Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Humans.
Short Piece
I was 14, my parents got divorced, found out that my mother was a lesbian (I always thought her girlfriend was a bitch). I moved to a new town, just my mom and I. Around this time I was just finishing up middle school and starting my freshman year of high school. I had a couple of relationships my freshmen year but they didn't last long. I made some really great and some not-so great friends, some still last today, others weren't real friendships from the start.
By Amanda Panda8 years ago in Humans
Breaking Up
It's over. It's really over. I mean, not technically, but we both know it is. We're holding on because we live together, and the lease is up in a few months. We haven't talked about breaking up; we just pretend everything is okay. He still gives me a kiss every morning before he leaves for work, but he cringes when he does it. He hasn't touched me in months. Internally, I am screaming. My limbs quiver with all of the emotional turmoil I'm holding inside, but I keep telling myself, "just a few more months."
By Amber Teixeira8 years ago in Humans
Drag Drama Don'ts
I am not new to the performing arts. I have been in several plays growing up as well as band and chorus throughout my high school years. I remember putting on “shows” for friends and relatives growing up, often dressing up to the tens and putting on elaborate performances. I did tap, jazz, and ballet for ten years and enjoyed every shining moment. Though I am not new to the performance scene, I am, however, new to the drag scene. And alongside with that comes many new, well, problems.
By Jeremy Jett8 years ago in Humans
Outed
Let's see... Where do I even begin? I guess we'll start back when I was a teenager. I spent a good amount of time trying to figure out my exact sexual orientation. I had dated girls, but I couldn't help being drawn to males. At about age 17, I realized that I was, in fact, gay. Fear of how my friends and family would react to the news led me to the conclusion that I would probably never be comfortable in my own skin.
By BrettNotGreg8 years ago in Humans
We're Allowed to Love Now
Another year passes, and love has yet to come around. I keep being told that there is somebody out there for me, but how can that be when I seem like the only one interested in love. Everybody wants sex, or they want friends (benefits included), but they don’t want love. Gay culture for so long has been short term, with bathhouses and closets and seedy motels. Love didn’t really enter into the equation because we weren’t allowed to love. Times are changing, but we have failed to change with them.
By Sean Alexander8 years ago in Humans
The Beginning and the End
If I could go back to the moment I stepped out of that cab in Logan Square, I’d make myself get back in that car and shut the door. I’d look at that version me who now no longer exists, the one that had yet to meet Matt Karter, and I'd tell her don’t go. Don’t you dare meet that boy. She’d look at me wondering why and I’d just say because he will break you like you’ve never known.
By Morgan Lee8 years ago in Humans
Walking Away
Sometimes you have no choice. When you're being abused, or hurt by a situation, when there's no salvation or escape, when you can do nothing but watch everything fall apart around you, sometimes you just have to walk away. It's the hardest lesson to learn, the hardest decision to make, when the instinct is to fight, but it's the only option sometimes. Walking away isn't the same as running away, you walk away for your own sanity, you walk away because it's all so out of your hands that you have to give up. I remember when I was in counseling, my therapist told me, "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink," and that's the truth. No matter how much you want to save or change the horrible situation you have no option but to witness, you need to start thinking of yourself.
By Laura Smith8 years ago in Humans
Pay No Attention to the Hole in My Sock
We met on Tinder, because of course we did.I used to think about that a lot, about how something I'd gotten so used to being arbitrary and inconsequential could bring me something so real, so visceral. The cultural implications didn't escape me; was what I had now some allegory for the advent of modern, technology-based romance, or some assertion that love, real-love, could poke its head out from the pile of warm, limp bodies and drink in the fresh air of existence? I used to think, "well, yes," but now I don't think I care. We matched in June of such and such year. At least, I think it was June. It was during the summer after my first year at university, and I had just gotten my old job back, jockeying popcorn at the concession stand at the movie theater in my hometown. I was staying with my mother and getting drunk on my days off. Things were sort of okay, or at least about as okay as they were before I left. But I was still lonely. So we got to talking.
By Alex Montgomery8 years ago in Humans
Why I Disappeared...
I think I’ve said goodbye to so many people in my life, to the point where the only place I feel comfortable enough to turn are these pages. I mean I’ve loved and I’ve lost and yes, I have moved on and become this whole other person, but I thought when I felt my lowest of lows that I’d always have a place that feels like home, and I think that’s what’s making this so much harder for me. I turn around and everyone is busy and bustling about their own lives and anyone that I ever held dear to me is distracted or has already said goodbye. And I guess that’s okay, but simultaneously, it’s like I give so much of myself to people… I’m the first one to wipe away their tears and the first one to help fight their battles but when it’s my turn it’s like, wait a day or two… or a simple no… no way. And that makes me feel an unexplainable kind of discomfort, because I hate asking for help and I hate relying on people and it takes me a lot to get to the point of even asking in the first place.
By Muted Clarity8 years ago in Humans
