the first program i saw on my new
television was a
warning-sign, reality-check cold-water slap
on the coffee table.
It was a documentary about a troubled family--
the boy blamed his mother
his mother blamed the father
and the father, well the father
wasn't around to blame anyone,
except in bruises, cuts and most painful
silence. sometimes, wounds heal,
but leave scars like imprints of each word
spearing the skin in anger, and even
confrontational therapy does not help,
because you don't know hate until you
hate the people you love,
and you don't know love until you
love the people you hate and,
"boys dont cry.
boys aren't weak.
get up!"
Gangmates and gateway drugs unlatched
doors to him that
let him have the illusion of free
but in reality, when the covalent bonds of
self hatred and self destruction collide
with new-found hope in hopeless plants, hopeless
situations,
the result is deadlier, and more unforgiving than
your own father threatening to end you with a knife
three times in a row
"get up, boys dont cry!"
Sure, he was intoxicated but drunks words are sober
thoughts, they say, a waste of space, you are thrash;
i am thrash, the
boy scrawled in the sand, the same way
others draw hearts.
And he was angry, so angry. So guilty and full
of shame,
had a deep rooted sadness that
could be shovelled out from his chest like soil.
maybe we can never get rid of it completely
but we can change it, plant new seeds where old
weeds decomposed; they said the hardest part is
letting yourself be helped and be rerooted, they said the
hardest part is deciding what to plant, where to re-soil
yourself.
Because bad thoughts are like dominoes, kid,
one falls and the rest follow.
they are the pungent
smell of decaying words--"get up! boys aren't
weak!"
Thing is, he did get up:
he got up in the mornings when
the world screamed symphonies of loathing at him;
he got up when words whizzed past, merely inches
from hitting nerves;
he got up like there was fire at his heels;
he got up when he discovered boys cancry.
Sometimes, all you need is time,
too bad documentaries only last an
hour.
