I felt myself die whenever the television pastors my mother watched every day had sermons on homosexuality. My pastor and loved ones (religious and otherwise) championed the idea that all queer people would roast in Hell. Whenever I thought about Hell, I heard the screams of the trillions of lost souls there.Īnd when I first started to discover my queerness at eight years old, I saw Hell as the place my soul would reside for eternity whenever the sun set on my life. I saw a lake of bubbling lava, where the angel of death rowed a boat made of human flesh and bones. Since then, I had a clear image of what that unholy place was a dark dungeon that burned with the heat of one million blue stars.
At three years old, I learned about Hell.