Anticipation broken
in a mere moment's
swift revelation.

My mandible meets the floor
as if it had once been supported
by the pedestal I placed you upon,
a concrete structure of expectations
shattered by a single fault.

I've practiced this scene.
Since you chose gymnastics over football
because the uniforms looked better.
I've been memorizing my lines,
purposefully chosen
for ease of speech and self-deceiving duplicitous denial.
But when the drama came
because you couldn't play the part,
I looked to your mother for motivation.

"Everything's gonna be okay," I'm supposed to say,
letting the words roll from my lips
akin to "the check is in the mail."
Though my tongue lay as heavy as the burden you just released,
through the magic of truncation,
"It's okay," spills out
on whispered winds.

A single glance lets you know that I'm a horrible liar.
A visage of stone
that would not erode
under a torrent of tears at my mother's passing
finds itself infirm.
I close my eyes momentarily;
my soul needs no window.
It speaks through rigid silence.

Your voice trembles,
pain mirroring my own.
All I can do is reflect.

I weigh the why's and, finding them useless,
place them on the shelf
near the what-did-I-do's,
prefering instead the what-do-I-do-now's.

Perusing propaganda,
I spectate as baby pictures
swim in pools permeated by purple and pink triangles,
rainbows, and teletubbies,
praying that a vengeful and disapproving God
turns a blind all-seeing eye.
Hopes of home videos
written, produced and directed by grandkids,
are washed away
by waves of "Queer As Folk" reruns.

Then, as it has a way of doing,
reality seeps in.
My self-contrived impression of society's unmentionables
is assuaged by visions that don't originate
in a pretentious tunnel...
...visions of what you could've been...

You could've been dead...
You could've been a victim of modern immorality,
withering in a disease ridden shell...
You could've sat inside yourself,
chained by a fear I'll never know...

...what you could be...

A physicist...
An electric will-worker like myself...
I've never seen the letters PhD preceded by any classifications, least of all "homosexual."
And it wouldn't mean a damn if it were.

...what you are...

A man...
My son...

Standing,
I don't need the reassuring nudge that your mother provides,
but it helps,
keeping me from retreating
into that place in my mind
where nothing deviates.

In an embrace, acceptance is granted,
paving the way for tedious understanding.
I clasp the flesh of my loins,
forged in passion and tempered with love,
and your skin feels no different...

The lump in my throat is battered
by a truth that will NOT be denied.

"I love you."

"the malice I use is comparable to a warlock." - Murdoc

"I never said that battlin me, would be impossible
I just think it's highly motherfuckin improbable
You talkin to a nigga that can split molecules
to subatomic particles, strong enough to stop a bull
Body-slam two oxes and drop a mule
Urinatin rocket fuel" - Canibus

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