Were The World Mine — 45th Parallel

SPLICED: A CRACK IN THE CLOSET / WERE THE WORLD MINE

Charles Jensen

“It’s easier to read your pulse here,” the doctor said. His hand snaked beneath the hospital blanket, under my gown. A brown beard hooked over his ears, the rest of his head shaved almost to skin.

Black and white cartoon animals tumbled across sunny wallpaper in the pediatric ward. My trachea, savaged by little rips in the tissue, shrieked with pain each time I took a breath. My six-foot-two body stretched to the edge of a bed built for much younger patients. Patches of a beard, several days old, speckled my cheeks.

His fingers were warm, a surprise on my skin. Tracing up my thigh. The untouched part of me.

He looked at me through his dark eyes, smooth and brown. His gaze had a weight and I could feel it cover me. I couldn’t look away.

The scent of musk bloomed between us when I started to sweat.

His fingers pressed into the rhythm beneath my skin. His body heat against my balls. I hitched a breath. I knew this wasn’t right. My heart thumped so hard it rattled its flimsy cage. I was afraid of what he was doing. I was afraid of what it meant.

I was afraid, and I wanted this. His touch. His eyes on me. Whatever came next.

I was seventeen. It was August. On the precipice of senior year, the future beyond yet unknown.

Were the World Mine begins with a familiar teenage trope: a game of dodgeball. Teens identified by classmates as queer know this special torture—not just being seen, but being sought, hunted, a target. Queer boys want this, to be to object of another boy’s desire, to be in his line of sight. But not like this. This pack of boys seems only too eager to destroy, their weapons all trained on seventeen-year-old Timothy. He takes a shot to the face, cuing the twilight of a bruise where it hits.

He’s last to the locker room. Like jackals, the bullies lounge on benches and lean against lockers. They call him a slur; he responds, for the millionth time, “My name is Timothy.” The bully who hit him is draped over a locker door like a wet towel. He whispers, in a stereotypical lisp, “My name is Timothy, too.”

Jonathon, the object of Timothy’s desire and the last of the jocks to leave, asks if he needs ice for his face. But Timothy—unable to differentiate between boys who offer cruelty and boys who offer kindness—brushes this off, preferring to remain isolated, and therefore safe.

I was twelve years old the last time I cried. The one school in my small town only went up to the 6th grade and, once I graduated, I was bussed to the next town over to join kids there at a double-sized middle school. The kids from opposite schools regarded each other with suspicion those first days: who was cool? Who would become nerds? And who might want to kiss me?

Cautious friendships took root. That first week, I met Russ and Evie, fraternal twins. Evie had a crush on me, and easygoing Russ never seemed to care much about anything but happiness. I felt something fidget in my gut when I was around them, and I assumed this meant I had a crush on Evie. But I always wanted to talk to Russ, to be around Russ, to make Russ smile. I wanted to be his best friend, and he didn’t seem to mind one bit.

A few weeks into the year, Russ told me he and Evie were moving. The feeling in my gut hardened, becoming an anchor that plummeted without ever hitting the floor.

Later, I ended up in the crosshairs of some mean eighth graders. They called me faggot and pushed me into lockers. At the fall dance, they surrounded me on the gym floor and separated me from my friends, pushing me, taunting me, telling me who I was. What I was.

My mom knew something was wrong when I got home. It was like my lights had been knocked from their sockets. She found me crying on my bed, sat down, and asked what happened, but I was too ashamed to tell her. She put an arm around me as if she could still protect me. “I think I know what’s going on,” she said, her voice calm and sweet. My lights sparked, trying to come back to life. “They’re making fun of your body, right? In the locker room? Boys are jerks. Don’t listen to them. You’ll be fine.”

The lights sputtered out, this time for good. She held me a while longer and said more things, but I wasn’t listening. I knew I was going to be alone. And in some way, I knew—deep in the depths of my mind—that the boys were right about me.

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ the doctor ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎over ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ skin.

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎My ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ little rips ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ shrieked ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎to the edge of◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ my ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ surprise ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ I ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎.

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ pressed into t◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ a ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ cage ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ I wanted ◼︎◼︎. His touch. ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ Whatever came next.

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎.

Queerness is central to Timothy’s life because he’s the only queer person he knows. No one lets him forget he’s alone. They paint his locker with the word faggot. When it gets cleaned off, they put it back. He’s tired of being ostracized for desire. Studying his lines for the school’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he intuits the recipe of Puck’s secret elixir, the one that makes people fall in love with the first person they see. He even rigs a plastic pansy bloom to serve as the method of delivery: just a spritz from the flower’s pistil and bam! They’re in love.

At rehearsal the next day, he sprays the elixir in Jonathon’s face. Timothy’s beloved looks at him with joy in his eyes, places a hand at his cheek, gives him a kiss.

When another boy in the play reacts to the kiss, Timothy sprays him, and then all the other cast members. They see each other, for the first time, as queer boys see each other. They kiss passionately on stage.

The film leans on the old chestnut that one queer person—a pansy—can pollinate a whole community, recruiting others into the lifestyle. Timothy’s powerful queer magic has done just that—he wants them to develop empathy by experiencing the pain and isolation of social rejection. He doesn’t want to be alone anymore.

The parents of the boys want the school principal to do something, but no one among them has realized straight couples are the single most significant source of queer people.

We don’t make us. They do.

A doctor diagnosed me with asthma at thirteen. Her clinic occupied a single room in the community center, barely larger than a custodial closet. There was a one-room library down the hall; past that, a gymnasium. Her pageboy haircut lay flat and unwashed against her head, her face as rumpled as well-slept sheets.

I left with an inhaler, a regimen of pills, and no explanation of why I had the attacks when visiting my parents’ favorite vacation spot. Meds helped, but shortness of breath was always waiting for me when we arrived.

I never learned what happened during that trip four years later—why a series of rips split my windpipe. Why, back home, sweating in my bed, struggling to breathe, I wondered if I was going to die.

My mom stared at me as if trying to see through my skin, one of the few times I’d seen through her resilience to the vulnerable part of her. Or maybe I was old enough to know already that such a part could exist. “I think I need to go to the hospital,” I told her.

I was seventeen. It was August. On the precipice of senior year, the future beyond unknown.

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ pulse ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎in ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ My ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎body ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ built for ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎

His fingers ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ on ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ my thigh. ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ a weight◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ I couldn’t ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎sweat.

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎a breath. ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ of ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎Whatever ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎future beyond ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎

Timothy has a fraught relationship with his mother. After her first day at a difficult new job, she sits in her parked car, coming to terms with the uphill climb ahead of her. Timothy slides in next to her. As they talk, it becomes clear Timothy’s dad is out of the picture because of his son’s sexuality. When Timothy tries to assert his identity, his mother spits back, “Every single day I have to come out of the closet, just like you.” But it’s not just like Timothy; her closet is her own.

The mother of a queer son is no longer just a mother. Timothy’s coming out shifts a new slate of considerations into her lap. She fears for his safety. She worries he will always be lonely. But it’s the failure of her imagination that limits her the most. In her mind, there is no possibility her son will live a life that looks like hers. Having a queer son means she’ll also face bigotry and scrutiny from other parents. They’ll wonder what she did wrong to make her son ended up like this; they’ll treat her like an error.

When Timothy’s magic makes nearly the entire town queer, his mother is one of the few people who doesn’t fall under the spell. This is the closest she comes to understanding his loneliness.

As a teenager, I woke up every morning knowing the day ahead would involve a series of calculated risks and evasions. Today we would call it anxiety, but I called it dread, and I felt it at the thought of walking through the doors of my high school, which sucked up students from various little towns in the region—children of truckers, farmers, migrant farm workers, gas station clerks. We all knew one another, most of us since kindergarten, when we met in an old one-room school house outside of my hometown.

Between classes, I walked with my head down from classroom to locker to classroom, looking up every so often to scan the hordes of students for my friends (all of them girls) who would shield me from attention. I marked the safe rooms on a map in my mind: the music room, the English teacher’s room.

I tried to remain invisible, but at a height well above most classmates, I stuck out in any room I entered. I was so worried about getting trapped by bullies that I avoided using the boys’ restroom at all during school hours.

I kept a ledger in my mind of the people I could trust and the people who would sell me out just to climb a rung or two on the social ladder. More than a few times, I judged them wrong, and their words became a target I wore on my chest.

I knew the only way to lose it was to leave.

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎under ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ skin. ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎The untouched part of me.

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎bloomed ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎into the ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ heat ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ of ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎His touch.◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎

Timothy’s only friends are Max, who is a boy of color, and Frankie, who self-identifies as heteroflexible, a term she defines as “I’m straight, but shit happens.” Like Timothy, Max and Frankie are outcasts in the suburban township they call home, in part because of the implication that all three are of a lower socioeconomic class than their classmates and the people they encounter in town.

Timothy’s mother cuts up her wedding dress to craft the fairy wings he will wear as Puck—a final recognition the marriage is over, that she is choosing her son over her husband. And this choice leads them to dire financial straits.

Despite friendships with Max and Frankie, Timothy’s sadness is a shackle. That Jonathon falls under Timothy’s spell doesn’t change anything; it is only magic. Jonathon’s feelings are not authentic because he did not choose them. Timothy is still alone—no better off than he was before the play, the potion, the pandemonium.

Hospital days crawled by, punctuated only by visits from the nursing staff and the occasional doctor checking my pulse, my temperature, my breathing. My parents and brother visited during the designated hours, but huge swaths of the day were closed to everyone but patients and staff. Daytime television became a torture of its own; on the walls, cartoon animals swirled in a tempest. Did the wallpaper lift the spirits of young children forced to stay here? Or was it for them like it was for me—a reminder of youth, immaturity? Perhaps it was simply a sign we still had growing to do.

I wasn’t allowed to shower—the IV stuck in my arm saw to that—and it didn’t take long for me to ripen. My mom bought me deodorant from the hospital gift shop to stem the catastrophe of my body. The only scent they had was musk, and so my memories retained that deep, complex scent—syrupy and sharp—and, because of what happened: masculine, sexual.

It is Timothy’s English teacher who chooses A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the spring play at the all-boys school; it is she who stands up to the anti-queer bigotry in town, even as the parents call for her dismissal for mounting the show that turns their children gay. And it is she who tells Timothy his fun is over—that he must restore the world back to what it was, even though it means losing Jonathon’s love. He must return to the isolation of before.

Everyone falls back in love with their old partners, and Timothy resigns himself to fate: that Jonathon will return to his girlfriend. Jonathon encounters Timothy as he is removing his Puck makeup, still in the school theater. Timothy expects cruelty, but, instead, Jonathon kisses him—and reveals he’s been closeted this entire time.

When we look back at their interactions, we see Jonathon holding space for Timothy and offering, whenever possible, his small, private kindnesses. The kiss reframes the moment when Timothy, irate over finding faggot painted on his locker again, confronts the rugby team and tries to start a fight. Timothy is tackled to the ground almost immediately, but Jonathon pulls the boy off him and barks at Timothy to “get out of here.” In that moment, we think Jonathon is simply one of them. But this is how Jonathon protected him.

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎on my skin. ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎this ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎

◼︎was ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎the future ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎.

Were the World Mine was fanciful in 2008, but the story is in stark conflict with the society of today, one that has opened its eyes to sexual violence, sexual harassment, and manipulation for the purpose of sexual gratification. Jonathon’s queerness saves Timothy from being viewed as a sexual predator—we don’t see them do more than kiss and cuddle, but still. The intent.

His effort to turn the entire town queer, even if only for a moment, is exactly the kind of manipulation that trounces the townspeople’s agency and makes them unwitting—and unwilling—participants in someone else’s desire.

Even the title feels like a gross artifact. At the time of the film’s release, the title suggested a fever dream of a world where queer people could safely express desire, a world that, in 2020, some of us are closer to occupying than ever before. But now the title smacks of the kind of power and greed that fuels toxic masculinity, subjugating women and queer folks under it.

Queer acts have been punishable by death, castration, imprisonment, ridicule, ostracization, familial disowning, and other abuses, both physical and emotional.

For its time, the film offered a salve. What if we, suddenly, were the norm?

After the hospital, something awoke in me. I told no one. I was waiting—to get out, to get free, to get away. To start over in a place where I could build a new version of myself. Senior year, these plans flowed under my skin.

In retrospect, I’d call this a closet—a space for all the desires I couldn’t talk about. And even then I didn’t understand how fundamental these desires were to making me. I learned later how many boys my age were exploring each other’s bodies, were learning in this way. I was too afraid to try in these conditions. I couldn’t risk harm, not when I was so close to getting out.

The closet offers protection—a perceived invisibility—but it harms as much as it harbors. Part of the harm is convincing occupants they are alone. I certainly felt alone. Though I knew, deep down, I couldn’t possibly be the only one. That, someday, I would find others.