First Sorrow
Thursday, August 8, 2013 at 1:04PM
They told you it’s horrid
They told you it’s wrong
That it’s as if being with livestock
Being with a child
A tiny child
Hoping like a willow
Planting
Maize
Switch!
Hit!
Slap!
You didn’t plant right
You’re not good enough
You ever do that again I’ll kill you
Worse!
A woman working
Young
Meets someone
Decides
To do something
A child
Fragile
Small at first
A confession made
To another
The words forsaken
The actions abjured
Told to purge
To cleanse
Like mercury from the brain
Like a tumor in the gut
No!
Why would you decamp?
From this child
Reject this child you have made
You made the choice
You took the actions
Were you raised to hate
Or did you pick it up along your travels
Of breaking your vows
Telling someone that the boy deserved it
To be beat him down
Tied to a fence
In the vastness of Wyoming
Left for dead
When you yourself are a minority
As much as you would love people to believe
That you are white
You are a husk
Of the maize you plant
As empty and astonishing as the Wyoming skyline
Filled with false ideas
From a book
Just a book
You call yourself a Catholic
But you cheat on your wife
You maim the mind of your son
Tampering with predispositions
As you shake and yell
Tell me
That I can’t be gay.
By Danny, age 17
