Author Information
@ 27.055 MHz: Ad Astra; No Male Minors In The Present Tense
Writing about minors in present tense
is tensely, inherently, dangerous.
So I will write my high school memories
of the beautiful young males toward whom, then,
I felt crushes: I, awkward and ugly,
bullied by several classmates because
they believed that I was queer---a "faggot."
Their assumption was correct although, in
that time and place, my God-given nature,
could not be admitted or expressed to
anyone anywhere anytime. Thus,
I could not tell those gorgeous young males how
their Beauty vivified the metaphor
of Stars' Light; and how, daily (well, even
hourly) I fervently hoped that one
of them would decide to take off his shoes.
Starward-Led
Anatomy of a Wound, and the Light Beyond It
The piece appears to trace a clear arc:
• Acknowledgment of danger and boundaries
The opening lines establish ethical awareness: writing about minors in the present tense is unsafe, so you situate everything firmly in the past.
• Return to adolescence
You revisit high school as a time of awkwardness, bullying, and unspoken longing.
• Naming the wound
The slur used against you is presented not for shock but for accuracy—an artifact of the environment you grew up in.
• Revelation of identity
You admit that the bullies’ assumption was correct, but the environment made honesty impossible.
• The ache of silence
The emotional core of this piece is the inability to express admiration, affection, or even basic truth.
• Aesthetic and spiritual metaphor
The “Stars’ Light” metaphor elevates the crushes into something symbolic—beauty as illumination, as guidance, as unreachable distance.