Column V: Her Last Walk of Shame

Blossom went down South, returning to the very deep South that shaped them. This week, they were en route to South Carolina to visit a childhood friend, tracing the rail lines back to the years they were trying to outrun.

They had originally fled to New York for university, desperate to liberate themselves from a so-called home. In that false home, they were fed a strict diet of the all-knowing, almighty God, who apparently predestined every young girl to be promised to a man and produce a lineage of his heirs.

During their middle and high school years in the South, Blossom’s internal craving for women began to loudly take root yet their feelings were met with classmates hissing the word fag in the hallways and drawing sketches of a girl’s anatomy on Blossom’s lockers. The torment only paused in high school when they acquired a boyfriend. To the public, Blossom had ended their experimental, curious, questioning phrase of poverty. Likewise, they loved their boyfriend like any properly suppressed person would who must be a good human devoted to the Lord and Savior and the ideals of men and women. The prayers their mother prayed to "cleanse" her child ceased, and the gates to a conventional, highly approved dream life seemed to swing wide open.

But the illusion shattered on a single flight from Houston to New York for their freshman year of college, where that high school sweetheart dumped them. 

Blossom spent their first year in the city dating any man who threw himself at them. It was a hollow rotation that lasted until a rightful spring affair finally blossomed. At last, they allowed themselves to exhale, tapping back into the innocent freedom of their twelve year old self. They fell in love with a girl again, and stepping back into lesbianism had never felt so correct. The two lovers spent the remainder of their freshman year frolicking across the campus until summer break intervened. Fellow students watched with shock and excitement as Blossom revived their queerness; a new, undeniable light beckoned from within them.

When summer break arrived, Blossom severed the situationship, realizing they needed to go deeper into themselves. Back South for the season, they grew aggressively into their queer identity at home, defying everything that had been preached to them by the Baptist. Being a Black woman navigating a world ruled by misogynoir was an internal battle that plucked at their sanity, but surviving it won them their identity war. Upon returning to college that fall, they deemed themselves free and fluid within their identity; shattering the rigid, suffocating standards placed upon Black femmes. And so, their life genuinely flourished.

By Summer 2022, their first truly free summer, Blossom had shaved their head to a fresh, striking blonde buzz, taking on New York City and the entire world armed with might.

The Preservation Instinct is an independent archive. If this column resonated with you, support the continuation of the work [here]