Silence echoes through the
house
Cold, hollow and mocking; it deafens me
I look around –
and I see the end
The end of an era that I cannot escape
This
was my childhood home
And those walls just claw me back
Good
memories pale beside the bad
It is time to say my final goodbye…I
hope
I hammer the ‘For-Sale’
sign into the ground,
And stroll down that country lane
I see
the curtains twitch, and the neighbors pause
My clothes –
flamboyant and designer – draw their gaze
I flaunt my
sexuality; revenge for all those times I could not
They remember
me, though they would rather not
I try to feel nostalgia or
sentimentality or even pain
But I am numbed by those oft-hid
daemons
I walk over to Main Street
I
sit down in the café and order espresso
I look at the scene
before me
And realize that that chapter of my life isn’t
closed
The coffee comes, laced with cruelty and sorrow
It burns
as it goes down, but it does not warm
I try to put the past behind
me,
But there are too many loose ends
I pay the
waiter, and flirt because I can
I ignore those stares –
heaven forbid I acknowledge the effect they have
The daemons of my
past come back to haunt me
But these people cannot provide
answers
I am only nineteen, but the weight of the years is on my
shoulders
I turn into an alley and buckle at the knees
Unwanted
tears well up; I quake in my boots
The first crack in my austere
façade
I wipe my face, and turn to walk
back to my car
But something makes me stop
Questions rage
inside my head, and refuse to be silent
My parents may be dead,
but they torment my thoughts
The pain I felt back then is welling
up inside me
And I shove it ruthlessly aside, as I have done
countless times before
I laugh – they finally dragged me
back to this hell-hole
Well, god help me, I am no longer a child
I walk like a
model through that town
My hips sway with every step
My apricot
scarf a proud flag to those bigots
A flag that cannot hide the
fear
I see a young man walk by, and I make sure he sees me
He
smirks when he sees me – oh, they all remember me
But
I am not the quivering little boy I was
He can’t spread
those devastating rumors anymore
But he isn’t
my father
He can’t answer the questions I need answered
He
can’t offer an explanation
He can’t give me closure
He
doesn’t say anything – and I don’t expect him to
I
have gotten out of there, and he is nothing to me
I don’t
care what he thinks of me
But his silence vindicates my
adolescence
I keep walking – and my head
floods with memories
I see the grocery store where my bike was
stolen
I see the police-men – grayer and rounder – who
laughed at my suffering
I see the boys who betrayed me to save
themselves
But I also force myself to see the things that helped
me escape
I see the ballet teacher who stood by me
I see the
one girl willing to befriend a fag
I see the nurse who forged
notes to get me out of gym class
Then comes the school
A place I
revisit only in safety of my shrink’s office
A place that
fought hard to keep me trapped
I graduated at only fifteen, and
still it felt like I spent an eternity there
In a way, I am
thankful for that school
The cloying walls that suffocated me were
motivation
They made me fight tooth and nail to escape
They
made me tough enough to push through the pain
I hate this place
Yet it has
made me who I am – for better or for worse
My haughty
arrogance, my aloof nature, my lack of trust
My fighting spirit,
my vulnerability, my carefully hidden softer side
It is the reason
I mix my vodka with angst and despair
It is the reason I epitomize
dispassion and confidence to the world
It is the reason my faults
are so inextricably tied to my virtues
It is the reason that deep
down, I’m still that same quivering little boy
Next I reach
the church
And all my doubt and fear resurfaces
They lost all
ability to frighten me long ago – or so I had believed
I
embraced atheism because of them, and their judgment washes over me
I
walk through the front door and take a seat in the back corner
I
wait, and hear the people start to fill the pews
Pious, agnostic
and atheist alike, they all come
For it is the only
acceptable thing to do
The young couple beside me doesn’t
recognize me
I remain silent, with not a single prayer leaving my
lips
Communion time
I don’t get up
As the people walk
by, they turn to me
They know who I am
They were there when I
broke down in tears in front of the church
They were there when my
father publicly disowned me
I think back to the last time I
was there
I remember the fear I felt as I was promised hellfire
and damnation
I remember the icy stares as the laity looked upon a
real, live faggot
I remember my father telling me, before them
all, that he had no son
And the pain they caused me has not
vanished
My sincere disdain for them hides the inferiority I
feel
But the real fight lies not with them, but with my own
daemons
They should be proud – they bred the creature I have
become
The bells toll, and the crowd
moves as one to leave
The last one to stand, I walk out in
silence
There is a gathering on the grounds, and I watch
The
priest stops as he passes me, and stares
I nod my head in
recognition, daring him to speak
He asks if I still bed with the
devil
I laugh and smile – he has no power anymore
But my
walls start to crack
As I wander from place to
place,
And relive the dark years of my adolescence
I discover
that I am still not free
Their condemnations, their judgment,
their scorn still haunt me
They can do me no more harm
For I am
already broken
I have paid a massive price to be free of them
But
it has not been enough
We all make our choices in
life
And I chose to run away without looking back
There are
questions that will never be answered
There are wounds that will
never be healed
I came when my mother died, dreading the
return
When I first got there, I wanted closure from
everything
Now I just want to run away again
I fought so hard
to escape, only to fall into another trap
I won’t be going to the
funeral
I could barely make myself come organize her affairs
My
mother held some small love for me,
And that is why I get the
house
And that is why I don’t want it
I would have traded
a million houses for her love and recognition
But she followed my
father like a dog
Even after his death
It is ironic that the only thing
worth dieing for is life
I have been away for only three years
But
it seems like far less
It seems like only yesterday that I dreaded
waking up in the morning
The chains of memory – and of
childhood – are insidious
I forged manacles for myself that
even I cannot undo
In escaping these people, I have been locked
inside myself
I finally thought I was healed, when I had really
just hidden the wounds
My heart beats
Thumping against
my chest
I have fought so hard to escape
Is it all in vain?
Is
it worth it anymore?
I yearn for the sweet release of
surrender
But they won’t get that from me
I will show
them that I am the stronger
What have I become?
I still
feel the need to have their validation
Am I only living to prove
them wrong?
I search within myself for answers
And realize they
are not there
The war that I thought was over, has only just
begun
I will show them and I will show myself
That I am not
worthless, that the fight is not in vain
It’s hard to convince others
you are worthy when you don’t believe it yourself
My words
proclaim a conviction I do not believe
My actions exude a
confidence I do not have
My icy dismissal shows a haughtiness that
I do not feel
My defenses are falling; my weakness becomes
apparent
The vulnerability I have hidden so carefully
resurfaces
Oh, how I hate to be needy – but I need a
shoulder to cry on
I need someone…how it galls me to admit
that
How is it possible to be so
arrogant yet feel so worthless
How can such a stoic face hide such
a tortured soul
How can someone so distrustful and distant be so
needy
I thought myself cold, but they are colder than I could ever
be
They feel no remorse for dragging me to rock-bottom
They
revel in my anguish, in my vain attempts at worthiness
They know
with such certainty that I am not worth the time of day
And I
cannot muster the strength to prove them wrong
Life – a life free of
daemons – is what I’m fighting for
My choice of armor
is my intellect
My sword is my dispassion
My balm – my
cynicism
The hurt they caused me burns sharply in my memory
But
that was just the sting; the venom still courses through my veins
I
may lose myself before I reconcile my past
But it all will be
worth it in the end
*****
I debated about submitting this for a long time, and in the end I
decided I would. It was written a while ago, and I have only changed
a couple of lines for this submission. Writing this was therapeutic
and done almost as a stream-of-consciousness, so forgive me if parts
of it seem incongruous or contradictory.
© 2007 Menzo