Whenever I watch romance films, I used to wonder how it would feel to be the man playing the lead. Not because I wanted the woman, but because I wanted to be him. To stand where he stands. To love the way he loves.
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Imagining it felt like flowers blooming in my ribs, like a garden slowly growing inside my chest. Like my lungs were learning how to fly. The sky would open, vast and blue, and I would feel unstoppable and infinite. I thought that feeling meant I was into them.
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Turns out, it meant something else.
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In fifth grade, I had a crush. She was older than me, a brilliant, gentle, funny, and beautiful in the kind of way that didn’t try too hard. If you could list every good thing a person could be, she would be the embodiment of it. But I was in denial. I buried the feeling deep inside, somewhere between confusion and fear.
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It wasn’t until I slowly understood what the community truly meant (what it meant to exist outside the lines society draws) that I allowed myself to admit it.
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I started dressing more masculine. And I loved it. I loved how it felt like armor and freedom at the same time. I loved playing games “meant for boys,” loved sitting with the guys, laughing too loudly, taking up space in ways I was never taught to. Society might have labeled them, but I wore those labels like borrowed jackets and made them mine.
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I told my parents that I liked girls. That maybe, someday, I would date one. They were horrified at first; shock painted across their faces like a sudden storm. But storms pass. And slowly, they chose love. They chose me. And oh, I looked good wearing myself.
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Then high school came, softer and sharper all at once.
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Zar, that’s what we’ll call him, was pansexual. Beautifully, unapologetically feminine. He wore softness like silk. We started as friends bonded by gore movies, late-night writing sessions, video games, and political debates that lasted until the world felt small and electric. It felt cosmic. Like the universe was nudging us together, like constellations rearranged themselves just to spell our names.
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Our friends shipped us. The tension shimmered between us like heat rising from asphalt.
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But we were afraid.
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Afraid to step forward. Afraid to name what was already breathing between us. Afraid of how loud the truth might sound once spoken.
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And yet, I love him. I really do.
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That was when the realization settled into me, not like lightning, but like dusk.
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I am pansexual.
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I love intentionally. I love souls before bodies. I love people as they are — a man in wigs, a woman in tailored suits, someone transitioning into their truest self. Gender has never been the gatekeeper of my heart. Authenticity is.
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It has been years since I began embracing who I am. I still wear masculine clothes, but lately, my femininity has been tapping gently on the glass, asking to be let out. I want to dress in softness. To let silk brush my skin. To do my makeup like art. To have girls’ nights that feel like galaxies exploding in laughter.
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And that doesn’t invalidate my queerness.
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It doesn’t erase the garden I built inside myself.
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It simply means I am blooming in more colors now.
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I am still that pansexual kid but bolder. Braver. Bluer in the most beautiful way. No longer hiding in the background of someone else’s story.
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This time, I am the lead.
and then Add to home screen.