i walked away

“I walked away”

I’m gay

And my dad is really my grandfather because my real father was murdered in a drug deal gone bad

When I was nine years old

And my mother was murdered in that drug deal as well

So my grandmother has been my mother ever since

                And she is more understanding and she accepts me for who I am

But my grandfather slash father – he blames the minister who touched me

In those times of theological practice

In those times of close, personal counseling over the loss of my parents

In those times of care and concern and whispered voices and his trembling hand on my back, then down the small of my back

Then his arm around me – squeezing tighter until it was difficult to breathe

And then realizing what was next, making it impossible to breathe

It’s his FAULT for MAKING me a gay, a queer, a faggot - Says my granddad slash dad

And he thinks it’s a disease I can be cured from

A lifestyle CHOICE

That I can choose to make or not to make

I can’t help it that vaginas are slippery and gross

I can’t not like the neat, hard, smooth feel of him in my hand or against my lips

But if you asked my papa slash daddy, he would tell you with surety that I am damaged goods

A broken chair leg that no amount of glue will hold together

No nails, no wires, no tape – nothing works

I’m a clay pot with a tiny crack where the water and the wine slowly leak out

Forming a puddle on the bottom

I finished college, in hopes that he would smile on graduation day and be proud

So proud, that I could see it in his eyes

I got my own place, a great place – and filled it with new, stylish furniture and got a great car and nice clothes and a kick ass haircut

Hoping that just one of those things would make him see that I could blossom and succeed, and that it was okay – that I AM okay

I got published

And I got a great full time job and I stood in lines and went to the store and hung my own pictures, and even fixed the faucet by myself when I had a leak in the kitchen once

But he would never acknowledge that I was a man or that I had done any good or had the legs to stand on my own and make it in a world that he believed was built only for men who were built for women

And sometimes I did things that I hated myself for because I was afraid to let myself feel how much he hated me

For being unlike him

For breaking the code

For fucking boys my age and older men

For getting so drunk that I talked with my eyes shut and doing all of the things that he believed I’d been doing before I’d even done them

So I lived up to his standards, in hopes that somehow and in some way I could make him proud and no longer disappoint him

Hating him for wanting his approval

Hating him for denying it to me

He died not too long ago

And at the funeral I stared at the coffin while they lowered it into the ground

I wanted the lid to pop open and for him to sit up in the satin resting place

I wanted to see just one look from him – one smile, one hint of pride, one word

On shred of acceptance after all of my trying and all I’d done and all of these years

After building and creating a life like the popsicle stick village that I made when I was ten

And I carried it to him on both hands

Balancing the cardboard base – I tiptoed carefully into the kitchen and stood there until he turned to see me

But he thought I’d melted all the popsicles to make it and he knocked it out of my hands and it broke across the room

So today I waited for his lifeless corpse to show some sign of love for me

But nothing happened

It started to rain and the wind picked up

So I turned around and walked away