Tag: Abuse

The Real Me.


When I was fifteen I lost my virginity in the bathroom of the Exxon gas station across the street from Union Station to a guy named AJ that I never saw again. I had just met him a few minutes before, in the bathroom at Union Station, next to the food court. I don’t even remember what we talked about or what he looks like. It was quick and dirty and painful, and all I got out of it was the experience of having been fucked in the ass for the first time. I mean, I guess he was kind to agree to wear a condom, and he didn’t shove it in without lube, but that was about as much consideration as I think he gave me during the process. He was 23 years old and he knew I was only 15. My introduction to sex and relationships with men was quick, dirty, and painful as I was bent over a sink losing my virginity to some random guy in a public restroom. We said we were in a relationship for the two weeks we chatted on the phone, only to have him abandon me, never to be heard from again. So began my clandestine promiscuity.

I never bothered to look at the root of my sexual behaviors until now. I never thought that they were unhealthy or uncontrollable, but looking back, I definitely wasn’t in control. I was wagering my body for kindness and love and affection. I realize now that random sex with strangers was my way of coping with all of the trauma and stress I had endured during my childhood. I would not let anyone in too close because I have been so terribly devastated by people that claim to love me. The few that did really love me found a way to abandon me somehow. That’s why I’ve never really given myself fully to another. I didn’t want to be hurt any deeper or abandoned or both, but look at me now… Alone. Still. And that shit hurts.

I used to brag about how I had a fake id when I was 15 and was hitting clubs at that age too, but that shit was rooted in pain and separation. I felt like an outcast at home, at school, and at work. I was constantly trying to be the version of me that people liked so that they wouldn’t mistreat me, and going to a gay club with gay people, like me, made me feel seen. I could be myself and not worry about castigation, being made to feel disgusting, or told I’m going to hell for being attracted to men. I could relax and try to discover more about this lifestyle of which I had no knowledge. 

I was GREEN but had a phenomenal poker face and a noggin full of stories at the ready to throw off any bouncer that might question my identification card. I memorized addresses, dates, id numbers, and even created back stories for the “character” on the id I was “pretending” to be. I used my own name though. I knew that the less I had to falsify the better, and I had just gotten a debit card with my name on it for the first time, and nobody in 1998/1999 thought a 15 year old would have a debit card. It all worked to my advantage. I had to have variety when it came to id’s just in case one got burned or confiscated or lost. I used addresses of relatives or other people I knew and would just change the city or state as needed. I knew that once I got into the rhythm of the story that the details would come to me. I literally created a fake college background because when I was 15-17 I was pretending to be 19-21 and in college. I used my same birthday but changed the year to 1978 when I was 17, so that I could be 21 in 1999. I even got fake id’s for a few of my friends. By the time I graduated from high school in June of 2000, I had several phenomenal fake id’s (for the times), was extremely popular at “Jenny’s” and “The Mill” (2 old DC Gay Clubs), and had already had sex with close to 30 guys and had had sexual “experiences” with twice that many. I was still only 17. 

Cars, motels, hotels, parks, alleys, bathrooms, clubs, stairwells, parking garages, and occasionally a bedroom were the places I got my tutelage in sex between 15-18. My family made it clear to me through the entirety of my adolescence that I could NOT come to them with this gay shit. So I had to figure it out on my own. Television and movies weren’t kind either, and the internet was basically a startup in 97-98. The Union Station food court bathroom is infamous now too. There are probably still boys seeking sexual refuge and men preying upon them in that bathroom today. Right now. Cause I was one of those lost boys who’s entire sexual identity has been predicated upon the experiences I had in the Union Station food court bathroom, and the Exxon across the street, when I was 15 years old.

I remember the first person in my family to call me a faggot. It was my youngest aunt. We’re only eight years apart. She was part (mean) big sister, and part (mean) aunt. In my earliest memories of her, she wasn’t kind to me. It was like she resented me for some reason that I could never identify, and this was even before my parents died. I think maybe she resented my sister and me because we took her away from OUR parents. She was a kid, so mostly I don’t blame her for the resentment, just what she did with it. After my parents died and my sister and me moved into the house with my aunt and grandmother, my aunt would almost yell at me everyday. She would find something to nitpick and she led the charge in labeling me “annoying” when I was 7, a word that still triggers me today. That word would be used to justify the mistreatment of me by everyone in my immediate family including my own sister. It was, however, my youngest aunt who started saying it first. She would also mumble “faggot” underneath her breath in the beginning, when other people weren’t around. Soon she began to say it with impunity and even allowed her friends to pick on me and call me sissy, faggot, soft, girly, and anything else they could think of to get a rise out of me. They would pick on me and push me around and when I would go after them I would get into trouble, like I was the one who caused the issue. Then there was the time she called me a “fucking faggot” while she was washing dishes because she had asked me to do something and I refused. I called her a “ho” after she called me a ‘faggot” and she told my grandmother and my grandmother washed my mouth out with soap. She knew that she could get me into trouble easily and would often weaponize my fear of her brother (my abuser) against me. They all did. I NEVER had a voice when I was a kid, and it’s sad reliving these painful memories, especially since that same aunt became one of the closest people to me later in life. It’s like how do you hold people accountable for doing some fucked up shit to you that you never got over, but also love them, and be around them? I buried my pain for what I thought was the greater good, and the shit has been tearing me up for 32 years. My family really broke me, and now I’m the only one that can fix me and the shit is hard and I’m still so damn alone. I can’t remember the last Christmas or New Year I didn’t spend alone; last couple of birthdays too. 

I remember the day I started to change who I was around people. I was in the backseat of my abuser’s MPD Detective cruiser. I was about 10 or 11 and I had asked to stop at 7-11 for a Slurpee. I knew that the only way he’d stop is if I offered to treat everyone in the car, so I did. My grandfather would always give me money back then so I always had a few dollars in my pocket. My abuser’s partner was in the front seat of the car and my cousin, my sister, and me were in the backseat. He made me give my sister and cousin the money and let them go in to buy the Slurpees while I stayed in the car. Then “Weak” by SWV came on the radio and I started singing. The song was new back then and everybody was feeling it. Before I knew it, my abuser had reached back and punched me in my chest. He yelled at me to stop singing that “girl song” and told me that I better not sing anymore songs by females that came on the radio. I was hurt, physically and emotionally, embarrassed, and holding back the tears as best I could. I knew that day that I would have to change who I was around this man and subsequently around everyone, in order to survive. His partner sat there in silence. Maybe because he was in shock or maybe because he didn’t care, but he never said a word. I buried the pain of literally having the life snatched out of my voice by this man like I buried the pain caused by my aunt and the rest of my family.

My first love, and the only thing left on this earth that loved me back was music, and he tried to take that from me too. They all did. My family constantly told me to “shut up” when I would sing around the house, even if I was in my own room. I successfully auditioned for and attended an elite musical program in high school too. I even got a solo my junior year during our Christmas show and my grandmother only showed up outside to pick me up after, and the solo was dedicated to her. They never pushed or even supported my pursuit of and love for music. Singing was my only refuge. It still is.  All of my attempts to love my family in my adolescence seemed to go unrequited. Then I met “AJ” at Union Station, and across the street in the Exxon gas station is where I surrendered my innocence, and he took it. 

Then when I was 16, after my “first love” (not AJ), I met “Triple D”. He was 25 when we met and 26 by the first time we went out on a date. We also met at Union Station, but not in the bathroom or in a sexual situation. By the time I graduated from high school the following year, he had already put me through a whirlwind of emotions and disappearing acts. Everything would be fine and then I wouldn’t hear from him for weeks or months and then he’d just pop back up like nothing ever happened. He would mess with other guys too. That went on until I was 25. Back and forth, breakup to makeup to breakup again was our pattern, and he never really even acknowledged me in public either. He knew he had no business dating me when I was in the the 12th grade, especially since he was an administrator in another school district. He’s some of y’all’s frat brother too. I’m not even trying to blow that man’s life up either, but this pattern that has permeated my life since I was 15 has got to stop. 

I learned early from the death of my parents and the unrequited love of my family, that abandonment was a part of life, and I baked that in to every one of my relationships. Most folks proved me right too, but some relationships I definitely sabotaged because I didn’t want them to hurt me, so I found a way out. I felt like I could hold on to a semblance of power and control if I remained promiscuous and never gave myself fully to another. Like, no one can hurt me if I don’t give them all of me, right? WRONG! I got lost in all of that. The me that I was trying to protect got buried with my pain underneath the facade. I knew that on my everyday face I could mask the pain by being the person that people liked and didn’t find “annoying”. I drank a lot too, for years, just trying to cope. So, in an effort to protect myself, I began to poison my spirit with sex and alcohol. I traipsed in and out of love affairs and sexual liaisons convinced that I was looking for something, but all I was doing was numbing the pain and tainting my soul. I never had an STD either. I prided myself on not having unprotected sex, and had not since 2002 and by the time I had reached my 30th birthday in 2012, I was still STD free. I was still fucking randoms though, but in beds by this time. I had gotten so used to being negative that when I got my test results on March 29, 2014, I couldn’t speak. 

I had been working undercover in vice for the 6 months prior buying drugs and doing human trafficking operations, but had just gone back to patrol on midnights while I began planning my move to Los Angeles which wouldn’t happen for another two years. I got off work about 0600 and arrived to my doctor’s office at Providence Hospital to get the results of my routine bloodwork. The office didn’t open until 0800 so I slept in the car until then. I only remember being in the exam room and hearing the news, then I remember being on Central Avenue in Largo stopping at the liquor store. I bought two bottles of wine and then I went to my youngest aunts house and rang her doorbell. It was a Saturday morning. She was still asleep and her oldest daughter answered the door. I asked my cousin to wake up my aunt and have her come downstairs and talk to me. When she came downstairs moments later, she was calm and measured, exactly what I needed her to be. At this point in our lives we were extremely close. She was closer to me than probably any other relative in my family. Our relationship had changed right around my junior year of high school after my sister had left for college. We started being kind to each other, and when we did, we grew closer as each year passed. We talked 2-3 times a week, and hung out regularly for several years. By the time March 2014 had arrived, she was more like my sister and best friend than that mean and scathing aunt she was to me when we were younger. I had never confronted her with the pain she caused me though, even now. I had never held her accountable for the ways she contributed to the terror I had suffered during my childhood, mostly because I didn’t want her to stop loving me. I was afraid to tell her how deeply her words and actions toward me as a child cut me, partly also because on March 29, 2014, as I sat on her couch in her living room, and told her that I had tested positive for HIV, she held my hand and my head while I cried. Then, a week later, at my first visit to an ID doctor, she held my hand and my head while I cried again, and for that I will forever be grateful. We don’t talk now though because of how I’ve had to hold my family accountable for the tyranny and abuse I endured. I had to stop loving her too. I  buried that love like I used to bury my pain in order to see things more clearly and in order to heal.

Gratefully, now I am undetectable and healthy. I stopped drinking about 4 years ago and recently stopped having random sex too. It took me all of these years to see how I had used them both to cope and that these coping mechanisms were destroying my soul. I had let the emotional and physical abuse from my family push me into a sexual deviance that threatened my very life and I used my career as cover. I let those closest to me believe that I got stuck by a needle at work so I could shift the blame for my choices just a little bit. The truth is, I have no idea where I got it because I can’t even remember most of their names. I hadn’t had unprotected sex in 12 years when I found out I was HIV positive in 2014, and felt like God had betrayed me. I cried for weeks, but mostly shouldered the burden of my plight alone. I felt like I had already been through enough. I didn’t even tell my work partner at the time and he’s my cousin. I didn’t know who to trust, especially on the Metropolitan Police Department. I still don’t. My cousin had never really shown up for me anyway in a meaningful way, so I wasn’t going to tell him and have him disappoint me. I contacted my sexual partners (that I could reach) and shared the news. I also told my best friend(s), and my grandmother. 

Ironically the virus forced me to grow in ways I didn’t think possible before 3/29/14. It forced me to examine behaviors and trends in my life and lifestyle and to determine if they were still working, but mostly it taught me to have some compassion for myself. I began to let go of some of my own judgmental and manipulative ways and to face myself. I’m still facing myself. I want love, commitment, kindness, and passion from a relationship. I was too afraid to allow myself to want what I really wanted because when I was 15 what I wanted wasn’t possible. Gays couldn’t get married in 1998, then there was the end of the world scare in 2000, and all of those years spent in church being told that my very being was an abomination. I had no idea when I was 15 years old that I would ever even make it to 39. My parents didn’t. So I was reckless with my body and my spirit. I’m not reckless anymore. I’m not afraid to face myself or any of you, as exactly who I am anymore either. I’ve done a great deal of work on myself, learning to let go of my anger with the past, but not burying it anymore. The only way to surmount any obstacle is through confrontation, not retreat. I’m now ready to confront any issue, any obstacle, and any trauma as the real me.

June 8, 2000 at Houston’s in Georgetown

Birthdays (7-9)


Since I was seven years old my birthday has always served as a cruel reminder that my father shot and killed my mother, then himself, in front of me, the day before, in our living room. Now that’s some serious irony right there. My parents died in the fucking “living room” on Friday, December 1, 1989. Just looking at that date on my screen now makes me cringe. My life’s been full of irony, though I’ve learned to just gut it out. And if I ain’t got shit else, I got guts! You’ll see.

When I saw my father kneel next to my mother’s lifeless body and turn her MPD service Glock toward his head, I knew what was next. I looked away, but I didn’t run next door until I saw his body, face down, almost on top of my mother. I ran outside, and when I almost got to Benny, our next door neighbor, I looked behind me and saw my sister run back in, but by this time Benny or someone had ushered me into their house. I must’ve passed out, or fell asleep, or something, because I have no recollection of the moments after I got into Benny’s house. When I came to, standing over me, with an almost commandingly gentle presence, was a Detective; my mother’s younger brother, asking me what happened. For some reason, I’ve always vividly remembered reporting their death to him like I was one of his subordinates. I said “he shot her in the head and then he shot himself; they should both have gunshot wounds to their heads.” It was like I already knew that he required me to always address him with deference, even during this tragic moment. I was afraid of him. I’ve known it since that moment. That day. 

I’m still not quite sure why though. What had he done to make me fear him before this day? Why did I fear him now? He took us, my sister and me, to his apartment for the night. He’d just gotten married, his wife was pregnant, and it was a one-bedroom apartment uptown D.C. 

The next day was my birthday. I was seven. Seven. 

After we ate Crunch Berries I was summoned to the bathroom by my mother’s brother. He told me to sit down on the toilet, turn around with my back facing him, and then he told me that “rattails were for sissy’s” and he cut my rattail. The rattail was something my father started growing and I liked it. I’m certain this man knew that even then. But he was in charge now. He was in charge of me and what happened to me. This was his way of letting me know who had the power. He did. Because my father, who’s name I carry (with love), killed his sister (my mother), in cold blood, the day before. My seventh birthday began with my introduction into a new regime, and my mother’s brother, formerly my uncle and godfather (more fucking irony), was its leader and number one terrorist. And he couldn’t fucking stand sissies and faggots. Especially me. I’m the son of the man that killed his sister (my mother). And I’m already gay. And he already know’s it. And hate’s it. And hate’s me. 

That birthday was amazing though! We went to Chuck E. Cheese as planned and I got money from everybody. I played as many games as I wanted and everybody made an effort, albeit out of sympathy and pity, to make my 7th birthday special. I got about a hundred dollars too. I still remember. That weewkend, my sister and I moved into my maternal grandmother’s three-bedroom rambler in Capital Heights where she and my teenage aunt already occupied the two largest rooms. Now, after having our own separate rooms in the home our parents owned, we were relegated to the “den” where we slept on a decades old, ROLL out, pissy sofabed, for several months. We ended up getting and “sharing” (sorta) a day bed until 1994 when we moved into a larger home in Temple Hills. We’ll delve into that later though.

My eighth birthday I got a beating from my mother’s brother, in the living room of my grandmother’s house, while EVERYONE watched and laughed. They laughed while I cried. What had I done to get a beating, and on my birthday no less? He said after he finished hitting me that they were birthday licks while I tearfully looked at him with confusion about the unprovoked beating. There was no count though. Those “licks” were strikes. They hurt me. It was a beating. I ran into the bathroom and cried for a little while and then I finally came out and went to bed. Clearly my tears meant nothing to them. I was there for their amusement, treated like an annoying court jester, ridiculed for being sensitive, and terrorized for being gay. And my sister wasn’t even on my side. I remember feeling like she was going along to get along, keeping her head low and not making any waves until she could do her own thing. But I couldn’t. Not yet. My slip was showing. I couldn’t hide who I was yet. I didn’t know how. I just wanted them to feel sorry for me again like they had the year before, when they were nice to me, when they cared about me, and my feelings. That was the first time he beat me though, on my 8th birthday. Licks… 

Around that same time, his wife took their baby and moved to New York with her family without any notice. From what I’ve heard, she got tired of the beatings too. She had a way out. I didn’t. I wanted to go too though. I remember wishing she had taken me. She got me roller skates for that birthday. They were my first and only pair, and they were gray. He brought them though.

Somewhere between my eighth and ninth birthday’s was the first time anyone had weaponized my mother’s brother, grandmother’s son, and now my abuser, against me. 

It was my oldest aunt. I kept walking around the house after eating too much at dinner saying, “I’m cramping”, or “I feel like I’m about to come on”. 

My stomach was hurting. I couldn’t shit, so I knew it wasn’t that. It felt like I had bad fucking cramps. So, I said what I had heard all of the women in the house and in my life say when they had FUCKING cramps. She called her brother, my grandmother’s son, and my abuser on the telephone and he was there within the hour to “straighten me out”. I was terrified. I thought I should have just suffered in silence rather than have him come over to terrorize me yet again. It was bad enough that everything I did or said was used against me. I didn’t know how to act because I was constantly told that how I was acting wasn’t right. By this time I was used to the micro-aggressions from my family, and teachers, and peers, but she was actually calling in reinforcements this time to scold me and “straighten me out”. I turned my feelings inward and went to my (shared) bedroom for solace before my impending doom arrived. He came over and gave me a stern tongue lashing about how little boys shouldn’t say what I said, but he never told me why. He then told me that I would get in trouble if I repeated those things in the future. So, for repeating some harmless statement about cramps that I had taken out of context, I was now being threatened with physical harm. Because I definitely knew “trouble” was code for “ass whooping”. I couldn’t understand why or how my words caused them so much distress that my body was now being threatened. I was eight.

I have no recollection of my ninth birthday. None. Maybe because of my eighth, but who knows.

I think a big part of me has been chasing the high of my 7th birthday, hoping that I could feel seen the way I thought I had then. I realize now that they didn’t see me. Pity isn’t adoration or love. It’s condescending sadness. I don’t want that from anyone. Not anymore.

Little Girl


Yesterday, while at work I received a call in the station from a concerned aunt. She was calling to have someone assist her in checking on the welfare of her young niece whom she thought may have been involved in an abusive relationship with her estranged husband. When I arrived at the address she gave me in N.W. Washington D.C. to assist the young lady she was nowhere to be found. However, her “husband” (who knows if they’re truly married) was on the scene. He allowed myself and the other officers there to assist me, inside of the residence to talk. Shortly after I was able to get the young lady on the telephone and she began to describe how this man continues to threaten her life and physically abuse her daily. Astounded, I immediately placed the man under arrest for Domestic Violence, of which he’d been arrested before in during a previous relationship. I urged the young lady to come to the scene in order for myself and the other officers to make sure that she was okay, and she obliged. After another brief interview of the young lady, I transported her “husband” to the police station for processing. It was then, that I discovered that not only was he abusing her physically and threatening her life, but he was also forcing her to prostitute herself in order to pay the bills in the house. A man she’d only known for about 3 months was able to manipulate her and force her into a world of which many young girls rarely escape.  I’d like to be able to say that I couldn’t believe it, but it’s something I’ve seen far too many times during my tenure as a police officer. Having worked with young girls in prostitution in the past, I knew exactly what direction this needed to be taken, however, initially I’d not bargained for this case to go this far. After collecting all of the witness statements, and other facts and data, I was able to charge this man with the felony he had committed in order to detain him before he’d be formally charged the next day.

I arrived at court this morning to speak with the attorney and to “paper” this case. During my conference with the attorney (a woman), she decided that we needed to call the young victim in order to “verify” her story and to move forward with the case. From the beginning of the attorney’s conversation with the young girl, the attorney was very impatient. She was simply a “just the facts” type of person, who clearly didn’t understand that with such trauma this young girl had experienced, she needed to be handled with kid gloves and be allowed to tell her story. It didn’t take long for the girl to grow extremely upset with the attorney and to disconnect the call. I immediately tried to call the young girl back to get her to talk to me, of which she obliged. Later, I was able to allow her to speak with another attorney in order to get her whole story out. The things she described, the sexual acts she mentioned, and the many men she had sex with, was truly disheartening. I had to stop and think what could have happened in this young girl’s life to make her so weak, vulnerable, and naive. I learned through this interview that she’d had her first child at 13 and her second not too far behind, and now she’s only 21 years old. How devastating is this, I thought. As I continued to listen to her story, I had to walk away. In part because, she was such a weak soul, and couldn’t grasp the concept that she’d been brainwashed, and the other because her grammar was poor, and I couldn’t grasp everything she was trying to convey. I listened to her say that she thought that every relationship was supposed to involve physical violence, as this was all she knew, and all she’d ever experienced. I listened to her tell us how this man exploited her, and placed ads for sex on different websites in order for her to perform these sexual acts for money. And the whole time I thought, what will she become? How can she ever be more? What about her children? Where are they now? Who stole her innocence?

A poor little girl inside and out. She knew nothing of the real world and how to move passed one’s past. She only knew that she had a pretty face, and a slim waist and that the only thing she was worth was a fuck. She had been beaten over and over by men, and those around her who were supposed to love her, and she never learned to love herself because of it. And I just couldn’t believe it. I just didn’t want to think about it. But I knew that she needed someone to fight for her, and I knew that it had to be me. I find it such a shame that people are so broken, that they think they don’t have a way out. These people think that they have nowhere to go because they’re ill-educated and have been broken into pieces. Today, in a small way, I was able to give her a piece of peace. I was able to show her a way out. I only hope that she see’s the light, and finds her path. Because this pretty little girl didn’t deserve this.

“Little girl, little girl. Wonder are you listening. Little girl, little girl. Struggling with your confidence. Little girl, little girl. God made you so beautiful. Little girl, little girl. I just thought that you should know.” (Thanks Mary Mary).

 

Resentment


“I’m crying, can’t stop crying, can’t stop crying.”

I had a dream last night. In it I was being chased and attacked by a Rottweiler, of which I was desperately afraid. In an adjacent room was my grandmother, my sister, and my aunt watching me as I was mauled with every misstep by this Rottweiler. They all sat there as this dog and me destroyed the house. My grandmother said nothing. She made no moves, and didn’t even bother to acknowledge my cries. After it was over, I was lambasted and ordered to leave the house. My grandmother started screaming at me for “destroying” her house. I started screaming back because I had literally just evaded what could have been my death. I screamed “WHAT ABOUT ME!” This dog just tried to kill me and she just let him. She just let him maul me. She watched me in excruciating pain and agony and did nothing to protect me. She did nothing to stop him. Then, in my dream, my aunt jumped up trying to push me out the house and we started fighting.

I woke up, looked at my clock, and started crying. This is why…

“I wish I could believe you, then I’d be alright. But now everything you told me really don’t apply to the way I feel inside.”

I woke up this morning in hysterics, crying bitter, semi-sweet tears. Bitter because of what its taken me over 20 years to figure out, and semi-sweet because I’ve finally figured it all out. I’m told often, almost weekly, and sometimes even daily, that I appear to be very angry and aggressive. My disposition, my voice, and even in my writing seems to convey a sentiment of anger or aggression. It comes out when I’m driving and I have a bit of road rage. It comes out when I have bouts with authority. It’s even expressed through my constant change in mood. I hear it so often that I’ve grown to accept that its what I exude, and although its never been my intent, I AM ANGRY! Before today, I was absolutely unsure of exactly where it came from. Therapists have told me that it’s a direct result of post traumatic stress syndrome stemming from the loss of my parents at such a tender age in my development. I was almost 7. But today, this morning, before the sun came up, when it was still dark outside and only an occasional car could be heard from my bedroom window, at 5:15 a.m. I awoke from my dream, and it hit me like a ton of bricks, rocked me to the core, and now I know why.

“Loving you was easy, once upon a time.”

It started immediately. The day after they died was my seventh birthday. My uncle had taken my sister and me to his house after we were briefly questioned by MPD. He had an apartment uptown on 13th street around the corner from 4D. I can’t remember if his new bride was there that night or the next day or at all. But the next morning; Saturday December 2, 1989 was my birthday. I remember that he gave me Cap’n Crunch (my favorite) cereal for breakfast. Afterwards, he took me into the bathroom in this tiny one-bedroom apartment, sat me on the toilet, pulled out scissors, and cut my rattail. My father started letting me grow a rattail a few months back. I guess now that he was gone, this uncle needed to show me, a seven year-old, on my birthday, the day after my parents died, that HE was in charge now. He told me that only sissy’s wear rattails. Slowly my uncle started weaving his ideals into fabric of who he thought I was going to be. I remember one night after I’d just finished dinner, I was stuffed and my stomach was in knots. and I began to have what I thought felt like a stomach cramp. Now, I was a little boy living in a house full of females, and far too often I remember hearing talk of pads, and tampons, and “periods”. I quickly learned exactly what it was, its symptoms, and its effects. But anyway, I had just finished eating, and I remember my oldest aunt and my cousin being there. I started walking around the house holding my stomach, and like I’d heard the ladies in the house say before, I said, “I got cramps, and I feel like I’m about to come on”, jokingly. My aunt overheard me and said, “little boys don’t say that.” At that very moment I glanced over to my other aunt, the youngest, right as she looked at me with disdain, and mumbled, “faggot” underneath her breath. I quickly looked away from her trying to pretend that I didn’t hear what she said. Then, my older aunt said to me, “you better not say that again or I’m going to call your uncle.” So, with fear in my eyes and heart, I shut down. A short while later, while still feeling the pain in my stomach I walked towards the bathroom and mumbled to myself, “It hurts. I feel like I’m pregnant.” But I didn’t realize at the time, that the other person mumbling in the house was standing nearby and overheard me and announced it. The older female immediately got on the phone and called my uncle. OMG! I’m in trouble now, I thought. But my stomach really did hurt, and I hadn’t said anything that I didn’t learn from the women around me. “Why do I have to get in trouble?” Shortly after, the uncle arrives to have a “Man to Man” talk with me about men and what they should and should not say. After his tedious monologue, I shook my head and let him know that I understood and walked away. I remember thinking “Whhhhew! I’m glad I didn’t get a beating.”

Time went on, and occasionally I’d still, unbeknownst to me, say things that “little boys don’t say”, but there weren’t anymore “Man to Man” talks. The “Man to Man” encounters became “Man beating little boy ” encounters, cause there weren’t gonna be any faggots in this family. But it seemed like every time I got a beating for whatever the surface reason was, I’d think to myself… “Everybody keeps calling me a faggot though, and you’re trying to beat it out of me, while you and the rest of the people around me keep saying it.” I knew I didn’t say it. I hated the word. It was an epithet that rivaled “Nigger” in my eyes, but I couldn’t control people saying it to me. They said when I was at school, and they said it when I was at home too. Everybody in my immediate family, at some point, used this dreadful, pejorative epithet to castigate me, and not one of them ever protected me from the others.

“Why did I deserve to be treated this way?”

No one stood up for me; not even the very person who stood beside me while our parents died in front of us. What had I done, at 7 years old, to be treated this way? I mean… Yeah I was nosey. Yeah I had a smart mouth. Yeah I got into fights in school. Yeah, I talked back to the teachers. Yeah I was running around, and always into something. But then again… Isn’t that what “little boys” are “supposed” to do? I was a FUCKING child! And I’m sitting here typing this shit on the verge of tears yet again because now, I’M A FUCKING ANGRY ADULT! Did they ever stop to think that I was fighting in school and a smart ass because I was being ridiculed? Did they ever stop to think that I was always into something because I needed some attention? Did they ever stop to think that I was nosey because I was all alone, and even amongst my childhood friends I was still called “faggot”? Did they ever stop to think that I needed someone, anyone, to show me the love that I had lost? Nope! Not one of them considered what obstacles in life I faced as a child. All they knew was that I was their faggot nephew, brother, cousin, grandson! When I got in trouble in school for talking back or fighting, there was never a question of who was to blame. It was always me! And how do I say, “well they call me faggot everyday,” or “they pick on me because I’m smaller than everybody else”? I didn’t even want to acknowledge that word because I hated it so much. I didn’t want to be embarrassed even more by allowing myself to dare utter such a word. I didn’t want them to look at me and say “well, you brought it on yourself, because you’re a FAGGOT!” So instead, I took my punishment. I took the beatings, and the television restrictions, and the suspensions, and even an expulsion. I took it all, because I wasn’t gonna let them see me sweat. NO TEARS!

“I know you’re probably thinking, what’s up with” me? I’ve been crying too long. What did you do to me?”

I fought back! That day when we were in New Jersey, walking back from the store, you called me a faggot, and I called you a BITCH, and I meant it! But I wasn’t gonna tell anybody what you said, because I didn’t wanna face it, so I lied. I told them you called me Mother Fucker, and still got my mouth washed out with soap. No one stood up for me. Then when we got back to DC I got a beating too. But who cares… right? That day, around Christmas time when you were washing dishes, and you told me to leave you alone, I got smart, you called me a faggot, and I said Santa Claus was calling you when he said “ho, ho, ho”, I meant it. But I wasn’t gonna tell anybody what you called me, because I didn’t wanna face it, so I lied. I told them I never said it, and still got my mouth washed out with soap again. Then later that week, I got another beating. That day we were fighting after you told me to leave you alone and get out of “our” room, you called me a faggot, and I fought extra hard that day even though you were a little bigger! I wasn’t sad. I was bitter! That day you were taking me to Camp Schmidt and I left something behind and ran back to get it, I got back in the car, and you told I ran like I faggot, I REMEMBER, and I’ll never forget it. The Christmas in the 5th grade that I didn’t get until February of the following year because I talked back to a teacher, I haven’t forgotten. The time I accidentally locked your keys in the trunk of your car, you told me to figure out how to get them out, and then told me that if I scratched your car, you’d kill me, I won’t forget that. That day you dropped your keys on the sidewalk while we were walking back to the house at Fairfax Village, I ran  back to get them for you, and you told me in that same teaching voice you used with me before when you said “little boys don’t say that”, you said, this time “stop running like a faggot”, I remember that too! That day I got suspended from school in the 7th grade for fighting, you took me back to your apartment and beat me for hours, trying once again to beat the “faggot” out of me, I haven’t forgotten!  That day in the 8th grade after you’d picked me up from school shortly after your son was born, you told me that I better not ever be a faggot, cause you aint no faggot, and my father damn sure wasn’t a faggot, I haven’t forgotten that either! The time, during my junior year of high school when you allowed my therapist to tell you that I needed Paxil for depression and anger management, and then bought it in bulk, I didn’t forget, but I damn sure flushed it all! I didn’t need medication to manage my anger, I needed you to love me. The time in the 6th grade when your husband punched me in my face, blacked my eye, and then threatened to kill me and my sister, I haven’t forgotten. And I’ll never, ever forget how my own uncle went over to talk to him about his attack on me. Huh??What the fuck was there to talk about? My father and even my mother, for that matter, would have killed him. But maybe my uncle and your husband just sat down, talked, and compared notes on beating my ass… huh? The many days I cried myself to sleep, the days I listened to music and sang loud enough to wake the dead because you’d hurt me again, the days I used to change my clothes in the hallway at Karate School so that the other kids wouldn’t see the bruises, and the day I finally showed you all that you couldn’t destroy me. I haven’t forgotten any of them, and I never will.

“I only give you a hard time, cause I can’t go on and pretend like, I haven’t tried to forget this, but I’m much too full of resentment.”

I pressed on through life, making my own way. With a hardened heart is how I dealt with everyone around me. It’s how I deal with people today. My heart has softened in some areas because on the surface I’d moved passed the details of my childhood under your “tutelage”, and the dynamics of some of our relationships have changed. But just as soon as I scratch away at the surface, it comes back, and all of it comes crashing down. I’m grown now! You people can’t do to me what you used to do. These days I don’t let you. I don’t let anyone! I can’t go on pretending like I’ve forgotten about all of it though. It’s just been eating away at me for so long. So now, you’ll have to face it, because I’m tired. I faced all of you, everyday from the time I was 7 years old. I faced the shame, the ridicule, the physical abuse, and more than anything I faced the fact that not one of you were in my corner. Everything someone else said about me, you took as fact. You never fought for me.

“I thought I could forgive you, and I know you’ve changed. As much as I wanna trust you, I know it aint the same.”

I really did think that I had forgiven this, and that I could move on without having to address it with everyone, but there’s no way I’m gonna keep hurting myself and my future by carrying it. We’re cool now; no beefs, no arguments, and we even talk all the time, but this was bound to come out one day. Who knew that it would take two years of these dreams about fighting and arguing with family for me to figure this out. IT WAS YOU! You’re the reason I’m angry. You’re the reason I’m bitter, and guarded. You’re the reason why I push people away. YOU! When you should have been caring for and nurturing me, you abused me. You tarnished my innocence. You beat me down over, and over again. You never protected me, and you knew all along what was being done, but stoic and unaffected, you let it happen to me. YOU! And you never, not one of you, ever apologized.

“I’ll always remember feeling like I was no good… I know you didn’t wanna hurt me, but look what you done-done to me now. “

When I started my first relationship, I remember him telling me, at sixteen, that I was too much to handle sometimes. My doing too much eventually pushed him away. Then came the next one, who dogged me. I guess it was easy because I was sixteen then too, and he was nine years my senior. When number 4 came along, I was still only eighteen, but he was the one who showed me a love that wasn’t easily broken. He was my protector, in a way that none of you ever protected me. He wasn’t comfortable with his sexuality, but he never shunned me. Even if every gesture I made, or word I spoke made him cringe, I never saw shame in his eyes. He protected my physical being, and more importantly, he protected my feelings. He never told me what to say or how to say it. But guess what…? I pushed him away too.  I felt like I was no good for this man who showed me love no matter what. I thought he was tired of me, and maybe he was. I knew I was tired of doing everything I could to push him away, so I finally just left him. You see? Look at what you’ve done to me now. I’ve spent the larger part of my adult life single. I never let anyone get too close because my expectations are too high. Since you never loved me the way you were supposed to, I look for it in people who can’t ever measure up, and they shouldn’t have to.

“I may never understand why…”

I may never understand why I’ve had to endure this, but at least now I know where it came from. At least now I can work on fixing what has been broken. For so long I’ve just been doing what had been done to me, but I can no longer continue to perpetuate that cycle. My greatest defense has been my offense. After years of having my family beat me down I turned it around, and I’m angry. I’m angry because I don’t know what to do with what you’ve forced me to become. I only know that I’m done carrying the anger that you gave me. I didn’t deserve it, and shame on you! But now, I know that I’m going to have to save myself from myself, so that I can heal.

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