Tag: Hurt

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.

Friends and Kin


I guess no one can hurt you like true friends and kin. You know, those who, deep down in your heart,  can always be forgiven. The ones you love, even you when you’re mad or hurt.  The ones you care for even with their dirt.  All can't be close daily, but always know where they stand.  But those whose heart connects with yours know they're always your friend.  A friendship even in kinship remains the closer bond of the two.  Because a friendship is something you've chosen to grow into, and kinship is not a choice and very much something you simply do.

The raw emotions range from the bitter to the sweet, and the thicker to the thin. But knowing that your love for them and theirs for you helps to maintain your status as friends. Even when you're still hurting from something in the past,  a friendship with depth and one in truth will always and forever last. 

 

No Thanks Given


Not this year. Not to you. Not another year looking at your faces and seeing straight through you.

Not over dinner, not even a fat turkey. Not over drinks, and not even if you’re hurting.

Not because it may be the last, as it was 21 years in the past.

Nah, I aint doing it. Not with ya’ll ass.

Not if I’m off, because really I am. Not if you’re lost, because really you can’t.

And I can’t even look at you without being mad. I can’t even think of it without being sad. I can’t even trust you because of the past.

Not this year, not to you, not with this family. You can bet your ass!

This year, there’ll be No Thanksgiving, and No Thanks Given because I’m still bitter, and you’re not yet forgiven.

%d bloggers like this: