Art [Zarry]

I

Zayn
I could still remember the time so clearly. When it all began.

I was only sixteen when I began to have the dreams. Dreams about boys in my class, or boys that attended my school.

I would dream things about them that could make me sit up out of a dead sleep, breathless and undeniably aroused.

I dreamt about kissing them, and touching their bodies. After weeks of this, I picked up a paint brush, and painted the things I dreamt about, or found myself thinking about when I'd daydream in class.

I painted the things I loved about their bodies. Which was everything, really.

Paying close attention, and using great detail as I painted their beautiful eyes, and their muscles.

I rarely painted a boy with a lot of clothes on, or clothes on at all really.

I loved it.

It was all I wanted to do.

At first, I didn't think much of the feelings I got when I thought about, drew, or painted these fit boys, figuring it was simply my love for art.

That was, until I experienced those same feelings while I looked at a boy in my maths class that had caught my eye.

I then began to think about that boy the way I thought about my paintings, and found myself drawing him.

I dreamt about him, and couldn't avoid stuttering whenever I was lucky enough to speak to him.

That was when I finally began to consider the fact that I might be gay.

And it was then, that it all began to come crashing down for me. I'd lay awake at night thinking about what it meant to be gay.

I knew my family wouldn't approve, to say the least.

I began to think that maybe something was wrong with me, especially after hearing how my parents spoke about homosexual people.

The way people at school talked about them, and how awfully they treated the ones who were openly gay.

My older sister Doniya, who believed she was a professional psychologist, claimed that homosexuality was all in the mind.

I didn't believe that, though.

The more I thought about being gay, the more confused I got. I began to wonder if this was how I was meant to be all along.

It would explain why I never found any girls fit. The thought of being with a girl didn't interest me at all.

Many times during my life, I actually felt jealous of girls. I wished that I could wear lacy things without it being sick, or wrong.

I liked the way they looked, and felt.

When I was younger, I spent ages locked in the washroom with my sister's fingernail polish. I'd apply one colour to all of my nails, try it out for a bit, then try another.

Nobody ever found out, and I didn't see anything awful about it.

I was merely experimenting.

But the day that my mum and dad found canvas after canvas with half naked, if not completely naked men painted on them in my closet, was the day it was all taken away.

All of my paints, all of my remaining canvases, my pencils, pens, sketchbooks, and any paper that wasn't used for school.

I had to ask for a pencil when I needed to do homework, and still received a stern look every time.