces. How could I<br />
tell her that all I wanted was to disappear? How could I tell her that<br />
even when she stood up for me, I felt weak and useless? Tayla<br />
didn’t want to hear it and she deserved better.<br />
I loved Tayla. I loved dancing. I loved music. But the men,<br />
the boys here stared. They stared because I was fat. They stared<br />
because they wanted to fuck me. I hated the thought of the men<br />
breathing on my tits, the hairs covering my forearms.<br />
Tayla shook her head.<br />
“I just want to dance,” I said.<br />
She stopped and turned and I thought that maybe she was<br />
going to yell at me. Tayla wanted me to be strong and fierce and all<br />
I wanted was a sliver of quiet isolation. Too many people wanted
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