JUVEN
the first time i held a girl’s hand,
the movie screen was my only witness
by Sharmane
the first time i held a girl’s hand,
the movie screen was my only witness
I was 18 when I was finally old enough to see my first gay film in theatres, but only 15 when I felt like a part of me was dislodged in a way that I couldn’t explain. Perhaps it was watching all my friends discuss their crushes on boys, trying so very hard to copy them, only to realise that such feelings weren’t supposed to be forced.
But what other feelings was I allowed to have?
I continued watching as life happened to everyone around me: while my friends were planning their build-to-order futures, my mother asked me to choose between my girlfriend and going home. Like any filial child, I chose going home. Like any parent, she pretended that I was the daughter she had always wanted.
It often feels like I’m watching myself disappear from my own life. ...
the movie screen was my only witness
I was 18 when I was finally old enough to see my first gay film in theatres, but only 15 when I felt like a part of me was dislodged in a way that I couldn’t explain. Perhaps it was watching all my friends discuss their crushes on boys, trying so very hard to copy them, only to realise that such feelings weren’t supposed to be forced.
But what other feelings was I allowed to have?
I continued watching as life happened to everyone around me: while my friends were planning their build-to-order futures, my mother asked me to choose between my girlfriend and going home. Like any filial child, I chose going home. Like any parent, she pretended that I was the daughter she had always wanted.
It often feels like I’m watching myself disappear from my own life. ...
...
Halfway through Moonlight, Chiron touches Kevin for the first time. Alone by the beach at night, they make love in hues of dark blue, purple and black. I am thinking about the first time we had lunch together. You added extra olives to my pasta because I told you once that I loved all things sour. Your parents came back. I am now a classmate you met in some class you forgot.
Your mum said: how odd, cooking for your classmate and not us.
How odd, she looks like that.
Picking at the olives on my plate, now wishing I grew my hair out during the summer break. Wishing I put on something like your dress.
The next day in school, under the harsh glare of the sun, Kevin beats Chiron up. Begging him to stay down, please stay down.
Chiron stands up every single time.
Your mum said: how odd, cooking for your classmate and not us.
How odd, she looks like that.
Picking at the olives on my plate, now wishing I grew my hair out during the summer break. Wishing I put on something like your dress.
The next day in school, under the harsh glare of the sun, Kevin beats Chiron up. Begging him to stay down, please stay down.
Chiron stands up every single time.
...
Absence generates desire. The absolute, irrecoverable distance between us and the camera, between us and the characters on-screen, between love and lack, is why cinema exists.
Is there a desire for gay kids to exist?
Is there a desire for gay kids to exist?
...
Once again, the High Court dismissed three challenges against Section 377A of the Penal Code. I was going to sleep in late, cook lunch and go to school like it was any other day⎯a law which isn’t enforced cannot break my heart.
I found myself hiding in the toilet refreshing the page. The texts are coming in: hey we lost again, I’m so fucking depressed, why do we try anymore? Yeah they had the money to try anyway. Unlike us. Unlike us, crying in a locked closet while everyone else cooked lunch and went to school⎯a law which isn’t enforced cannot break their hearts.
I found myself hiding in the toilet refreshing the page. The texts are coming in: hey we lost again, I’m so fucking depressed, why do we try anymore? Yeah they had the money to try anyway. Unlike us. Unlike us, crying in a locked closet while everyone else cooked lunch and went to school⎯a law which isn’t enforced cannot break their hearts.
...
My mother and I were going home after a grocery run. In the lift, she said, I hope you’re not a lesbian. Put the pork in the freezer will you.
I stopped refreshing the page.
...
The first time I held a girl’s hand, the movie screen was my only witness. Like all lesbians who adore Jessica Chastain’s face, we ended up watching IT Chapter 2. I did not expect Xavier Dolan, a young gay director, to play a gay man who was murdered in a hate crime. He probably doesn’t need to read off a script for such scenes. I laughed at Dolan’s guest appearance, and slowly put my hand over hers.
I thought of queer prides, subversive parody and dyke marches. Holding hands and laughing with a girl I liked while a gay person is being murdered, over and over again. Somewhere like that lift.
Somewhere like going home.
I thought of queer prides, subversive parody and dyke marches. Holding hands and laughing with a girl I liked while a gay person is being murdered, over and over again. Somewhere like that lift.
Somewhere like going home.
...
In Portrait of a Lady on Fire, the love affair begins only when Marianne accepts painting Héloïse’s portrait. She accepts her lover’s eventual marriage to a man. Do not imagine me guilty, Héloïse tells Marianne.
They should have fought harder, a friend said. She feels pity that we can’t love like everyone else. I was a mounted portrait, she imagines, trapped at an art exhibit waiting to be looked at by the next buyer.
People don’t actually feel sorry for us. They just wished we feel sorry for ourselves. So I didn’t feel guilty for going home, not least till you said I should have fought harder. Made to feel love anew⎯regret.
They should have fought harder, a friend said. She feels pity that we can’t love like everyone else. I was a mounted portrait, she imagines, trapped at an art exhibit waiting to be looked at by the next buyer.
People don’t actually feel sorry for us. They just wished we feel sorry for ourselves. So I didn’t feel guilty for going home, not least till you said I should have fought harder. Made to feel love anew⎯regret.
...
On our way home after a queer studies talk, my supervisor told me, you know the lesbian speaker earlier on? I was actually thinking about you. How you need to see queer women in academia who have made it. I’m sure you can do it. You won’t find it here though, you’d have to go elsewhere.
Elsewhere, those women are married and have shelves full of lesbian and queer books, on display in their little zoom squares. They talked about gay work, gushed about their wives, and no one told them to tone it down. Once, I wanted my future. Now I think, how nice it is, to be traveling home with someone who thought about me.
I didn’t tell her that elsewhere was a ten minutes lift home every other week.
Elsewhere, those women are married and have shelves full of lesbian and queer books, on display in their little zoom squares. They talked about gay work, gushed about their wives, and no one told them to tone it down. Once, I wanted my future. Now I think, how nice it is, to be traveling home with someone who thought about me.
I didn’t tell her that elsewhere was a ten minutes lift home every other week.
...
Before my mother made me choose, she told me that she grew up with nothing. Everything I had, I owed it to her. My queerness, her. My love for you, her. Me, her. While I was in university pursuing lesbian studies, she spent her time making sure we had enough to eat. While I was sneaking off to your house, she was trapped at home wondering who she might have been if she hadn’t married so early. While I won awards for writing about us, she couldn’t read any of the books she had bought for my education.
Are the wages of love shame?
Are the wages of love shame?
...
Waves of sorrow as Marianne and Héloïse embrace each other, feeling like it would be their last, but they meet once more, at a concert playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. What a devastating final shot, critics say⎯but I saw myself for the first time, when Héloïse’s tears meant a refusal of guilt.
You asked, do all lovers feel like they’re inventing something?
I saw you again the other day, when we were shopping for curry paste. I couldn’t hold your hand then, but I thought, how long have I wanted this, buying groceries with a girl I like.
You asked, do all lovers feel like they’re inventing something?
I saw you again the other day, when we were shopping for curry paste. I couldn’t hold your hand then, but I thought, how long have I wanted this, buying groceries with a girl I like.
...
I hope Eurydice forgave Orpheus.
Sharmane is a postgraduate student in English Literature from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She is also a freelance film journalist with an interest in queer and lesbian media. Her works have been featured in publications like Girls on Tops: READ ME, Screen Queens, Flip Screen, and Into the Fold Magazine.