The problem with society is heteronormativity. The problem

with everything is heteronormativity. There is no other problem

if you are somebody’s wife, mother, daughter, which I am no good

at being, but can’t escape. They were always using Mum, Dad,

Billy and Jane as their example. Rather than moving to a lesbian

commune in Ecuador, I hoped my husband would be gay. And

here I am, divergent, disordered, definitely queer. When people

write about culture, they say that you need it to belong, to thrive.

What is it to belong and what, on God’s green earth, is this verb

they dub, thrive? Returning to heteronormativity, for two decades

I participated in a nuclear family in suburbia. After seven years

the sound of his key in the door made me twitch, then there was

the sound of dogs; it was a suburb of pensioners, Shih T-

zus everywhere. When I left, naturally, he disowned me.