The first time I heard the word “fag,’’ I knew it was directed at me. I didn’t know why I knew. I was 9 or 10, and still had many words to learn. The other people, however, seemed certain that it applied. You could hear the certainty in their voices. It’s unnerving to have a word you don’t know written on you, written into you, written around you. A word that means “you’’ that you don’t know can overcome you like a fever. It can shorten your breath and make your head go hot. The word “fag’’ didn’t scare me; it made me sick with fear.

The first time I spoke the word “gay,’’ it was 1992, and I was on a payphone outside the pharmacy. There was no doubt blocking the thought. I was calling the rectory at St. Bernard’s Church. I only had a quarter so I cut to the chase with Father Whoever. He didn’t know what else to tell me but to pray. He’d pray too. I asked if God could see past this part of myself that I couldn’t see past. In his deep, dark, hushed voice, Father Whoever repeated himself: Pray, just pray. He didn’t ask my name and I never told him before our time was up — but not because I was scared. I was sick with fear.

The first time I heard a gay voice was on the phone in the teacher’s lounge at Fitchburg High School. I’d sneak in there after school to call the personal voice ads in the Boston Phoenix because I couldn’t have numbers like that appearing on our home phone bill. The gay personals were kept in the very back of the paper, tucked between the 976- numbers and “massage’’ ads. (How ashamed of us they are, I thought.) I just wanted to hear what a gay person sounded like. Some of the voices I heard in the recorded ads were high and wispy, some were deep and dark, some were high but trying to be deeper. They all sounded hushed. I heard them like confessions. Here’s what I’m looking for. Here’s what I’m into. There were no names, just four-digit codes — but that’s not because they were scared. They were sick with fear.

If I heard footsteps coming, I’d hang up and pretend to be studying. I’d try to slow my heart down. I’d try not to sweat. I’m just studying. I wasn’t scared. I was sick with fear.

The first time I talked to a gay man was also on the phone. He had the same first name as my dad, or he scratched that name along with his phone number into the paint of the third stall in the men’s room near the tire department at the Leominster Sears. When I called, he heard how high my voice was. He realized I was a kid. He said I was going to be OK, that one day I would find other people like me, that I just had to hang in there. That I shouldn’t worry — but that I shouldn’t call him. It’s not that he was scared. He was sick with fear.

The first man I knew as a “boyfriend’’ I met on the phone. It was one of those 976- numbers. On Fridays, I would stay in my Emerson College dorm room and call once my roommates left for the night. The line would connect you to another stray voice, though sometimes it was just a breath shading the signal. If you didn’t like what you heard, you hit the pound sign for another connection. I wanted a deep, dark voice. W had one. He was a professor. On the sex line, we’d talk about the poems of Philip Larkin, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Constantin Cavafy. It was 90 cents for the first minute and 10 cents each additional minute. We’d call every Friday and hit the pound sign until we found each other’s voice. We didn’t exchange numbers for a long time, but not because we were scared. We were sick with fear.

The first gay bar I went to was the old Quest on Boylston Street. I threw up before I even started drinking. (I wasn’t sick, I was scared.) I was fine once I started dancing. I smiled at a man who smiled at me. But when it came time to leave, I worried who would see us leaving. I wasn’t scared. I was sick with fear.

The first thing I did after hearing the news of what happened at the gay bar in Orlando was worry about the man I call my husband, who was in Atlanta over the weekend at a gay campground with no fence, no armed guards — all good guys but no guns. I wasn’t worried because Atlanta is anywhere near Orlando, but because Atlanta is Somewhere, and according to the news, this could have happened Anywhere. I was reminded of this by all sorts of people. It wasn’t a gay bar, it was a just another instance of Anywhere realizing its ultimate potential as a place to be killed. I started writing this piece in the middle of the night because I couldn’t write until my husband was home. I know it makes no sense. It’s not that I was scared, you see: I am sick with fear.

The first time I heard the recording of the gunshots, the sound reminded me of other recordings of gunshots. I’ve heard so many lately. Geoffrey Rodriguez was one of the 102 people who were shot at the Pulse nightclub. He was shot three times. He is three years younger than me. He’s in critical condition. Rodriguez grew up in Leominster, near the Sears (though he could have been from Anywhere). He was dancing at Latin Night. My first Latin night was at the Milky Way in Jamaica Plain, back when you couldn’t see into it from the street. After he was shot three times, he texted his stepmother: “I’m bleeding so much and I don’t think I’m going to make it. Call mom and dad and tell them I love them.’’ Rodriguez and 101 other people at Latin Night were scared and were shot. Forty-nine of them died — scared, sick with fear.

The first thing I thought after the shooting was “Maybe he’s gay.’’ I don’t know why I thought it. Maybe because so many people were insisting it didn’t matter one way or the other. Maybe when something doesn’t matter it finds ways to matter. Maybe the shooter really was on gay apps like Grindr, or Jack’d, or Adam4Adam as some have claimed — a face lost amid a grid of headless profiles and blurry body parts. Maybe Omar Mateen was scared. Maybe he was sick with fear.

The first day after the shooting, my friends cried at their desks. In bathroom stalls. At gay bars. They cried to fill the silence offered by friends and family and co-workers. Maybe friends and family and co-workers didn’t know what to say. Maybe they knew how they felt but wouldn’t say it. Maybe they weren’t sure why 102 LGBT people and their friends being shot in a gay bar was suddenly “a gay thing.’’ Maybe some of them wanted to say “maybe they had it coming’’ but couldn’t. Maybe they’re planning to say it with a vote instead of a voice. Maybe they were scared to speak. Or too scared to stand up. Maybe they are homophobic, which doesn’t mean they are scared of gay people. It means they are sick with fear.

The first thing Donald Trump said after the shooting was that he was right. Donald Trump is sick.

The first time I heard Frank O’Hara reading his poems was on a scratchy recording. His voice was high, wispy, and unhushed. He seemed to sing as he spoke. He found freedom within rules and restrictions. (Every line in a certain poem must, say, contain the name of a river.) Arbitrary rules. Forced limits. Coded language. Mantric music. And yet, within all of these confinements, he found freedom, divinity — infinity held captive, then released. I hear his poems like confessions.

The first line of O’Hara’s poem “At The Old Place’’ reads “Joe is restless and so am I, so restless.’’ The Frank of the poem is at a gay bar, watching his friends arrive. Once he starts dancing, he’s fine. “(It’s heaven!)’’ He repeats this twice, to himself, like a mantra. It’s the most hushed I’ve ever heard his voice. Paradise as parenthetical. The poem ends like this:

Jack, Earl and Someone drift

guiltily in. “I knew they were gay

the minute I laid eyes on them!’’ screams John.

How ashamed they are of us! we hope.

I hear a familiar voice in this poem. It’s my high, wispy voice. It’s your deep, dark voice. We don’t know each other’s names. We must ask before our time is up. We are restless, so restless, but we are not scared. We are sick of fear.

Michael Andor Brodeur can be reached at mbrodeur@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @MBrodeur.