Imagine this: El Paso, TX, in the early millennium. It’s picture day in middle school, and a restless boy fidgets impatiently as the photographer works through the throng of jittery, wry, self-conscious eighth-graders, capturing them in all their prepubescent glory. Arranged on the bleachers, from shortest to tallest, some kids wear their awkwardness on their sleeve: bed-head, bad posture, pimply faces, sweaty palms. Others are draped in confidence, flaunting their crisp-ironed clothes, grinning with manicured brows. And then there’s me: a string-thin thirteen-year-old in an old Smashing Pumpkins t-shirt—a hand-me-down, naturally. I never liked having my picture taken, yet there I was, smack dab in the center of the class photo that autumn morning. I was the one who rarely smiled or spoke, my dark hair slicked down with beeswax, standing firm, unmoving. I wanted to project toughness and keep the world at bay, but in Texas, being different was like wearing a target on your back. Growing up in a small town felt like living in a shoebox—the neighborhoods, the shops, the eateries—all snug and close-knit, which might have been charming if I weren’t lugging around a secret. Just before the camera flashed, I sank a little lower, trying my best to hide behind a classmate’s head of hair. But it was too late. Looking back, I was trying so desperately to hide inside myself.
Like most folks, middle school was hell. I was unpopular, uncoordinated, had a heavy accent since English is my second language, and essentially embodied everything that was the antithesis of the status quo. I wasn’t athletic. I wasn’t homecoming-king-material. I drew. I wore black clothing. I read comic books. I skipped school. I recoiled at the garishness of the cowboy culture scene that was all too prevalent in my hometown. Being a ranchero or cowboy was synonymous with being the alpha male of the pack. But what I did know was that I was unlike the other thirteen-year-olds. I hung out at home on Friday nights, glued to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, painting my nails black, rocking in my beat-up Doc Martens. Not exactly earth-shattering, a bit odd, but not unheard of. But the real truth? The real truth? I found men attractive, and no matter how fiercely I wished to deny it, deep down, I knew the reality of it and the dangers that it entailed.
It seemed like everyone knew I was gay before I even had the words to define it for myself. Almost every week, I would hear a slur spat out by one of my peers, had my locker vandalized, or had to fight off the boys who would wait for me around the corner after school. What’s more, I was in most of the remedial classes, which made my everyday life even more challenging. To say I felt demoralized would be an understatement. On Sundays, at church, I’d pray that I could be anything but who I really was, and question why God would want to make me this way if everything around me told me I was a mistake, an abomination. I just couldn’t understand where I fit in the grand scheme of things: I wasn’t a good student, I wasn’t an alpha male, I wasn’t an ideal son. I couldn’t see anything beyond hopelessness. So, I leaned into that hopelessness even more.
Since others already viewed me as bad or worthless, I thought I might as well fully embrace my debauchery. During one of my many stints in in-house detention, I began writing lists detailing my feelings. It was my first attempt at writing poetry. writing anything with purpose. These lists had different ranges. Some were meaningless, some were heartfelt, detailing personal struggles. How I felt. What I felt. Who I was. It was in those moments where the truth, which was simmering, started to come to a boil. Again, as a gay youth, I was taught to feel shame and wear it like a heavy coat. I was told not to talk too much with my hands, shrink myself away, or be anything but myself. That meant boasting and bragging, being brash and crass, getting in fights, and belittling women. However, writing allowed me to explore the parts, albeit difficult at times; I was too afraid to entertain in my everyday life.
I first discovered my appreciation for poetry in fifth grade. My young, progressive teacher, Ms. Murdock, who had just arrived in town with her fresh-out-of-grad-school lessons and philosophies that ended up costing her job a year later, introduced me to the world of literature. During our writer’s workshop time, she would rip up ads from magazines, asking us to write something; sometimes, she would give us a title, a vague, new word that was so foreign for someone like me, who still struggled with the language. Once, she turned off the lights and asked us to close our eyes as she read to us John Updike’s “Dog’s Death.” As Ms. Murdock read through each stanza and repeated the phrase, “Good dog. Good dog,” an emotional and overwhelming sadness overcame me. I was familiar with the kind of sadness beyond the page, but something about this sadness felt different and compelling. I remember opening my eyes and looking around to see if someone else felt the same way. No one did. As expected, the room was filled with students twirling the tips of their hair with their fingers and others making farting noises with their armpits. I felt like I always did: a failure. Then, I looked up to the front of the classroom and saw Ms. Murdock had tears in her eyes. I knew then that words meant more than just blotches and scribbles decorating the pages of books. From then on, I kept looking for that same level of emotions in other texts or areas in my life.
I began playing with language, tearing words apart, and putting them back together. The flexibility and wistfulness of poetry allowed me to come to terms with myself, my surroundings, and the hostility I felt in my environment. It was liberating. I started, as many do, with terrible, angsty poetry, yet I discovered more of myself and carved a new outlook. I began earning straight As and won a few contests here and there, but this didn’t shield me from peer harassment or garner any self-admiration. I want to say that it all came easy, but diving into these truths required a lot of emotional and external labor, which I continue doing in my writing. It’s a way of documenting my experiences, as well as the experiences of others.
Although I hate to admit it, writing was my outlet. My entry point. The base of self-discovery. Not just my voice. but a voice for others: my family, friends, and the community that taught me how to honor who I am and how to survive. In many ways, my poetry and book (Cowboy Park) became my way of coming out to the world. The cowboy, snake boots, and ostentatious belt buckles were all images I moved away from. Why? At the time, they represented the machismo I had never subscribed to. However, these images became the road leading me back to myself. They represented my brothers, my father, and the bullies from school who tormented me. Both literally and metaphorically. They were all cowboys in some way. Machos. But I was intrigued and fascinated by their presence, by the metaphorical representation of the clothing depicted. Like armor, a costume, or another way of posturing and performing. In many ways, they were like me. Finding their beauty and commonality allowed me to appreciate who I am, where I come from, and why they were the way they were. What I learned during all this was that the place of my origin, which I didn’t fully understand or embrace because I felt it had failed to understand or embrace me, was also a place that was constantly unfairly misunderstood and maligned by others.
Through writing, I discovered parts of myself I’d denied. I hope my work honors the individuals my former myopic self was ashamed of. I never imagined words could help usher a sort of escape or that I would find myself as an adult in a profession consisting of wordsmithing, let alone find myself on the other end of a screen typing away about my memories because recounting the harm begins to heal me. Even though I continue feeling awkward about having my picture taken. I remember my middle school self. I hope he knows how proud he should feel of how proud I have become.
Eduardo Martínez-Leyva was born in El Paso, TX to Mexican immigrants. His work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, The Boston Review, The Adroit Journal, Frontier Poetry, The Hopkins Review, Best NewPoets, and elsewhere. He’s received fellowships from CantoMundo, The Frost Place, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Lambda Literary Foundation, a teaching fellowship fromColumbia University, where he earned his MFA, and was the writer-in-residence at St. Albans School for Boys in Washington D.C. His debut poetry collection, Cowboy Park, was selected by Amaud Jamaul Johnson for the 2024 Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry and is part of The Wisconsin Poetry Series published by the University of Wisconsin Press.
