Status: completed
I Have Only Myself to Give, Nothing More
Neun
“Where were you yesterday?” Dad asks the minute I walk through the door after getting off the school bus, and I have to swallow a laugh with my whimper because honestly? I’m surprised he even noticed or cared.
“With some friends,” I say casually, shrugging in a half-hearted attempt to hide the fact that I’m already shaking in fear.
Dad hauls himself to his feet, dragging his feet over to me and circling me like a bird of prey. “And didn’t even think to tell me,” he breathes in my face. “You bad boy.”
I stare into his hazel eyes, mirror reflections of my own, and pretend that I’m shivering because I’m cold.
“And do you know what happens to bad boys?” he asks, and I shake my head. “They get punished.”
“So punish me,” I hiss back, knowing that my anger won’t earn me any points but I just can’t help myself when day-in, day-out, nothing ever changes. It’s always the same fucking game.
I was a bad boy and he punished me for it.
“You’re not good enough!” he snarls in my ear, yanking my head back by my hair. “You’ll never be good enough!”
“I know. I know!” I sob out as he throws me to the ground before stomping off to lock himself in his home-office. “I know.”
There’s a fresh welt on my back, bruises dapple my face and arms, and my lip is split and bloody. I know I’m not good enough, Daddy, I think, dragging myself up to my room to tend to myself. You don’t have to remind me.
A shower sounds really good right about now, so I make my way over to the bathroom and turn the water on, letting hot steam fill the small room until I can’t hardly see the shower, but honestly, that’s a-okay with me.
Half the time, I’m half-afraid of my own voice, but somehow being in the shower, the water half drowning it out, I’m not half so afraid of it. “The I.V. and your hospital bed,” I sing in a shaky voice, letting the hot water stream over my trembling body. “This was no accident; this was a therapeutic chain of events.”
Maybe there are no accidents in life, I muse, shoving shampoo through my hair. Maybe every little fuck up was already planned, prepared, ready and just waiting to happen. Maybe God is smiling down on my father every time his fist hits me because that’s the way He decided it should be.
“This is the scent of dead skin on the linoleum floor. This is the scent of quarantine wings in a hospital,” I sing as the soap slides over my bruised skin and my abused mental state. “It’s not so pleasant and it’s not so conventional. It sure as hell ain’t normal, but we deal, we deal.”
And there are tears in my eyes when I step out onto the bathmat but I can trick myself into believing that it’s just leftover water from the shower. “The anesthetic never set in and I’m wondering where the apathy and urgency is that I thought I phoned it,” my voice is growing stronger even I can see the cuts and bruises and welts and scares on my body. “It’s not so pleasant and it’s not so conventional. It sure as hell ain’t normal, but we deal, we deal.”
Coping, I think bitterly. I’m always just coping. A harsh, barking laugh escapes from my lips and I promptly slip on the wet tile, awkwardly catching myself between the toilet and the sink.
And sometimes not even that.
Pulling myself back to my feet, I fling open the medicine cabinet, looking for the gauze and Neosporin and medical tape, and I sing as I stitch myself back together. “Can’t take the kid from the fight, take the fight from the kid. Sit back, relax, sit back, relapse again.”
I look at myself in the mirror and I can see more bandages than I see skin. More scarred than untouched. More broken than whole. And my eyes look wide and scared. My eyes are wide and scared. I am wide and scared.
It only takes a little bit to go from scared to scarred, but look! I’m already both.
I don’t think I can face the thought of homework tonight so I wander into my room and lie down on my bed, absent-mindedly picking a Sharpie up from my desk. Feeling dazed, I trace circles and loops and stars across my naked body.
He loves you, the pen says, stark black against my pale skin. He loves you. He loves you. He loves you. And I’m not really sure whether it’s talking about my father or Brendon.
Do I love him? And I’m not really sure whether I’m talking about my father or Brendon.
He loves you. He loves you, the pen taunts, adding sweeping hooks and swirls across my abdomen and down my bare legs.
Struck by a thought, I sit bolt upright on my bed and look in my mirror, wild eyes staring back at me. “I … can’t …” I choke out, watching my reflection stutter and suffocate right along with me.
My fingers tighten around the Sharpie until my knuckles turn white and I twist to one side, viciously digging the tip into my left shoulder blade—
DAMN FAGGOT
Then the pen falls from my fingers and I’m swaying on my feet, losing my balance, falling to one side, and the carpet is rushing up to meet me, catching me in a rough embrace.
And then I’m crying and screaming and kicking at the world around me and not caring that my father can probably hear me downstairs.
“With some friends,” I say casually, shrugging in a half-hearted attempt to hide the fact that I’m already shaking in fear.
Dad hauls himself to his feet, dragging his feet over to me and circling me like a bird of prey. “And didn’t even think to tell me,” he breathes in my face. “You bad boy.”
I stare into his hazel eyes, mirror reflections of my own, and pretend that I’m shivering because I’m cold.
“And do you know what happens to bad boys?” he asks, and I shake my head. “They get punished.”
“So punish me,” I hiss back, knowing that my anger won’t earn me any points but I just can’t help myself when day-in, day-out, nothing ever changes. It’s always the same fucking game.
I was a bad boy and he punished me for it.
“You’re not good enough!” he snarls in my ear, yanking my head back by my hair. “You’ll never be good enough!”
“I know. I know!” I sob out as he throws me to the ground before stomping off to lock himself in his home-office. “I know.”
There’s a fresh welt on my back, bruises dapple my face and arms, and my lip is split and bloody. I know I’m not good enough, Daddy, I think, dragging myself up to my room to tend to myself. You don’t have to remind me.
A shower sounds really good right about now, so I make my way over to the bathroom and turn the water on, letting hot steam fill the small room until I can’t hardly see the shower, but honestly, that’s a-okay with me.
Half the time, I’m half-afraid of my own voice, but somehow being in the shower, the water half drowning it out, I’m not half so afraid of it. “The I.V. and your hospital bed,” I sing in a shaky voice, letting the hot water stream over my trembling body. “This was no accident; this was a therapeutic chain of events.”
Maybe there are no accidents in life, I muse, shoving shampoo through my hair. Maybe every little fuck up was already planned, prepared, ready and just waiting to happen. Maybe God is smiling down on my father every time his fist hits me because that’s the way He decided it should be.
“This is the scent of dead skin on the linoleum floor. This is the scent of quarantine wings in a hospital,” I sing as the soap slides over my bruised skin and my abused mental state. “It’s not so pleasant and it’s not so conventional. It sure as hell ain’t normal, but we deal, we deal.”
And there are tears in my eyes when I step out onto the bathmat but I can trick myself into believing that it’s just leftover water from the shower. “The anesthetic never set in and I’m wondering where the apathy and urgency is that I thought I phoned it,” my voice is growing stronger even I can see the cuts and bruises and welts and scares on my body. “It’s not so pleasant and it’s not so conventional. It sure as hell ain’t normal, but we deal, we deal.”
Coping, I think bitterly. I’m always just coping. A harsh, barking laugh escapes from my lips and I promptly slip on the wet tile, awkwardly catching myself between the toilet and the sink.
And sometimes not even that.
Pulling myself back to my feet, I fling open the medicine cabinet, looking for the gauze and Neosporin and medical tape, and I sing as I stitch myself back together. “Can’t take the kid from the fight, take the fight from the kid. Sit back, relax, sit back, relapse again.”
I look at myself in the mirror and I can see more bandages than I see skin. More scarred than untouched. More broken than whole. And my eyes look wide and scared. My eyes are wide and scared. I am wide and scared.
It only takes a little bit to go from scared to scarred, but look! I’m already both.
I don’t think I can face the thought of homework tonight so I wander into my room and lie down on my bed, absent-mindedly picking a Sharpie up from my desk. Feeling dazed, I trace circles and loops and stars across my naked body.
He loves you, the pen says, stark black against my pale skin. He loves you. He loves you. He loves you. And I’m not really sure whether it’s talking about my father or Brendon.
Do I love him? And I’m not really sure whether I’m talking about my father or Brendon.
He loves you. He loves you, the pen taunts, adding sweeping hooks and swirls across my abdomen and down my bare legs.
Struck by a thought, I sit bolt upright on my bed and look in my mirror, wild eyes staring back at me. “I … can’t …” I choke out, watching my reflection stutter and suffocate right along with me.
My fingers tighten around the Sharpie until my knuckles turn white and I twist to one side, viciously digging the tip into my left shoulder blade—
DAMN FAGGOT
Then the pen falls from my fingers and I’m swaying on my feet, losing my balance, falling to one side, and the carpet is rushing up to meet me, catching me in a rough embrace.
And then I’m crying and screaming and kicking at the world around me and not caring that my father can probably hear me downstairs.
♠ ♠ ♠
:(