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2026 Christopher F. Kelly Award for Poetry

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Gay Catholic // Catholic Gay

by M.J. Young

 

Gay Catholic // Catholic Gay after Mass last Sunday sitting on a bench in the butterfly garden outside the rectory before going home my friend Jacob called to talk. he said he was thinking had a question about a relationship he wanted my thoughts on. as a fellow Catholic. I reminded him that I’m a bad Catholic & I’ve never been in a relationship, I’ve never been in love, that I’m not like him. I miss Mass most weeks & when I was thirteen I stopped reading my Bible because I was afraid & so now I don’t know of what the church thinks, the exact teachings. I just pushed it all down. the courtyard was warming & two blue birds dove one after the other beneath the flowering shrubs. we both stopped talking before he could ask his question & then he laughed a little. I apologized, knowing it was needless. he asked what I was thinking & I told him about the garden, I described for him the milkweed, the stone path, how I like to imagine the butterflies as living stained glass. God feels closer, in this place. then I urged him to ask his question. he told me how he started having feelings for his neighbor the man above him who listens to Rachmaninoff who listens to Max Richter & televised Mass & gets up early in the mornings really early, well before sunrise. he talked to him the other day. said his name is Jude. my friend thinks his neighbor Jude is gay, meaning is like me. he’s thinking about asking him wants to invite him on a date somewhere— to his church, his place or somewhere else but he’s talking to me first to be polite, to be respectful. which I appreciate. I told him I thought that sounded fine, I said he should be careful but I know he is trying to do good, that he needs to remember sometimes it can be hard, that we’re friends, but this is all about love and always will be.

 



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