Joel Lee Poems

So in middle school, before I went to bed, I said this one prayer, and it went exactly like this: "Dear God, please keep my secret far, far away from my family and friends." Looking back at that prayer, it's scary to see how much self-loathing and internalized homophobia I had within me. And now, seeing that self-loathing manifested in institutions that try to make LGBT people straight is terrifying. Because

In the US, gay conversion therapy is still legal in 45 states.
So this is a poem is a response to that fact and for that 12-year old boy who was just trying to figure things out.
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