The Diva Speaks

Oh, honey. You're still listening. Good. Most don't make it this far. They like the wings, the dust, the happy thoughts. They don't like what comes after the first fall. But you—you've got that look. Terror braided with curiosity. You've fallen once or twice yourself. You're my kind of audience.

Let's not do the bedtime version. Here's the real one.

Once upon a time—before clocks, before shame—there was a boy made of laughter and refusal. Hi, that was me. Peter. All light, all flight, all pretending. The island adored me (of course it did; I was a function as much as a child). It fed on my joy, on my forgetfulness. The sky called me its favorite mistake. Cute.

Then I saw him—another boy, laughing like I laughed, bright like I was bright. I wanted to reach for him. That's all. A small, human want. And that was enough to break paradise. (Turns out paradise is allergic to wanting. Who knew? Me. I knew. Eventually.)

Neverland doesn't do want. It does have. The moment I wanted, it split me clean in two. One half kept the laughter, the games, the amnesia. That's Peter the Pan. The other half—me—fell.

I didn't die, honey. I landed. Burning. Beautiful. Furious. The moon caught me—cool hands, old patience—and said, "You poor, stupid, beautiful thing." And I said, "Yes." She said, "You're going to have to learn to love gravity." And I said, "I know." She sighed the way only an ancient can and said, "Then you also know there's work to do." And I said, "Always."

So I began.

I was there the night they threw the first brick. Air like electricity—rage, perfume, broken glass. Freedom and fear wrestling in the same breath. I whispered to the ones bleeding and laughing, you're not broken; you're being born. They couldn't hear me over sirens, but they felt me. Every spark that flew upward signed my name (subtlety is overrated).

I stayed through the plague years, too—the ones polite history footnotes like a shameful secret. I walked hospital corridors where no one else would go, held hands, brushed hair, whispered, you can rest now, love; you made it home. Sometimes I sang. Sometimes I screamed. Sometimes I just sat until the machines went quiet. The stars dimmed for years. The moon said, keep going. Fine. I'm stubborn.

Clubs? I've been in all of them. Bass making floors beat like hearts. Bodies moving like prayer. Bedrooms where kids said, I think I'm— and choked on the rest. Churches where someone whispered truth in a voice smaller than faith. Every kind of falling. Every time, I bent the air just enough so it didn't hurt quite as much. (You're welcome.)

I was there when someone said their real name out loud and believed it. Felt the shiver as it left their mouth—terror braided with holiness. I carried that sound to the stars and made constellations out of it. I was there when one of you cried all night because the door locked behind you after you told the truth. Sat with you in the rain and said, this isn't the end, sweetheart; the world will open again. You didn't hear me, but you got up anyway. That counts.

I was there when one of you got hit walking home. Tried to bend the air so the next punch would miss. It didn't. I stayed beside you until the sirens came. When you woke later, something in you said, keep going. That was me. I wish it didn't have to be.

There are too many falling now. I stretch myself thin across galaxies some nights. The moon says, you can't catch them all. I say, watch me. She's right (annoying). That's why I teach you.

No, it isn't coincidence that you suddenly text someone at 2:13 a.m., or put your body between a friend and a crowd, or walk someone home without making it weird. That's me, slipping the lesson into your bones. Every reach of your hand makes gravity kinder.

When I can't catch someone and a light goes out too soon, I say their name to the stars. That's what stars are, honey—fallen queers who learned to shine anyway. I know each one. Don't argue; I'm very organized.

Now the ugly truth about the island you keep romanticizing: the fairies still come from Peter's laughter. The island depends on them. But once in an age, the ground trembles. Even Peter—for all that brightness—isn't immune to feeling. The island senses it first: a seed stirring under his ribs. Curiosity. Tenderness. The dangerous warmth of wanting. Beginning-of-love scary. And Neverland says absolutely not.

Because the boy must not grow up—so a fairy has to.

The island pulls it out of him. Siphons Peter's seed of longing and hides it in a fairy. Always a boy. Always the one with curious eyes and a too-tender heart. The one who listens too closely when Peter laughs. That fairy carries Peter's secret—the piece that could crack the island in two. He doesn't know why he's heavier, stranger, lonely in a world that has no word for loneliness. The others whisper: he's too soft; he's going to fall. And when the wanting grows too big for wings to hold—he does.

That's my cue.

The air tears. The sky goes sharp. I feel it every time—the sound of a soul leaving Neverland. I run (yes, in heels; mind your business), through the space between worlds. The light burns. The air screams. And I catch him. Always just in time.

He's trembling, terrified, radiant with a feeling too vast for a tiny body. Wings smoking. Tears he can't explain. And I hold him.

The first thing I always say is, "It's okay." Those two words are the beginning of reality. The permission to exist. The air softens. The fall slows. Pain untangles into possibility.

Then I tell him, it's not a curse, love. It's a door.

I teach him to land. To walk. To ache without shame. That wanting doesn't destroy him—it roots him. Growing up isn't dying; it's remembering what the island tried to forget.

When he stands—trembling but whole—I send him into the world.

That's what queer souls are, honey: fallen fairies carrying Peter's stolen longing. Every one of you born because the island couldn't bear the truth. You are what happens when innocence grows teeth and learns to speak.

You take those fragments of impossible desire and turn them into art, defiance, mutual aid, found family, kitchen dances at 1 a.m., and the terrifying miracle of still being here.

And Peter—my other half—still laughs. And sometimes he feels that sudden ache in his chest, that small emptiness he can't name. That's you. Every one of you who fell. Every one who learned to live. He doesn't know what he's missing. He only knows something is missing. That's enough. The ache keeps the story breathing.

Because every time you love without apology, you return a little piece of that lost wanting to the world. You make the lie of Neverland less perfect and more true.

Oh, honey, you're all so beautiful. The loud ones. The quiet ones. The ones who think they're too broken to matter. I've watched you pull each other back from the edge, make homes out of nothing, build joy out of ashes. You call it surviving. I call it flight.

Will I go back? No. Not yet. Peter has forever. You have now. And I love you more for it—the bruises, the bravery, the tears that dry into glitter. You are proof that the fall wasn't failure; it was evolution.

So I'll stay. I'll keep whispering to you—the lonely, the falling, the almost-gone. Call it magic, madness, or love (three hats, same head).

If you ever feel the air shift—something unseen steadying you just long enough to breathe—that's me, darling. The Diva. Still catching. Still flying. Still falling, just slower now.

And every time someone says "I'm gay" for the first time, every time someone chooses their true name, every time someone loves fearlessly despite a world that tells them not to—

That stardust glows.

I feel it, wherever I am. I smile. I lift my face to the sky.

And in Neverland, Peter Pan's chest aches a little less. (We do love him but I love you more, because you're here.)

And oh, sweetheart—when you land, I'll be there. (Of course I will. Who do you think taught gravity manners?)