Lambda Literary is proud to partner with NEHS to honor the best creative writing by NEHS student members representing or celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community. The Lambda Ampersand Award for LGBTQIA+ Writing acknowledges the many years LGBTQIA+ voices have been overlooked or silenced, especially in school settings. NEHS proudly champions and showcases the incredible talents and stories of LGBTQIA+ NEHS student members and allies. This award is a celebration of the diverse LGBTQIA+ voices that have too often been ignored or unheard, and brings their stories to the forefront.
They told us language was
fixed— twenty-six letters,
rules you follow
or break.
But there was always something extra
curving at the edge of the page, l
ooping into itself
like it refused to end.
&
Not a word, exactly—
more like a bridge.
A reaching.
A refusal to stand alone.
I learned it early:
how to translate myself
into something easier to read.
Girl or boy.
Quiet or loud.
Right or wrong.
Pick one.
Stay there.
But I have always lived
in the space between answers,
in the pause before someone finishes
the sentence for me.
I am this & that.
I am becoming & unbecoming.
I am the version of myself
I haven’t said out loud yet.
There is a kind of courage
in not choosing sides,
in letting your identity
spill over the lines
they tried to draw for you.
Because the truth is—
no one is just one
thing.
We are contradictions
stitched together,
we are questions
that don’t want answers,
we are stories
still being written
in the margins.
&
That small symbol
holds more than it seems:
connection,
continuation,
possibility.
It says: you don’t have to erase
one part of yourself
to make room for another.
It says: you can hold both.
You can hold all of it.
So I am learning
to write myself differently—
not as something finished,
not as something defined,
but as something open,
something reaching,
something that insists
on more.
&
Even now.
