Pink is for girls; blue is for boys. Dolls and tea sets are for girls. Toy soldiers and sports are for boys. Girls can believe in unicorns and in rainbows—and that one day they themselves will be princesses like in the fairy tales. But can a boy believe any thing alike? No. He can’t believe the same thing. If a girl fiddles with a boy’s plaything, she’s generalized as a tomboy; but a boy who plays with a girl’s toy or dreams the fantasies she believes as realties is a homo.

The word itself is so cold…hollow…and damning that is seems to send you straight to Hell once the word attaches itself to you. Anyone outside the “norm” is victimized with the word, gays and non-gays alike.

When I was younger, I loved playing outside with all the neighborhood boys: playing soccer, laughing, running, riding our bikes. But I was never any good at any sport; yet no one seemed to mind. When we’d laugh, we’d laugh together; never at each other.

That is until one boy started pointing out my flaws: my clothes, my high-pitched voice, my stupid hairstyle, my stance—my hands almost always on my hips—and my thoughts and ideas. I didn’t mind it at all, at first; until every thing I would do was “so gay” to him and everyone else that I was always self-conscious around them any time I did any thing or ever spoke. And I’d think at night, restless, am I gay because he said so? Or am I gay because I’m not like all the other boys? Eventually, he called me homo any time we were around each other, and no one bothered to stop him; instead, they’d all laugh even harder than the previous times. It hurt knowing that I once was someone else to these boys that I loved being around; then one word, uttered too easily by any lips, made me a pariah. I was an outcast among my own kind, all because one person decided I wasn’t similar to everyone else enough for his own taste.

To them, I wasn’t a homo because I did or did not like boys; I was a homo because I was slightly different—and because he knew well in his mind and heart that “you’re such a fag” wounds much more than “you’re so gay”.
To society, fags aren’t solely gays; fags encompass a group of people outside the “norm,” regardless to what degree. I shut all of those boys out of my life. Nonetheless, their ridicule rattles me at times, even though it was years ago since we last hung out together. I’ll admit: I’m scared that I’m a homo not because of who I like, but I’m a fag based on how I look and behave. As for “happily ever afters”, I dare to dream them, but, I know, some kid somewhere else doesn’t believe in them lest he be labeled a homo.