" There's so much that is still in debate, but for me, what's most important is the alternative queerness demands of me, another route. It can't just be 'route 1' or 'route 2'. There has to be another path. And often, I have to make that path myself. And this goes to the rules of writing. There are so many writing rules. "

" I think for so many queer folks, after a while, you realize that this road was never made with me in mind. And I have to stop the car, get out of it and climb over this guardrail. And now I'm wandering far away from everything that I've known, so far away from anything that has a name or a sign or a road signal. And I'm in the middle of the forest or the meadow, and I'm terrified. I'm washed with confusion and fear. And it's almost electric, an ecstatic terror that comes over me because I'm truly lost. But I'm also perhaps the most free I've ever been. In everything I feel, every step I take is something new to me. It is a discovery. "

Vuongs monologue on queer freedom yet initial uncertainty is something I whole heartily agree with and is a great depiction of the journey many queer individuals must take to succeed and prosper in this life. To be queer is not just to be homosexual but to indulge in a community and lifestyle that warrants liberation and participation in a history of active rule-breaking and law-defining identity and sexuality. Down to your expression, queerness opens your eyes to the realization that there is no guidebook to follow that exists for people like us.

I love Vuong's expression on the psychical similarity being queer shares with being lost yet free. Having to be in this automobile that is so familiar and comfortable that almost everyone gets in and follows the path and road ahead of them with no questions asked. And yet having this impulse and reason to get out, break that linear journey and wonder vastly away from this construct and to truly be immersed in curiosity and wonder and areas not explored, Of course, the isolation becomes apparent, yet in this cloud of aloneness does the wave of freedom truly hit you to be liberated from any of these man-made constructs or roads that have once guarded you and that you have now broken away from to create your own.