Reparative Therapy

By Dein Sofley

 

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with you. It’s just that, well, you know … it’s normal to have sexual feelings. Our bodies were made to procreate.

Reproduce.

Have babies.

When you’re married.

It’s just that a man and a woman, they fit together, by design.

See?

A woman provides the egg and a man provides the seed. It’s how God intended it to be.

Yes, Jesus, too.

Well, Mary was a virgin birth.

A virgin is somebody who hasn’t had sex yet.

Sex happens when a man and a woman love each other and they want to make a baby.

Yes, Jesus is God’s son.

No, God doesn’t have sex. Didn’t they teach you anything in Sunday school?

God made Adam out of dust and Eve out of Adam’s rib. “Be fruitful and multiply,” that’s what God said to them.

Do you understand?

You can’t make a baby with two women or two men. You need an egg and a seed.

That’s why I’m here to help you. Me, and your parents, just want what’s best for you. We want you to have a great life.

What you have is a condition.

Yes, it’s kind of like being sick.

No, I don’t have to administer a shot.

We might do some body work and EDMR.

No, it’s not going to hurt.

Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing.

Don’t worry. I’ll explain it to you later. I assure you, it doesn’t hurt.

What?

Oh. The condition’s called SSA. Same Sex Attractions.

But, don’t worry. I can cure you.

Look, there’s a lot of changes happening in your body. You’re just confused about your feelings.

There. There. It’s okay. You’re not alone. We all struggle with sin. What you’re going through is just a moment.

Here. Take a tissue.

You see, this is how you know God loves you. He listened to your prayers.

We’re all here to help you and there’s other people, kids your age, who struggle with the same condition. They can help you, too, through support groups and prayer.

It’s called “SSA.”

No, you’re not born with it.

No, an SSN is a different thing.

You see, sometimes we’re attracted to people for different reasons. Say you like Ashley’s hair or the way Danny laughs.

Okay, well, whose hair do you like?

Fine. Sadie’s hair.

Danny snorts when he laughs?

Okay, so maybe my examples weren’t the best, but you get the idea, right? You don’t have to be gay. It’s probably just adolescent infatuation or maybe you felt alienated at some point in your life.

No, not like Lilandra in X-Men.

I’ve never read Sandman.

Loki’s a shapeshifter, that’s different.

Look, we all seek approval. We all need love and acceptance.

Yes, even Blake. Pray for his salvation.

It’s just that sometimes we don’t get enough from our parents, or we get too much, and our imaginations run riots trying to invent what we lack. What you’re experiencing is a call to come back home to God. It’s a test of faith.

Here, why don’t we start with this worksheet?

No, it’s not a potato.

It’s an iceberg. See, those are waves. That’s the ocean. Down there’s a whole lot of stuff we can’t see. Feelings.

Yeah, sort of like your mom’s five-layered bean dip, I guess. More like … hmmm … has a friend ever wanted to play a different game than you at recess and it made you angry? Well, maybe you felt sad, too, down here, underneath.

That’s the stuff we’re here to find out about, so we can sort out your feelings.

It’ll be okay. I promise. You’ll feel better. Happy. You won’t be gay anymore. Godliness just takes a little work. You’ll be a better Christian, you’ll see.  You’ll say, “Thank you Jesus for saving me.”

 


Dein Sofley teaches refugees English in the sanctuary city of Chicago. She earned her BA from Columbia College and her MFA in fiction from UC Riverside’s low-residency program. Her work has appeared in The Coachella Review, Writers Resist and the upcoming Five on the Fifth.

Westboro Baptist Church photo credit: Travis Wise via a Creative Commons license.

Love Letter to Chicago

By Dein Sofley

 

Cook County Citizens, I’m writing this letter to you on behalf of my friend Dein. She loves you and wants you to love her.

I’ve never been to Chicago, but I’ve heard that it’s windy: a working class city with a heart of gold. Home to Gwendolyn Brooks, Studs Terkel, Muddy Waters, Kanye West, Richard Wright, Chief Keef, Li-Young Lee, Common, Chance the Rapper, Haki Madhubuti and America’s forty-fourth president.

Dein is sorry she left you. Heartbroken. Confused. It took her 2,104 miles—through winking lights and gasoline, by time’s appetite and dismembered memories—to figure out that it wasn’t you she was afraid of; it was her feelings. Lost to be found, she came back to you on Valentine’s Day, her wayward tongue thirsty for the taste of your wounds and the words she has yet to earn. The Centennial Fountain marks the shape of returns.

Her body needs you. The arresting rush of your winds, the roar of your trains, the screams of your ambulances, the murmurs of your lake, the slap of your gun shots, the impatient footfalls, the spasms of car horns, the scent of cumin and skulking lilacs find the humming in her ribs. She’ll abandon sleep to breathe you in. In your noise, a love-in-answer. But how will you hear her?

Her: the class clown, the orphan, the shape shifter, always moving, famished for meaning, looking for ways to be real. A foundling in your sanctuary, she wants to serve your storied, buttressed, scavenged, policed city. Soothe her unrequited ache for home, Chicago, please; put her back together again. You people: your misfit blocks of dark skinned cousins, bushy Slavic uncles, lining waving yentas, the vendors selling StreetWise, the paleta man at 63rd Street Beach, the kids rolling across the green at Foster, the Army of Moms patrolling Englewood, the polar bears who jump in the lake midwinter, daring death for vigor.

You lent her: Gina Frangello, Megan Steilstra, Kevin Coval, and Joe Meno.

She lent you: her daughter.

Your jazz scabbed streets of tribes: Mexican, Puerto Rican, Polish, Vietnamese, Palestinian, Indian, Pakistani, Swedish, Ukrainian, Israeli, that pull her out at night like an addict unable to name what she seeks through thrumming engines that collide with the babel of languages. Behind the sounds is another sound. And another.

Your long shouts of avenues: candy-colored storefronts, Beijing ducks roasting in windows, nail salons, tattoo parlors, dive bars, bathhouses, used goods, gold coasts, magnificent miles, dry cleaners and good burritos. All no-bullshit propositions that allow her to keep the criminal feeling of sovereignty.

The tavern sign says: “$2 Shot $4 Pints.” The grammar might be wrong, but she gets the message. This joint’s here for a shot and a beer and a six-pack to go because like her, you keep moving.

And you give: public parks, social policy, scholarships, cultural institutions.

And you take: seven hundred and forty-seven homicides last year.

If only she were bulletproof. When fear left and she said “I’ll make my home here.” She adopted a slew of stray cats, gathered her band of banshees, and stayed. She’ll fight for your honor. She’ll scrape away the narrative outliers made to her extinction. No sissies admitted.

Because in your winter mornings when she sees one neighbor shoveling another’s car out of the snow or a woman in hijab helping an old Russian man navigate the slippery sidewalk in route to the bus stop, mornings when the goodness of human beings shine, she feels herself triumphing.

 


Dein Sofley teaches Syrian refugees English at Albany Park Community Center. She earned her BA from Columbia College Chicago and is currently pursuing her MFA in fiction from UC Riverside’s low-residency program, where she also serves as nonfiction editor for The Coachella Review.

Photo credit: “Chicago Through a Cloud” by Roman Boed via a Creative Commons license.