The Algorithm Called Me Gay

When every keystroke is logged

Every song and image meta-tagged

The thoughts dreamt up between the thinks

The feels I felt while numb to feeling

The clicks added up to representation

My soul analyzed through

The dead eyes of an unfeeling matrix

Programmed to sell me what

I never knew I needed

Shunt me into the corner of

The internet I belong in

Slowly filling my feed with rainbow flags

Courses to refuel my color-drained life

Until I was marching side by side

With peers in shocked, euphoric pride

Hearing words I’ve only heard in my head

Coming from others’ mouths instead

K.B. Silver

I was married by the time I started to realize I wasn't a straight cis woman. Growing up, every time I displayed anything other than traditional gender roles or showed same sex attraction, my parents discouraged it, then explained it away well enough that I believed everyone else felt the same way. The fact that there are all different forms of love seemed like a reasonable explanation. It's ok to love your best friend; you are supposed to love everyone in the entire world. Maybe you don't love your best friend too much, maybe you don't love everyone else enough, and so on.

I will never forget the day my husband came home from work and things finally clicked. Three songs in a row came in, I think it was Tegan and Sara, followed by two La Roux songs. I was singing along to Do You Feel, and that's what did it. He started asking me questions, and life has never been the same since. It still makes me laugh that platforms like Pandora and Instagram could tell, based on what I was naturally drawn to, that I belonged to the rainbow. Even more funny, because of the way you are slowly immersed, I actually listened this time. The algorithm wasn't the first to say it.