Where Do Condemned Hearts Go?

Call Me By Your Name (2017)

“There is nothing wrong with you. There’s a lot wrong with the world you live in.” — Chris Colfer

they told us the human heart was made with rules already carved into it.

blue for boys. pink for girls. adam for eve. nothing beyond that.

as if love were something mechanical. something measured. something that could be folded neatly into the small boxes people leave behind for children to suffocate in.

they forget the heart is not obedient.

it has never once listened to laws, to governments, to old men standing behind pulpits with polished shoes and trembling fingers, trying to speak for a God they themselves do not fully understand.

the heart is wild.

it beats harder for people we were warned about. it memorizes voices, collects laughter like sacred things, aches for warmth, for understanding, for another soul that feels like coming home.

and what cruelty it is to call that evil.

what cruelty it is to look at someone loving gently, honestly, without violence, without greed, without harm, and still decide they deserve shame for it.

they say queer love corrupts people, but i have seen more destruction born from hatred than i have ever seen from love.

i have seen fathers throw their children away like unfinished prayers.

i have seen mothers stare at their daughters as though they became strangers overnight just because another girl held her hand tenderly.

i have seen boys learn how to make themselves smaller. how to lower their voices. how to kill parts of themselves before the world could do it for them.

i have seen children stand in front of mirrors, trying to negotiate with their own reflections, begging: please. please let me be normal enough to survive.

there are graves filled with people who spent their entire lives pretending.

pretending they did not love the way they loved.

pretending their hearts did not tremble at the sight of someone they were never supposed to want.

pretending that loneliness was holiness.

and somehow the world called that virtue.

but what kind of God would create billions of hearts, each painfully different, only to demand that every single one beat the exact same way?

look closely at nature.

nothing holy was ever made identical.

the sky changes moods every evening.

oceans cannot decide whether they want to destroy or cradle.

flowers bloom in impossible colors, and even stars die only to become something brighter afterward.

creation itself has always loved diversity.

human beings were the ones who became afraid of it.

they love saying, “it’s against nature,” while standing in a world where penguins raise chicks together, where swans fall in love regardless of sex, where entire forests survive because different roots learn how to coexist beneath the soil.

there is nothing unnatural about love.

unnatural is teaching children that they are disgusting for wanting tenderness.

unnatural is forcing people to live entire lifetimes with their mouths sewn shut just to make others comfortable.

unnatural is watching someone break apart slowly and calling it morality.

they use religion like locked gates.

they hand God over to the powerful, as though heaven belongs only to people who fit perfectly inside tradition.

but i cannot believe a loving Creator would tremble at the sight of two people holding each other honestly.

i cannot believe the same God who created galaxies vast enough to humble humanity would spend eternity enraged over pronouns, over softness, over boys loving boys, over girls kissing girls, over someone finally finding the courage to become themselves.

if love is patient, if love is kind, if love keeps no record of wrongs, then why do people refuse to recognize it when it arrives in queer hands?

perhaps the truth is this:

people fear what reminds them that identity cannot be controlled.

because queer people exist as living proof that the soul does not always follow the maps society drew for it.

and maybe that terrifies them.

because once you realize love cannot be dictated, everything else begins to unravel too.

the systems. the expectations. the centuries of pretending.

still, queer people continue loving anyway.

through slurs shouted like stones.

through families who suddenly speak to them as if grief replaced their names.

through laws that debate whether their humanity deserves protection.

through churches that preach compassion on sundays and rejection every other day of the week.

they continue loving.

softly. openly. fearfully. bravely.

as though every act of tenderness is rebellion itself.

and maybe it is.

maybe there is something sacred about choosing love in a world that constantly demands your silence.

because despite everything, queer people continue to exist.

they still write poems. still fall in love. still decorate apartments together. still memorize each other’s coffee orders. still hold trembling hands beneath tables. still dream about futures they were once told they would never deserve.

that is not sin.

that is survival.

that is humanity.

that is the heart doing what it was always meant to do:

finding another heart, and refusing to let go despite the world trying so desperately to teach it otherwise.