Twenty-One Wilted Roses

You look at me.

Holding a pencil and a pad of paper.

You ask me about the scar over my eye.

I say its a scratch.

You ask me if it hurts.

I think you're a fucking idiot.

Duh it fucking hurts.

But all I do is nod my head.

I don't want to anger you.

You start to write.

And ask me about my wife.

What wife?

You mean my husband?

No woman has ever laid a hand on me.

Not one, not ever.

Just Will.

I shake my head and sigh.

I tell that I'm not married to any woman.

Your eyebrows raise with concern.

Your girlfriend, you ask.

Agian, I shake me head.

You wonder how I got the scar.

I can see it in your eyes.

"Sir, I'm married to a man."

I said that more promiently.

More manly.

With more anger.

Your eyes shrink.

Your mouth turns into a sneer.

And you rip up the pad of paper.

You tell me, like i've been told times before, that you don't believe me.

That you won't serve fags.

And that no one wants to help the me.

For I am a sinner.

And should be punished for marring a man in the first place.

That if I was abused it was for my own good.

As punishment.

You get up.

Walk to your door.

And open it.

I walk out.

I tell you one last thing.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.