Irony: a work in progress

I would find a nice comfortable spot, in a really secluded space somewhere in the not so secluded chaos of the world. I would cry a good deep-from-the-inside-cry, letting go of all of the hurt and the pain and the horror of growing up in a family that was as welcoming as a Nazi rally to a Jewish homo. In the bathroom, in the morning while getting ready for school, I would look in the mirror and hate myself because I was different. And I would cry.

When I was sixteen, I tried to kill myself. I found a nice secluded place, cried for about an hour, and then swallowed a bottle of my mother’s pills. My father found me and was pissed because my mother really needed those pills. “I have to go all the way to the pharmacy to get your mom a new bottle,” he shouted.

When I turned eighteen, I wandered into a pool hall and fell in love with this guy. He said he liked me because I was quiet. He told me that if I did not have sex with him he would never talk to me again. He never gave me a chance to answer. I went into the bathroom and cried. “You’ll be fine,” he shouted to me. I was torn.

My mother died when I was 19, her body slumped in the big wooden rocking chair that overpowered the den. My father could not imagine her life without her and swallowed the pills that I had in my purse. I really needed those pills.

©2006